That was close enough for me to let it pass. A stray bullet of mine had killed a young girl named Estrellita Rivera, but I don’t know that it was guilt over the incident that propelled me out of the police department. What it had done, really, was change the way the world looked to me, so that being a cop was no longer something I wanted to do. Neither was being a husband and a father and living on Long Island, and in due course I was out of work and out of the marriage and living on Fifty-seventh Street and putting in the hours at Armstrong’s. The shooting unquestionably set those currents in motion, but I think I was pointed in those directions anyway and would have gotten there sooner or later.

“Now you’re a sort of half-assed detective,” he went on “She hire you?”

“More or less.”

“What’s that mean?” He didn’t wait for clarification. “Nothing against you, but she wasted her money. Or my money, according to how you look at it. If she wants to end our arrangement all she has to do is tell me so. She doesn’t need anyone to do her talking for her. What’s she plan to do? I hope she’s not going back home.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I suspect she’ll stay in New York. But will she stay in the life? I’m afraid it’s the only trade she knows. What else will she do? And where will she live? I provide their apartments, you know, and pay their rent and pick out their clothes. Well, I don’t suppose anyone asked Ibsen where Nora would find an apartment. I believe this is where you live, if I’m not mistaken.”

I looked out the window. We were in front of my hotel. I hadn’t been paying attention.

“I assume you’ll be in touch with Kim,” he said. “If you want, you can tell her you intimidated me and sent me slinking off into the night.”

“Why would I do that?”

“So she’ll think she got her money’s worth from you.”

“She got her money’s worth,” I said, “and I don’t care whether she knows it or not. All I’ll tell her is what you’ve told me.”

“Really? While you’re at it, you can let her know that I’ll be coming to see her. Just to satisfy myself that all of this is really her idea.”

“I’ll mention it.”