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“You wanna come have breakfast with me in the commissary?” she asked.

“Sure.”

11.

Roger Ferris joined me and my grandmother for breakfast. He was a year or two younger than she, and six feet even at that great age. He was lanky and crowned with a mane of silver hair, a reminder, no doubt, of his nearly limitless wealth.

Grandma Brenda seemed to enjoy his company. I guess the breakfast table was exempt from date status.

Roger was a gun enthusiast and a pacifist too.

“Any person who learns a deadly art,” he told me over chicken sausage and egg-white herbal omelets, “whether it be competitive boxing or sharpshooting, must be held to a higher standard. I mean, a man with a semiautomatic can kill a dozen people faster than he can utter their names. That’s a crime against God.”

“That’s why it’s so hard being a cop,” I said with a nod and a sip of decaffeinated coffee.

“How do you mean?” the man worth eight hundred seventy-nine billion dollars asked.

“There you are,” I said, “out on the street with your piece and people who might be armed. They’re afraid of you, mad at you, wantin’ revenge for something one of your other brothers in blue might have done. But still you got to keep your pistola holstered because you have the power and the responsibility.”

Roger smiled at me and nodded. I could see that guns for him were a symbol for the power of his wealth, and for that brief moment he saw us, even if not exactly as equals, somehow as the same.

“Your grandmother is a wonderful woman,” Roger said to me at the elevator door. He had wanted to walk me there, and my grandmother seemed to approve.

“Has been for a very long time.”

“She says that you had to quit being a cop because you got into some kind of trouble.”

“Trouble ambushed me with my pants down and my nose open.” I didn’t know why I was so candid with Ferris at that time. Now I understand that he radiated a kind of confidence and the feeling that he could be trusted.

“Brenda said as much,” he said, nodding. “She’s amazing. Very intuitive and completely free of guile or greed.”

“She says that you want to take her to a concert.”

“She told me, not unless I can get a better tan.”

“She wants to go, Mr. Ferris. You keep up the pressure and she will, sooner or later.”

Ferris smiled and gave me a clear view of his pale blue eyes. They were sad eyes. I imagined that soon he and my grandmother would be sitting side by side at some fancy concert.

“When you went to the can, your grandmother told me that you might have some trouble coming up.”

“You know grandmothers,” I said. “Sometimes they get overprotective.”

“Well,” the billionaire replied, placing a hand on my shoulder. “If she’s right, you just give me a call. You’ll find that there’s not much in this world that scares me”

He handed me a business card and gave me a nod.

Late November still had its warm days that year. I stood out on the street composing five e-mails on my smartphone. I’m a little obsessive about electronic communication. I reread each communiqué at least three times and then put each one through a spell-check. After finishing I went to the C train, riding it downtown back to Brooklyn Heights.

I dabbled around on the Internet for a while looking for keywords that included Adamo Cortez, arrest, police officer, and testimony.

It was 10:07 when I finally dialed the number.

“Hello,” a man said.

“Mr. Summers?” I asked.

“Yes.”