“But that’s just one possibility. Like, we know a little bit about what he was working on what with our joint project, but what if he had been doing more than that? Maybe he wrote somebody an email with something in it, something that would cause somebody or some group to . . . terminate him.”

Instead of responding Kierk takes a long drink of water.

“Come on, it’s not so far out there.”

“It’s pretty far out there. Okay.” Kierk keeps rubbing at the chisel in his head. “And, well, to be honest, I don’t trust it because it’s a view that relieves responsibility. We got him drunk, okay? We took shots and drank all night and he walked home and got hit by the goddamn subway train. Like being hit by lightning. Totally random but possible. But if someone murdered him it’s not our fault, you see. Because you pleaded with the taxi driver, right, but we couldn’t fit any more and we let him walk home and he died. It’s Nagel’s moral luck. But we still feel guilty. And it sucks. But honestly, I didn’t even know the guy. Not really. Someone who could have been maybe a friend, a coauthor, he’s dead. I don’t know what to say. The universe is purposeless.”

Carmen stares out the window for a moment, silent, but her mouth is working and she’s shaking her head slightly.

“Listen, I didn’t mean to imply you are, you know, making this up.”

“Fine, fine, you believe whatever you want, okay?” Carmen begins getting her things together.

“Oh come on, I’m just trying to prevent—”

“Listen it’s okay, I just need some space right now, okay?”

“Okay. Hey. I’m sorry.”

“Okay. Bye.”

“Bye.”

He watches Carmen leave, her water bottle clanking. Kierk’s sandwich glares up at him accusingly, demanding an explanation for its own obscenities of meat. He can’t eat it. He feels he might never eat anything again. Perversely, at the same time he feels the need to move, to exercise, to run himself down.

Wrapping up the sandwich in a napkin he exits the deli. It’s not long before he finds a homeless woman propped against a wall reading a mystery novel to give it to. As he walks away he begins to speed up, first walking quickly around other pedestrians but soon he’s jogging, lightly at first, and then running, then sprinting, all the way back to his apartment building, racing up the stairs and throwing open his door and scrounging around for his running shoes and exercise shorts, breathing heavily.