The Horses of the Night by Michael Cadnum

producers again. Besides, there was a crowd across the street, and the park was filled with a multicolored wash of onlookers. We were a subcontinent of famous faces surrounded by the more democratic sea.
    DeVere looked outward, at the crowd of citizens beyond the haze of drizzle. “Look at them all,” he said. “Like flies.”
    He stood beside me as though we were easy companions, and I could not blame him for thinking myself like him in some ways. In the face of an anonymous crowd, the two of us had something in common.
    â€œThe medical report is in. They leaked it to me,” said DeVere. “Suicide. The same as Peterson. You’ve done something very smart,” he added. “I’m going to figure out what it was.”
    Suddenly the crowd was a group of people who could eavesdrop, and I waited until the lion’s pride of famous entertainers had moved away just a bit, leaving only Nona and Fern close enough to overhear.
    DeVere sighed. “Sometimes I get sick of all of this,” said DeVere. “All these people, all these faces.”
    He turned to me, as though sharing a secret. “Most of these people are lucky they can swallow their own spit. People are so stupid.”
    There was a sadness in his voice, though. There was something about DeVere’s posture, the way he turned away into the rain, helped along by his own security people, that made me see him as a source of trouble. But as something else, too. He was a human being, and he had just attended a memorial service. Perhaps, in his own way, he was grieving.
    The hospital cafeteria had that agreeable, fake feeling of so many institutional places. There was plenty of artificial, unnourishing light.
    â€œHe calls you the Man Who Makes Horses,” said Nona. “The way he says it makes it sound like your formal name. A ritual name. More serious than your legal name.”
    â€œI’m sure a judge would allow me to adopt the name. I like the way it sounds. Stratton-Who-Makes-Horses.”
    The Medical Center food was good. The lasagna Nona favored was made with fresh mushrooms, and what tasted like fresh rosemary. And I had that peculiar, wonderful feeling of experiencing moderate sexual arousal in a public place.
    Nona seemed aware of this, meeting my eyes, giving me a knowing smile. “The children will be glad to see you,” she said. “They always ask when you are going to come see them again.”
    Nona gossiped about the other people carrying trays to distant corners of the room, and I was warmed inside by how happy she seemed to have me with her.
    Then, her voice dropped and she said, “I’m glad you’re not too upset about Blake.” She touched my hand, turned it over, and ran her finger along my lifeline.
    â€œI’m all right.” I found myself wanting to sound like Fern, laconic and sure of myself. I closed my hand around her finger, and kept it there for a moment.
    She smiled. She understood. She added, “And maybe you think you can woo me by acting tough. Men are supposed to be that way.”
    I answered her smile. “Not in my family. My father would recite The Tempest , tears on his cheeks.”
    â€œHe was an actor?”
    Our words were calm, but behind each syllable there was a current of understanding: We knew each other, and we wanted each other. “He was everything. My father had old money. Old railroad money, and before that old shipping money, and before that old tobacco and iron-smelting money. I imagine them financing cannons and Yankee clippers. The Fieldses invested, and their dollars flowered, for generations.” I spoke with a certain irony. “I was expected to do something aristocratic with my life.”
    â€œChildren like you. That’s important.”
    â€œBecause children are a good judge of character?”
    She laughed. “Children can be deceived. Just like us. But sometimes they can tell something about a person.