The reply was churned to froth in the reverend’s wake.

“Could you repeat that, please?” Fire asked.

“She was here a while ago, but she had to leave.”

“Can you do me a favor, darling? Can you tell her, please, that Fire called?” He plugged his ear with a finger. “Tell her that I’m at the Fulton Inn … well, if you won’t be seeing her then this is probably a waste of your time then … aah, if you happen to hear from her, just tell her that Fire called and that I’ll probably be leaving here in another coupla minutes—What time is it now? Four and mash. I’m late—and … that I’ll call her.”

He stopped dancing and leaned into the phone. “Are you there?”

Her voice was fainter now … even more distant. “Yes … you should try her at the gallery. I think …”

“I’m sorry … I missed—”

“I think she’s at the gallery. Call her there.” Her voice was sharp.

“Okay, I’ll do that … and you feel better.”

“What do you mean?”

“You sound kinda hoarse, like you getting a cold.” He lay on the bed and muffled one ear with a pillow. “You know what’s good for that? Lime juice with honey. If you don’t like honey use some brown sugar.”

“Thanks … thank you … that was really nice of you.”

“You’re welcome … and remember, if you hear from Claire, ask her to call me … please. And if you don’t have a lime—you just need one, y’know—is awright to use a lemon. Awright?”

“Okay … bye.”

He called Claire and she told him not to leave, that she was coming over. And suddenly the room felt empty, and he began to wonder how long it would take her to arrive.

Was it Claire? he wondered as he lay in bed. They’d been lovers for a short while, years ago. Was he still attracted? He didn’t think so. But he wasn’t sure. Blanche would’ve said yes, though. According to her he was weak for “the dark ones.” Which was true. His mother was dark and mellow like Guinness.

The feeling didn’t go away when Claire arrived, which made him realize that what he was calling emptiness was a part of him and not the room, because it clung to him like the smell of sweat as he rode on the back of Claire’s Kawasaki, his arms around her waist, his crotch up on her battyridered ass. Flatbush Avenue, a broad street, was clogged with shops and traffic—lumbering buses, sharkish livery cabs, and an assortment of coupes, sedans, and four-by-fours displaced by the cabs and buses into each other’s way—a clash of greedy metal through which Claire flew like a vulture into the stench of death.

Using the same instinct that allows one to understand the sentiment of a foreign language, Fire began to intuit that his feelings of loneliness were related somehow to that voice on the phone—to the texture more than the text, to the mood. Who was she, that woman whom he could hardly hear, but whom he was feeling now, her words coming soft against his ear? He was still thinking about her as Claire picked her way through a quiet neighborhood of narrow, shaded streets lined with brownstones and carriage houses. She stopped in front of a house, said something that didn’t come through his helmet, ran up the steps and rang the bell, and Sylvia came out to greet her.