The kids were less impacted by this than the average because, despite their family tragedy, their mother was remarkably good at juggling the modern-da...y responsibilities of a working mother and still finding the time to spend nurturing them in countless minor but critical ways. Nice. Mom was doing so well that the "post-trauma" coefficient had been dropped to 1.002 on their gift allocation-- barely above "untraumatized" on the scale. Nicholas admired that kind of self-sufficiency, and made sure. Perhaps they, likeher, were reassured by the fact that the odds were greatly in their favor.Or maybe, like her, they found themselves strangely excited by the risk, whateverthe outcome. Was that why Ming hadn't put up more resistance? Did she get as much a rushout of the possibility of losing as the hope of winning? Was she that crazy? At the beginning, of course, it seemed relatively innocuous. A harmless agreementto an enigmatic invitation backed by a thrilling promise. She remembered. On a personal matter.”I laughed, “Are you kidding me? Red and Blondie. What are we, in the comics?”Red was silent.“Sorry, PI humor. Of course she can call me, Red. Anytime.”Blondie wouldn’t go into details on the phone. She came to my office. So it was serious. Whatever it was, I would try to help. Red had given me my first ever insurance case. And continues to feed me steady work.Of course I perform well for AAA and the other insurance companies, otherwise those assignments would have dried up. Surely the word would have spread around campus if she had. Maybe she’d insist on my secrecy as part of the deal for my incomplete. “All right, come over here, take off your coat; then drop your pants but not your underwear. If you don’t want to do it, you can get out of here right now.” I briefly looked out the window at the tops of the bare trees of St. Nicholas Park and the blocks of old buildings down the hill. I bet those people down there in Harlem couldn’t imagine the weirdness that goes.