Little windows that opened onto this New York number two were of course omnipresent in the ward. Some days, when I didn’t have a job to pull and I had gotten tired of reading or watching TV or waiting to see whether Dr. Tulp would stop by, I would grab Mr. Kindt and we would go take a look at people who, so it seemed, were dying. Mr. Kindt, who in this way was still the same old Mr. Kindt, despite the shift in our relationship, very much liked my theory of the two New Yorks, which he calculated became a dizzying sixteen million New Yorks if there was one of each for each New Yorker. I told him I wasn’t sure if there was, in fact, a complementary New York for each of its inhabitants, or if it was just the pair of them, one size fits all and everyone on fucking top of each other in both. He said that either way, because he had no desire to leave New York under any circumstances, he found the concept of being ravished from one New York into another extremely comforting and it was never any trouble to get him to come along to look at people preparing to make the move. Sometimes, he was the one who suggested we go down and talk to the terminal cases on the second floor or prowl around in the critical wards, where, though this didn’t matter when Mr. Kindt was with me, we weren’t supposed to be. In fact, the duty nurses just looked at us without much interest and let us pass.

Certain arrangements have been made, Henry, not to worry, he said once when I wondered aloud about this.

So have certain arrangements been made for when I go closet shopping for resaleable items? I asked.

No, Henry, only so many arrangements of this sort are possible. On those occasions you will be on your own.

After we had returned — from talking, say, to a ninety-seven-year-old woman with a remarkably malignant skin cancer who had laughed out loud at the prospect of, as she put it, moving along, or from standing in the doorway of the burn unit and listening to the rise and fall of the respirators — we would sit together in one of our rooms and smoke and I would talk about the other New York and he would talk about the other Leiden and the other Amsterdam and the other Delft.

The one contains the other, I said.

The larger the smaller, or is it the other way around?

I don’t know.

It is nevertheless a lovely notion, he said. All cities must be wrapped in a similar doubling embrace.

And all people, I said.

Yes, Henry, of course, we are all of us wrapped in the darkened shadows of our afterselves.

Which is where I would sit after Mr. Kindt left and I was alone again — with my shadow wrapped tightly around me, my robe and hands stinking of cigar smoke. I would sit and think about what we had both said and what we had seen earlier as we walked around. I would think about the other New York, with its long pulsing tunnels and skyscrapers made of helium and rods of light, or about the other Amsterdam, with its silver canals and velvet walls and tiny diamond bells.

One night after I had spent some time thinking I tried to pay a permanent visit to New York number two, but it didn’t work. Despite what I thought was a pretty good effort. I didn’t go anywhere.

I explained afterward to Dr. Tulp about the shadow surrounding me and also, for that matter, her.

You’re Dutch, I said. You could probably go to some Dutch town. Eat good cheese. Paddle down the canals.

I’m not Dutch, Henry, Dr. Tulp said. And this idea of yours is stupid.

She ordered another adjustment to my meds and gave instructions that I wasn’t to receive any visitors, instructions that, at least in the case of Mr. Kindt, weren’t followed. He came the very first night carrying a cracker with a little bit of herring on it and said, eat, Henry, eat something and you will feel better.

It’s the blue devil, I said.

It’s too much talk and thinking about the great black yonder, Mr. Kindt said.

I meant you, you’re the blue devil, I said.

Ah, yes.

The blue devil and the fish. Did I ever tell you about my dream where you were a fish, a herring in a black hat and hunting cape?

Mr. Kindt looked at me. He smiled. That’s a funny dream, Henry, he said. When did you dream that?

When did you swim the length of Lake Otsego?

I don’t follow.

Don’t you?

I’m your friend, Henry. Your best friend. It’s me. Aris.

That’s a nice name, very nice. How did you come by it?

Mr. Kindt’s smile, which had been holding steady, became its reverse.

I’m afraid of a sudden I find you a touch disagreeable, my boy, he said.

Well, you can bet you’re not the first person to feel that way. Usually it’s more than a touch. Can you even swim?

You should get back on your feet, Henry, he said, get some exercise, stop thinking so much, do that job.

I asked a question. How about an answer? I repeat, can you swim?

No. I can’t. I never learned. Why are you asking me these questions?

I told him the truth, which was that I didn’t know. They had just come to me. Had seemed important. Especially in the context of the shift that had occurred in our relationship.

Well, no doubt they are important. But now how about that job?

“That job” was related to some ampoules of pharmaceutical speed that Mr. Kindt had arranged for me to acquire. They were six hallways, two elevators, and a picked lock away.

I don’t think I want to do it this time, Mr. Kindt, I said.

Ah, but you must, Henry. We must. After all, the window of opportunity is fast closing. And there are individuals involved who might turn their attention elsewhere if the desired items are not expeditiously secured.

Why can’t you do it, you were a thief once, right?

A very long time ago I was a very bad thief.

So?

Mr. Kindt, who had been pacing back and forth, stopped and pointed his cracker at me.

In addition to being disagreeable, you seem, Henry, if perhaps you won’t mind my saying so, somewhat less than grateful at the opportunity, the very bright conduit of possibility, that’s been presented to you. I don’t know what all this is about my name and swimming, but I am speaking of business, of transaction, and, more important, of obligation.

I didn’t say anything. The unpleasant look I had seen in the hallway when he had broached the subject of stepping in for Job was back with a vengeance, and I didn’t like the look of it at all. But I felt tired and my head hurt. And I was sad that things, which I thought had gone back to the way they were, definitely seemed to have transformed.

Please go away, I said.

Mr. Kindt stood there, indecisive, as if he wanted to keep haranguing me or maybe cut my throat, but then, although the hard look that had come into his eyes didn’t entirely leave, it did soften, and his jaw relaxed, and he said, all right, my boy, yes, I can see you are tired, we’ll talk later.

He came toward me with his herring-laden cracker, but I shook my head. He shrugged, put it into his mouth, and turned toward the door.

TWENTY-ONE

It was Tulip who told me who my next victim would be. It was near the end of a long night that started with a pleasant dinner at Mr. Kindt’s apartment. There were no special guests that evening — just me and Tulip — and I had already, so to speak, killed (the accountant I had chloroformed and relieved of his documents) and talked about it, meaning I had nothing better to do after dinner than go back to The Fidelity and mutter to myself, the way my aunt used to do, and/or chew on the walls. So when Mr. Kindt, who for some time, under the guise of telling us about one of his early jobs in Cooperstown, had been holding forth on the subject of weaving and about the melancholy from which, as it is well-known, weavers have a tendency to suffer, all of a sudden said, wouldn’t it be lovely if the two of you spent some time together, perhaps this very night, after dinner, I very quickly said, yes.