Which was, as it turned out, the single most accurate sentence anybody said that morning, and which I did not understand for about six weeks.

“What is happening?” I said.

“Is my son in trouble?”

And Nathan Lin looked at Julian, who was standing beside me with his hands in the pockets of the trousers I had handed him, and he said: “Son, did you take a PlayStation into the place on Fifth Street on Monday?”

And my son said, “Yes, sir.”

And Nathan Lin closed his eyes for a second.

Part Twenty-Two: Nathan Lin