We did not run gracefully, of course; rather we staggered at great speed, down the main strip, almost toppling over, bursting through couples who strolled absently toward us, ricocheting off them. I remember humming a tune while I ran, a spy tune. We sped through the city like men on fire. People looked on as if they’d never seen running before. Maybe they hadn’t. Outside a cinema, businessmen and -women indistinguishable from each other stood their ground as we approached, as if that square meter of pavement had been handed down to them by their ancestors. We pushed them aside as we ran through. Some of them shouted. Maybe they’d never been touched before either.

The man in the red parka had feet like a gust of wind. He blew across a congested street, dodging the steady stream of traffic. I had taken only one step off the pavement when Dad’s hand grabbed my wrist and almost yanked it off.

“Together,” he said.

Beware the father and son in pursuit of the mysterious villain in the red parka. Beware the menacing duo who hold hands as they make chase. We turned a corner and came into an empty street. Our presence somehow deepened the emptiness of it. There was no one in sight. It felt as though we had stumbled upon a remote and forgotten part of the city. We took a moment to catch our breath. My heart pounded on my chest wall like a shoulder trying to break down a wooden door.

“In there,” Dad said.

Halfway down the street was a bar. We walked to the front. There was no sign on the window. Evidently the bar didn’t have a name. The windows were blacked out and you couldn’t see in. It was a place made dangerous by low lighting. You could tell from the outside. It was the kind of place where nefarious characters knife anyone who asks them for the time, where serial killers go to forget their troubles, where whores and drug dealers exchange phone numbers and sociopaths laugh at the times they’ve been confused with naturopaths.

“Do you want to wait outside?”

“I’m coming in.”

“Things might get ugly.”

“I don’t mind.”

“OK, then.”

Only a few steps in and we were at the cloakroom- we could see the red parka swinging on a hanger, swinging like a tune.

There was a band on the stage, the singer’s voice like the feeling of biting tinfoil. Musical instruments were stuck on the wall above the spirit bottles at the bar- a violin, an accordion, a ukulele. It looked like a pawnbroker’s. Two exhausted bartenders paused every now and then to pour themselves tequila shots. Dad ordered a beer for himself, lemonade for me. I wanted a beer too, but I got lemonade. My whole life’s been like that.

Dad and I kept one eye apiece on the cloakroom and spent a couple of hours guessing who might be our man, but you can’t pick a vandal from a room of faces any more than you can pick an adulterer or a pedophile. People carry their secrets in hidden places, not on their faces. They carry suffering on their faces. Also bitterness, if there’s room. We made our guesses anyway, based on what, I don’t know. Dad chose a short nuggety guy with a goatee. He’s our man, Dad insisted. I begged to differ and picked a guy with long brown hair and an ugly purple mouth. Dad thought he looked like a student, not a vandal. What’s he studying, then?

“Architecture,” Dad said. “One day he’ll build a bridge that will collapse.”

“Will people die?” I asked.

“Yes, a thousand.”

While I contemplated the thousand dead, Dad ordered another drink and noticed a woman with peroxide blond hair and lipstick-stained teeth leaning on the bar. He gave her the number-three smile, the one usually reserved for getting out of speeding fines. She looked him over without moving her head.

“Hi,” Dad said.

As a response she lit a cigarette, and Dad scooted over a stool to get closer.

“What do you think of the band?” he asked. “It’s not really my type of music. Can I buy you a drink? What do you think of the band?”

She let out a laugh that was more like gargling in that it never left her throat. After a whole fat minute when nothing happened, Dad got sick of staring at her profile, so he scooted back to his original stool. He drank his beer in one go.

“Do you think you’ll ever get married?” I asked.

“I don’t know, mate.”

“Do you want to?”

“I’m not sure. On the one hand, I don’t want to be alone forever.”

“You’re not alone. I’m here.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said, smiling.

“What’s on the other hand?” I asked.

“What?”

“You said, ‘On the one hand, I don’t want to be alone forever.’ ”

“Oh, um. Shit. I can’t remember. It’s gone.”

“Maybe there’s nothing on the other hand.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

I watched Dad’s eyes follow the blonde as she moved from the bar to a table of women. She must have said something about us, because they all looked over, and it seemed pretty obvious they were mentally spitting on Dad. He pretended to drink from his empty glass. The whole scene made me sick, so I turned one eye back to the cloakroom and the other to the mean, purple, murderous mouth of the architecture student, and I imagined him high up in an office, looking down on a thousand dead bodies and the silver arms of his broken bridge.

The red parka was still hanging around, killing time. It was getting late. I was tired. My eyelids wanted closure.

“Can we go?”

“What time does this bar close?” Dad asked the bartender.

“About six.”

“Fuck,” Dad said to me, and ordered another drink. Clearly he would stay out all night if need be. And why shouldn’t he? There was no one at home waiting up for us. No forehead crinkled with worry. No lips waiting to kiss us goodnight. No one to miss us if we never went back at all.

I laid my head on the bar. There was something wet and sticky under my cheek, but I was too tired to move. Dad sat erect on the bar stool, vigilant, watching the cloakroom. I drifted off to sleep. I dreamed of a face floating out of the dark. Nothing more than a face. The face was screaming, except the dream was silent. It was terrifying. I woke with a damp cloth at my nose.

“Move your head, please.”

It was the bartender wiping down the counter.

“What’s happening?”

“I’m closing up.”

I tasted salt. I reached up and wiped my eyes. I’d been crying in my sleep. This confused me. I don’t remember the face being sad, only scary. The bartender gave me a look that said I wouldn’t be a real man as long as I cried in my sleep. I knew he spoke the truth, but what could I do about it?

“What’s the time?”

“Five-thirty.”

“Have you seen my-”

“He’s over there.”

Dad was standing beside the cloakroom, bouncing on his toes. I craned my neck and saw the red parka still hanging around. There was only a handful of people left in the bar: the guy with the purple mouth, a woman with an angry face and a shaved head, a bearded man with a face full of rings, a Chinese girl in a jumpsuit, and a guy with the biggest potbelly I’d ever seen.

“I’m closing up now,” the bartender shouted to them. “Go home to your wives and children.”

That made everyone laugh. I didn’t see what was so funny about it. I went over and waited with Dad.

“How did you sleep?” he asked.

“I feel sick.”

“What’s the matter?”

“What are you going to do when you find him?”

Dad indicated with his eyebrows that he found my question ignorant. The patrons started leaving one by one. Finally the girl with the shaved head leaned on the cloakroom counter.

“That’s mine,” she said, pointing. “The red one.”

This was our man- or I should say woman. The culprit. The vandal. The clerk handed her the parka. Now what?

“Hello,” Dad said.

She turned her face to him. We got a good look at her. She had bright green eyes set in the boniest face I’d ever seen. I thought she should thank God for those eyes; they were the only beautiful things about her. Her lips were thin, almost nonexistent. Her face was gaunt and pale. She’d be nothing more than white skin stretched over a long skull if it weren’t for those eyes. They were translucent. Dad said hello again. She ignored him, opened the door with her foot, and went into the street.