“Then it’s probably a stretch to expect enhanced security. But he should know every time there’s construction like this, you get a little crime wave in the building.”

“Still, we encourage renovations,” said the other. “Quality-of-life measures—a nice new facade brings crime down, long-term.”

The cops agreed with each other: “Long-term, crime is going down all over the place.”

“Local crime.”

“Terrorism’s a whole other thing.”

“That’s way up.”

“You don’t know the half, Whitney, and you don’t want to know.”

It was only when they’d dusted for fingerprints and left, and I lay down on my couch, facing the TV, that I came to think the ghost might’ve been in the apartment before I’d even come home. I don’t know where he would’ve hidden, in the closet maybe, peering through the slats, but I knew he’d observed me as I’d watched Ray’s experiments and paced around, horrified, and he must’ve grasped the importance of what I was watching, what I was thinking. I understood all this because my eyes fell to the floor and I saw he’d taken the tapes.

THE SKULL

1.

“I think that’s everything.”

The girl from Vice closes The Complete Bystander. As soon as she stops recording, she becomes relaxed, as if we’re friends. She has to rush back to Brooklyn and change before heading for drinks with her boss, she says—holding on to this job is exhausting. Do I have plans for tonight?

When I say no, she starts asking for my opinion on various TV shows. I tell her I haven’t seen any of those.

“How do you spend your free time?”

“I read. Sometimes I watch sports.”

She slings her bag over a shoulder, waiting for some elaboration. When it doesn’t come, she says, “I’ll send you a link when the story’s up. It shouldn’t take more than a couple weeks.”

“Will I get a call from fact-check?”

“Probably not.”

I offer my hand and thank her for the interview. “It’s very gratifying to know someone is still so passionate about the Bystander.”

“You know,” she says, lingering just inside my office door, “I can’t help but feel like I haven’t gotten everything. You promise you’re not working on a memoir or something?”

“Who would read something like that?”

“I would.”

“I assure you, I’m not.”

She shakes her head and says, “It’s hard to believe you’d just walk away like that.”

“Why?”

“Someone of your talent. It just seems like a waste.” When I don’t immediately reply, she adds, “Sorry, but it does.”

“I remember feeling like you,” I say. “I couldn’t understand anyone who didn’t think writing for magazines was the most important thing in the world.”

“Exactly,” she says, excited, as if I’m leading her toward some key revelation.

“That feeling goes away.”

—