Free The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian Page A

money—and more bad luck, it seems—than anyone you could ever meet. What made you think of him?”
    In the background, Laurel heard the strings that announced the beginning of the overture to
The King and I.
Martin had just slipped the disc into the CD player, and in her mind she saw him climbing into the regal Siamese vest and silk trousers his mother had sewn for him.
    “He died as a teenager?” she asked her aunt, a little stunned. She picked up the photo of the two children. The boy was wearing plaid shorts with suspenders. The girl was in a summer party dress with a scooped neck and poufed ballroom sleeves.
    “I’m quite sure he did. Why does that surprise you?”
    “That homeless man I told you about. That very old homeless man. Bobbie Crocker. I was thinking—I guess I am thinking—that he was really a Buchanan.”
    “Bobbie might have been the boy’s name. But it might also have been William. Billy, perhaps. Yes, Billy rings a bell. But so does Robert. Of course, none of it matters because that boy was killed in some accident when he was sixteen or seventeen years old.”
    “The man I’m talking about spent a couple of weeks in the shelter before we found him an apartment,” Laurel continued. “But he hung around the offices and the day station a lot. He died the other day with absolutely no family that we know of, but the social worker who went through his possessions came across that envelope with the old snapshots. And there are some of the Marshfield mansion—the place where Tom and Daisy Buchanan had lived—and one of a little girl and a little boy with the old house in the background. They’re standing beside a car from the 1920s.”
    “You’re sure it’s the same house?”
    “Yes, absolutely! And there’s another one of Jay Gatsby’s place—the country club—and the man himself with that sports car of his.”
    “Well, I still don’t see why you would jump to the conclusion that this homeless man was a Buchanan. The son died. It’s common knowledge that Tom and Daisy’s son died. And you said this fellow’s name was Campbell, didn’t you?”
    “Crocker,” Laurel corrected her.
    “I think that effectively closes the case. Why would he be calling himself Crocker if his last name was Buchanan?”
    She sat back in her chair and took a deep breath to calm herself. She could see her aunt’s nose and lips scrunching together the way they did whenever the woman was discussing something she considered unpleasant. Laurel’s mother had the same tendency. They both looked like they were eating lemons, and it was an extremely unattractive family tic.
    “Maybe it closes the case. But maybe it doesn’t,” she said. “Why do you think he had all these pictures?” Laurel knew that she sounded argumentative. But she kept thinking about what Bobbie had said about his childhood. She feared for a moment that she was bunching up her face, too.
    “Oh, Laurel, please don’t be disappointed with me.”
    “I’m not.”
    “You are, I can hear it in your voice. You’re angry because I don’t share your belief that this homeless man—”
    “He wasn’t homeless. We found him a home. It’s what we do.”
    “All right, then: formerly homeless. You’re angry because I have my doubts. Maybe the children in that picture really are Pamela and Billy—or Bobbie. Whatever. But how do you know that this person didn’t come across the pictures in a Dumpster somewhere? Or some antique store? Maybe he found a photo album in the garbage and saved a few of the images. As you’ve told me yourself, the homeless—excuse me, formerly homeless—sometimes save the damnedest things.”
    She stared for a moment at the little boy, trying to find a resemblance to Bobbie Crocker. A glimmer in the eyes, maybe. The shape of his face. But she couldn’t. It wasn’t that there might not have been a resemblance. But it was hard to discern one because so much of Bobbie’s face was obscured by that impenetrable