endurance. Everyone was supposed to embrace Islam. A hundred years
ago they sold the southerners as slaves; now they try to enslave us
with religion.”
Her hands tightened. The rest of her remained unchanged.
“Was Dr. Ashmore doing research in the Sudan?”
She nodded. “With the U.N. Studying disease patterns-that’s why Mr.
Huenengarth felt the donation to UNICEF would be an appropriate
tribute.”
“Disease patterns,” I said. “Epidemiology?”
She nodded. “His training was in toxicology and environmental
medicine, but he did that only briefly. Mathematics was his true love,
and with epidemiology he could combine mathematics with medicine.
In the Sudan he studied the pace of bacterial contagion from village to
village. My father admired his work and assigned me to help him take
blood from the children-I’d just finished my nursing degree in Nairobi
and had returned home.” She smiled. “I became the needle lady-larry
didn’t like hurting the children. We became friends.
Then the Muslims came. My father was killed-my entire family. .
Larry took me with him on the U.N. plane, to NewYorkCity.”
She recounted the tragedy matter-of-factly, as if numbed by repeated
insults. I wondered if exposure to suffering would help her deal with
her husband’s murder when the pain hit full force, or would make
matters worse.
She said, “The children of my village . . . were slaughtered when the
northerners came. TheU.N. did nothing, and Larry became angry and
disillusioned with them. When we got to New York he wrote letters and
tried to talk to bureaucrats. When they wouldn’t receive him, his
anger grew and he turned inward. That’s when the buying started.”
“To deal with his anger?”
Hard nod. Art became a kind of refuge for him, Dr. Delaware.
He called it the highest place man could go. He would buy a new piece,
hang it, stare at it for hours, and talk about the need to surround
ourselves with things that couldn’t hurt us.”
She looked around the room and shook her head.
bored. Began buying and selling real estate. . . He was so good at
It. . . . I don’t know what to do with all this.”
“Do you have any family here?”
She shook her head and clasped her hands. “Not here or anywhere. And
larry’s parents are gone too. It’s so. . . ironic. When the
northerners came, shooting women and children, larry looked at “Now I’m
left with all of it, and most of it doesn’t mean much to me.” She
shook her head again. “Pictures and the memory of his anger-he was an
angry man. He even earned his money angrily.”
She saw my puzzled look. “Please excuse me-I’m drifting.
What I’m referring to is the way he started. Playing blackjack,
craps-other games of chance. Though I guess playing isn’t the right
word. There was nothing playful about it-when he gambled he was in his
own world, didn’t stop to eat or sleep.”
“Where did he gamble?”
“Everywhere. Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno, Lake Tahoe. The money he
made there he invested in other schemes-the stock market, bonds.” She
waved an arm around the room.
“Did he win most of the time?”
“Nearly always.”
“Did he have some kind of system?”
“He had many. Created them with his computers. He was a mathematical
genius, Dr. Delaware. His systems required an extraordinary memory.
He could add columns of numbers in his head, like a human computer. My
father thought he was magical. When we took blood from the children, I
had him do numbers tricks for them. They watched and were amazed, and
didn’t feel the sting.
She smiled and covered her mouth.
“He thought he could go on forever,” she said, looking up, “making a
profit at the casinos’ expense. But they caught on and told him to
leave. This was in Las Vegas. He flew to Reno but the casino there
knew also. Larry was furious. A few months later he returned to the
first casino in different clothing and an old man’s beard. Played for
higher stakes and won even more.
She stayed with that memory for a while, smiling. Talking seemed to be
doing her good. That helped me rationalize my presence.