I showered; changed into a dress shirt and pants, newish Chuck Taylors, and a heavy leather jacket. The revolver went into the room safe. I clipped the jawbone knife to my belt and the jacket disguised its presence. Then I went downstairs and strolled around the neighborhood to stretch my legs and settle my mind after the drive. I was borderline underdressed for the weather, so I moved briskly.

Deep twilight tinted the sky. The wind tasted of dead grass and moss, mingled with hints of snow and the tang of creosote and exhaust. Car horns blatted south where lights clustered, marking tenements and deserted industrial towers. We used to switch off, back in the dark ages of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. NYC is notable because it has never slept and the world once thought its inhabitants mad. Even as late as the 1970s, come sundown, suburbia was a wilderness illuminated by a nightlight across most of the U.S.

What attractions drew people here other than business? The National Soaring Museum, Woodlawn National Cemetery, and the Corning Museum of Glass were draws. Elmira and Big Flats hosted various industries. Agriculture, of course. Otherwise? Difficult to reconcile the attraction, although I felt a certain ineffable quality of atmosphere, an electromagnetic current that might hypnotize a vulnerable mind.

My interview with Sean Pruitt’s mother was scheduled for tomorrow. I’d arrived early to soak in the atmosphere and to permit my subconscious a jump on the problem. Whatever might be unfolding needed a chance to begin and I thought it prudent to brace for contact. Perhaps a strange concept, considering that Sean Pruitt was in the ground going on four years. The hairs on my neck said, yes, oh yes; be it suicide or foul play, gears were in motion. The Observer Effect might have awakened a dreaming beast. I didn’t require a fortune-teller to clue me in to the presence of dark forces. Those sonsofbitches are always lurking.

■■■

Dinner at a solid Italian restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel improved my disposition. Probably because the angel on my left shoulder won the argument about saying to hell with my theoretical diet or budget. I called Meg and chatted with her for a few minutes while waiting for the check.

Meg told me about her day. She’d run into an acquaintance and didn’t duck for cover before it was too late.

“It was bizarre. Chick wore pajamas at the grocery store. Used to be the fashion, maybe it’s back. Her voice, though. Says to me in a little girl’s affect, I bwoke a wibby-wib, and she did the cry-eye with her fist. Grown woman in a blouse and pajamas on line at ShopRite. We haven’t spoken since senior year in high school.”

“Didn’t duck in time?” I said. “You gotta hone those catlike reflexes.” Meg didn’t need to hone a damned thing—she’d practiced gymnastics and dance since her youth. I’d seen her press into a handstand from a seated position. She could kick over her head without stretching first.