I gave her my name and my phone number at the hotel. She asked what my call was in reference to. I told her it was personal.

When I hung up the phone I felt shaky, maybe from all the coffee I’d been sipping all day. I wanted a drink. I thought about going across the street to Polly’s Cage for a quick one, or hitting the liquor store two doors down from Polly’s and picking up a pint of bourbon. I could envision the booze, Jim Beam or J. W. Dant, some no-nonsense brown whiskey in a flat pint bottle.

I thought, C’mon, it’s raining out there, you don’t want to go out in the rain. I left the phone booth and turned toward the elevator instead of the front door and went up to my room. I locked myself in and pulled the chair over to the window and watched the rain. The urge to drink went away after a few minutes. Then it came back and then it went away again. It came and went for the next hour, winking on and off like a neon sign. I stayed where I was and watched the rain.

Around seven I picked up the phone in my room and called Elaine Mardell. Her machine answered, and when the beep sounded I said, “This is Matt. I saw your friend and I wanted to thank you for the referral. Maybe one of these days I can return the favor.” I hung up and waited another half hour. Chance didn’t return my call.

I wasn’t especially hungry but I made myself go downstairs for something to eat. It had quit raining. I went over to the Blue Jay and ordered a hamburger and fries. A guy two tables over was having a beer with his sandwich and I decided to order one when the waiter brought my burger, but by the time that happened I’d changed my mind. I ate most of the hamburger and about half of the fries and drank two cups of coffee, then ordered cherry pie for dessert and ate most of it.

It was almost eight-thirty when I left there. I stopped at my hotel—no messages—and then walked the rest of the way to Ninth Avenue. There used to be a Greek bar on the corner, Antares and Spiro’s, but it’s a fruit and vegetable market now. I turned uptown and walked past Armstrong’s and across Fifty-eighth Street, and when the light changed I crossed the avenue and walked on up past the hospital to St. Paul’s. I walked around the side and down a narrow flight of stairs to the basement. A cardboard sign hung from the doorknob, but you’d have to be looking for it to see it.

A.A., it said.