I read for about an hour, and then I put the book down and kind of meditated, mulling things over, trying to make sense of it—Lisa, the pretty girl in the picture with the dark hair and beautiful mouth; Vincent’s empty apartment with the dog shit and the left-behind cell phone and the open window and the unlocked door; and this card from “G” with tomorrow’s date written on it. In the midst of all this cogitating, my parents called. My mother had taken a t’ai chi class for seniors at the Y and my father’s ring finger had bent in and he couldn’t straighten it out.

We eventually rang off, and I thought some more about my “case.” I didn’t know what to make of anything, but in my own sick way I was having a good time. Then around eleven p.m., after sitting there for nearly two hours, I really had to go to the bathroom. I wasn’t sure what to do about this. I couldn’t recall Marlowe or Hammett’s detective, the Continental Op, having to give up a stakeout position because of the toilet. What if during the time I was in the bathroom, I missed the two I was looking for? That would be bad luck, and from playing backgammon, I know that you get a lot of bad luck when you play a game. Mostly I had been rolling good—Ettin being listed and the door not being locked at his apartment, the bartender having caller ID and being willing to feed me plenty of information. So it was all the more reason why something should go against me.

I went back to the Indian behind the glass. I asked him if there was a toilet on the ground floor that I could use.

“No,” he said. “You have a toilet in your room.”

“All right, listen,” I said, and I took the picture back out and again pressed it to the glass, “if these two come out while I’m in the bathroom, tell them there’s someone here that needs to see them. Stall them for me.”

“Fuck you,” he said, but it wasn’t a “fuck you” with malice. It was primarily a simple statement of refusal. It was vulgar, but there was room for negotiation.

I took twenty dollars out of my wallet and slid it through the movie-ticket opening at the bottom of the glass. He took the money and didn’t say anything, but I thought he would do what I had asked.

I walked quickly over to the elevator, waited a good long time for it—and I really needed to piss—and then I rode the thing at a glacial speed up to my room on the fifth floor. The room was clean enough, cigarette burns on most every surface, but the bed was made and there was one towel in the bathroom. I took a piss and felt profound relief. Sometimes a good piss is incredible.