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friends.
    “Well,” explains Maslow, “God sees into this room today, and I would have to answer to Him if I turned away a young man in need, perhaps in danger, a young man determined to change—and help us. Which reminds me. One thing we ask. And that is the truth. No reconciliation, no progress, can happen without it. This is something I learned from Nelson Mandela, from the Truth and Reconciliation Program. Bonnie, do we have that film on tape? I think our friend should see it. It’s very moving, what they’ve done in South Africa. They believe that healing cannot happen without total honesty and full disclosure. As do we. Which is why we’re asking you to be completely forthcoming. We’ll need to know who you are, and what you’ve done, and what you believe.”
    Nolan nods his wild approval. How cool is that— dropping Nelson Mandela’s name? “Sure, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. My life is an open book.”
    “Think of that as our contract,” Maslow says.
    “Agreed,” Nolan says. “Sir.” And now Maslow smiles.
    “Let’s find you an empty office, and you can relax until we figure out the next step. Would that be all right?”
    “That would be fine.” Standing, Nolan starts sweating again, so the hand he gives Maslow to shake is a slippery mess. Maslow doesn’t seem to mind.
    “So if we are to be colleagues,” he says, “do you think that I could make a slightly…unusual request?”
    What does he mean by unusual? Nolan’s staying in to find out.
    “Be my guest,” says Nolan.
    “Would you mind pushing up your sleeves?”
    “Sure.” Nolan pushes his sleeves to the elbow, high enough for Maslow and Bonnie to get a good look at the Waffen-SS bolts and the death’s-head. Neither shows the slightest emotion. They could be doctors trained to examine disgusting eruptions.
    “Thank you, Vincent,” says Maslow.
    And then Maslow rolls up his sleeve, unbuttoning a pearly button and neatly turning his elegant cuff. And there on Maslow’s spindly arm is the row of blue numbers. Nolan should have predicted this, but he’s shocked, nonetheless. He’s never seen anything like it. He always knew Raymond was wrong about the Jews tattooing themselves. The Holo-hoax, Raymond calls it. Maslow’s quite a guy. You’ve got to give him credit for having the balls to go mano a mano in this weird game of dueling tattoos. Damn, Nolan’s glad he got the tats. They’re getting him into the action. At the same time he’s glad he never went for that Holo-hoax crap. If he had, the old man’s tattoos would be making him feel bad about himself instead of about his fellow humans.
    Maslow says, “Did you know that you can tell from the number when one arrived at Auschwitz?”
    When one arrived at Auschwitz? One what? Shame washes over Nolan, an oily wave of self-loathing. The guy survived the death camps, and Nolan’s annoyed by how he talks? English isn’t his language. He hardly has an accent. How would Nolan stack up if they were doing this in Hungarian?
    Nolan says, “I didn’t know that.”
    “And you could tell where someone came from. The Italians had the lowest numbers. Read Primo Levi. I can’t remember my phone number, but I remember the one on my arm.”
    Nolan can’t remember the last time he had his own phone number. But no matter what’s happened to Nolan, Auschwitz beats it cold. So far. Unless Raymond and his buddies hunt him down and kill him. Not that they’d mean to kill him. They’d just try to scare him. Things get out of hand. Even then his death would be only one death, compared to millions of deaths. But the bottom line would be that Nolan would be dead, and Maslow would be alive. So then who would have it worse?
    “A living dog is better than a dead lion,” Nolan says.
    “Ecclesiastes,” says Meyer.
    “My favorite quote from the Bible,” says Nolan. “Anyway that’s what tattoos do. I mean, they mark time. I remember when I got these, I—”
    Maslow’s face