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I progressed from embarrassment to mortification. “I’m sorry. I really am. It’s just that … I don’t know. It’s all so weird, so big and so weird, and I’m just a kid no matter what I tell myself about being the man of the house. I’m just a kid.”

Mr. Yoshioka’s eyes twinkled, like you read about the eyes of good and magical creatures twinkling in fairy tales. “Yes, you are still a child. That is why I have, as I have heard it said, ‘cut you some slack.’ Now you will tell me the rest of everything?”

“I had another dream. This was even before the one about Fiona Cassidy dead.”

I told him about Lucas Drackman, seeing him with his murdered parents in a dream, and then seeing him with my father earlier this same morning.

Mr. Yoshioka listened attentively, and when I finished, he sat with his eyes closed, which by now I knew meant that he was puzzling through the ramifications of what I’d told him. When his silence made me nervous and I started to speak, he anticipated that I had nothing more to say that wasn’t babble, and he put one forefinger to his lips to suggest the wisdom of silence.

When he opened his eyes, he said, “You dreamed of Lucas Drackman—and now Lucas Drackman knows your father. Therefore, it is logical to assume that, because you also dreamed of Fiona Cassidy, she might also know your father or will come to know him in the near future.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, but if—”

Forefinger to lips again. “It is likewise logical to suppose that if both Lucas Drackman and Fiona Cassidy know your father, they might know each other.”

I nodded, although until he put it into words, I hadn’t reached that conclusion.

“If you are correct that the police artist’s portrait of the bombing suspect in the newspaper is a badly rendered likeness of Lucas Drackman, one might conclude that he is destroying recruitment offices with explosives concocted by Eve Adams, aka Fiona Cassidy, when she was using odorous and volatile chemicals in Apartment Six-C.”

I said, “Holy mother of God,” and at once mentally accused myself of profanity and made the sign of the cross and said, “But that would mean, could mean, might mean that my father, Tilton …”

Mr. Yoshioka finished the thought that I couldn’t quite speak aloud. “Your father might know Lucas Drackman in some other context than bombing recruitment offices, but the possibility is real that the three of them are part of a conspiracy—the Bilderbergers written small.”

40

At the desks behind the counter at the farther end of the room, the four women remained busy and, as far as I could tell, were not curious about my visit with Mr. Yoshioka.

We had been talking softly, but now I whispered. “Is Tilton a mad bomber?”

“As I said, he may know Lucas Drackman in another context and have no idea that the man is a criminal. And if your father is indeed involved in a conspiracy, he is not necessarily mad—if I am correct that by mad you mean insane.”

“I guess I didn’t. Tilton’s not insane. He’s … troubled. We’ve got to tell the police.”

Judging by his expression—a compression of his lips and sudden little crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes—Mr. Yoshioka was no more enthusiastic about going to the authorities than he had been when he had installed security chains to keep Fiona Cassidy out of our apartments. “We cannot tell the police merely that your father is ‘troubled.’ Of crimes, we have no evidence, Jonah Kirk. You saw your father with someone you think might be the bombing suspect. That is even less than hearsay and of no interest to the police.”

“But for sure this Drackman guy killed his parents. Shot them in bed while they were sleeping. He’s already wanted.”

“For sure? How do you know?”

“Well, good grief, I saw it in the dream. Oh, okay. I guess … not evidence. So what can we do?”

He tugged on one cuff of his white shirt and then on the other, so that a precise half inch was displayed beyond his coat sleeves. He brushed a few all-but-invisible specks of lint off his pants. He adjusted his necktie.

“If perhaps we were to telephone an anonymous tip to the police, regarding your father, what address would we give them?”

“Since Mom threw him out, we don’t know where he lives.”

“A telephone number?”

“We don’t have one for him.”

“Where does he work?”

“As far as we know, he doesn’t. He’s not big on work. All we have is the name of some lawyer that handled the divorce for him.”

“That does not help us. The lawyer-client privilege will keep him silent.”

“So what can we do?” I asked again. “What about an anonymous tip to the cops about Drackman?”