Summary

In the epilogue, the author jumps forward to 1980, and spends a short chapter on each character. First, we learn from Cliff that his marriage to Eden was annulled, his new wife is named Carolyn, and with Rusty as his agent, he had successfully published his plagiarized novel at another publishing house. Now dying from liver disease, Cliff asks Rusty to meet him one last time at the hospital. He also mails Eden an envelope. He confronts Rusty after all these years with a question: “Why did you do it?”, pointing to an article about a young man under investigation with the State Department who had committed suicide in a New York City hotel (484). Rusty insists he did not do it. Cliff had always assumed it was Rusty who phoned in the tip about Joey and that it had been Miles who mailed the anonymous...