In the early days, Timur had treated him as a brother, helping him navigate rough-and-tumble Almaty with hard advice and sharp humor, supplying a little piece of family that Cono hadn’t known since childhood, rescuing his spirits and bringing him out of one of the deepest troughs of his aloneness. Cono suddenly felt embarrassed --- embarrassed by the thought that he might have been just another pitiful orphan trying to turn friends into family, and that he might still be blinded by his need, a need that colored his whole life, that ache to offer worth to someone. Wasn’t that the constant engine for his bizarre career, servicing the ambitions of the reputable and disreputable --- all the same to him as long as they acknowledged the necessity of having him and only him do the job?