“Which door,” she whispered. There were only two, one that said PH and the other with no marking at all. It wasn’t too late to leave. They could deliver the man to the police department like a foundling infant.

“Keys?” Jack said to Samuel Beckett.

The man said, “Oh I never.” He faced the unmarked door, either unlocking it with the power of his mind or trying to make the doorknob hold still in his drunken eyesight. Then he reached and turned it and the door swung open.

They stepped together into the hallway. In the dark, Jack inhaled, waiting for any one of the scents of sadness: human urine, animal urine, years of cigarette smoke, mildew, chronic and ashamed masturbation. But it smelled fine. Pleasant even, some old-fashioned pine cleaner at work.

Samuel Beckett—he wasn’t actually Beckettian, just possessed of a triangular head, which was also true of Jack himself—found the light switch, and revealed a small, tidy, beautifully furnished apartment. Snug, with a green chesterfield sofa, a brown leather chair. Sadie felt more drunkenly certain that they were trespassing. She examined the man for evidence, then the apartment itself. Did they belong to each other? No photographs but art, muddy etchings down the hallway, abstract alabaster sculptures on the end tables. She needed a glass of water.

“What now?” said Jack, and Samuel Beckett said, “Bed.”

“You need to go to the bog first,” said Jack.

“The what?”

“The toilet.”

“The restroom,” said Samuel Beckett. “Winston Churchill’s advice.”

“Don’t call me Winston Churchill,” said Jack. “Of all the Englishmen I might be mistaken for!”

“His advice,” said Samuel Beckett. “Never pass up the opportunity to use the loo.”

“Ah. You need help?”

Samuel Beckett shook his head. “In this field I got nothing but experience.”

The bathroom door closed and for a moment there was nothing to do. Bar the door, thought Jack. We live here now. But the girl looked nervous, and he understood it was his job to calm her.

“You’re all bundled up,” he said. He had taken off his black peacoat and hung it on a hook by the door. Now he came over and unzipped her down jacket, then thrust his left arm down her right sleeve so that both their arms lay along each other. He felt her wrist. She put her hand beneath his sweater, then beneath his T-shirt, and rested it on his bare boyish waist. They had not kissed. No matter what happened, this was a story, a good one. She was already working on how to tell it. Something thumped in the bathroom.

“Should we break down the door?” said Sadie.

“No!” shouted Samuel Beckett from the other side.