transferred to New York, considered the elephant graveyard of an FBI career.

Probably the reason I saw him as much as I did as a kid was because of my cousin Sarah, his and Rose's only child. She was six years younger than me, a lot when you're kids, but we were very special to each other, had a kind of bonding that I've never really known with anybody since. We spent a lot of time staying at each other's house, me the almost-grown-up, and truthfully, I loved her helplessly, like a little sister. I always wanted to think she needed me, which can be the most affirming feeling in the world. I do know I needed her.

Probably the reason I saw him as much as I did as a kid was because of my cousin Sarah, his and Rose's only child. She was six years younger than me, a lot when you're kids, but we were very special to each other, had a kind of bonding that I've never really known with anybody since. We spent a lot of time staying at each other's house, me the almost-grown-up, and truthfully, I loved her helplessly, like a little sister. I always wanted to think she needed me, which can be the most affirming feeling in the world. I do know I needed her.

She was now lying in a coma, and the way she got there was the tragedy of my life, and Lou's. To begin with, though, let me say Sarah was a pretty blonde from the start, with sun­shiny hair that defined her as perpetually optimistic—and who wouldn't be, given the heads she always turned. (I was—am—blond too, though with eyes more gray than her tur­quoise blues, but for me blond's always been, on balance, an affliction: Sexist film producers assume, dammit, that you're a failed showgirl, or worse. I've actually dyed it brunette from time to time in hopes of being taken more seriously.) Sarah and I had always had our own special chemistry, like a com­posite of opposites to make a complete, whole human being. Whereas I was the rational, left-brained slave of the concrete, she was a right-brained dweller in a world of what-might-be. For years and years, she seemed to live in a dream universe of her own making, one of imagination and fanciful states.

She was now lying in a coma, and the way she got there was the tragedy of my life, and Lou's. To begin with, though, let me say Sarah was a pretty blonde from the start, with sun­shiny hair that defined her as perpetually optimistic—and who wouldn't be, given the heads she always turned. (I was—am—blond too, though with eyes more gray than her tur­quoise blues, but for me blond's always been, on balance, an affliction: Sexist film producers assume, dammit, that you're a failed showgirl, or 

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