Stay cool, I told myself. Stay cool. I undressed and took a shower. I dried off and got dressed in the same clothes I had been wearing, except for the tie. Putting on fresh clothes seemed like too much to ask of myself. I tried Rachel and her sister just to torture myself, got the usual results, and I even thought for a moment of calling Vincent’s number, and then I remembered that he was dead. I was already unraveled and it was getting worse.

I sat at my desk, staring at the computer, and I thought of calling the cops or going to the cops, my local precinct, but what would I say? I had posted a bogus ad, then given a false name to some undergrad from Temple University, run around the city, found a dead body, and made two anonymous calls to 911.

I filled my kettle to boil some water to make coffee in my French press. Marlowe was always making himself coffee. The thing to do was to stay calm and not overreact, that’s how Marlowe always handled himself. While the water did its thing, I started dialing 911 again, to get this over with, but then I couldn’t go through with it. I was too scared. I hung up the phone.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat back down at my desk, like it was any other day, and because I’m a sick person, I logged on to the backgammon site, thinking that a game might clear my head, and on the site the day was listed: April 20, 2007. I didn’t start playing. I remembered the card from G. I took it out of my wallet. I held it, and sipped my coffee.

There were two competing thoughts in my head: (1) go to the cops right now, and (2) call G. Calling G had the appeal of a first drink on a relapse. You know you’re going horribly against the grain, doing the wrong thing, what they call in the AA Big Book “a sickening rebellion,” but there’s some kind of mad force of nature that makes you do it, that demands that you do it. So before I could stop myself, in the grips of it, the impulse to self-destruct, to get deeper into this mess, I dialed *67 to block my number and then dialed the number on the card.

“Yeah.” It was a deep voice. I was going off the deep end, but for once at least I didn’t get somebody’s fucking voice mail and that was a relief.

“Is this G?” I asked.

“Who’s this?” There was some trace of a Spanish accent, but not much. “How’d you get my number?”

“I… I went to Lakes Bar, the bartender gave me your card. I’ve been looking for the girlfriend of Vincent Ettin. Lisa Weiss. Do you, by any chance, know where she is?”

“Where’s Vincent at? Who is this?”

“Do you think you can help me?”