“How do you know this?” she asked.

“I read it.”

She tried as I held the bag. “Still hurts.”

“It’s going to hurt. That’s just the beginning. The faster you turn your hips, the more power you will generate. But the real force comes from the delivery and the release.”

“I don’t get it.”

“When your fist hits the bag, let your body move through it. Then let everything go.”

“I don’t understand.”

“To tell the truth, neither do I. I try not to hit things.”

She hit the bag again. She shook her hand in pain.

“That’s why,” I said.

Father Karras came down in a fresh set of priest pants, frock, and collar. With him dressed so, with Eigen swimming in gray sweatpants cinched at the middle and rolled at the legs and hooded sweatshirt, and with me in my suit, we looked crazy.

“Where to?” I asked.

“The Kenyon Grill,” Karras said. “I’m hungry. I’m sure you two are as well.”

We walked to his car, a midseventies Chevy Malibu. The vinyl top had long baked off and left a shell of a roof that didn’t match the body. After three tries, it started with a cough and a bang.

“It’s the unleaded gas,” Karras said.

“Why the Kenyon Grill?” I asked.

“I like the food.”

The restaurant was near Howard University and it was crowded. Despite our appearance no one paid any attention to us. Until I noticed a woman cutting us glances from a booth by the door. I never saw more than a quarter of her profile, but she looked familiar. Finally, I asked Eigen to take a look at her.

“By the door, in the booth. Have you seen her before?”

“Who?” she asked.

“The woman over there.”

“There is no woman over there,” she said.

I looked again and the booth was empty.

The waitress, an older woman, came over, poised her pencil over her pad. “What in the h-e-l-l do you want? Is that a dog?”

“Yes,” I said. “My dog.”

“We don’t allow dogs in here.”

“He’s only got one leg,” I said.

“I don’t care if he’s got two d-i-c-k-s. No dogs.”

“Look at his fat face,” Eigen said.

The waitress did. Trigo gave up his fattest, big-eyed face.

“Okay, he’s cute. He can stay,” she said. “Again, what in the h-e-l-l do you want to eat?”

“I’ll have the f-u-c-k-i-n-g chili,” Karras said.

She looked to Eigen and me.

We agreed to chili, also.

“So, you like the food here,” I said.

Karras shrugged. “I like the ambience. Kitu, how many people have you told about this? That you were in the fucking observatory.”

“No one. Why?”

“Just wondering. What’s your goddamn plan?”

“I don’t have one. I came to you because you know your way around there. I imagine that if I can be there when Sill tries to harness nothing, my observational pressure will have negative and therefore positive effect.”

Karras nodded. “Then we’ll fucking get you in there.”