She leaned back, looked at her watch, looked at me, pressed the call button, and said, now.

TWENTY-THREE

The brief adventures of Henry and Tulip began in a little tattoo parlor on Orchard Street, where Tulip went to work on my chest, repeatedly jamming a needle into the strip of skin covering my heart.

What is it? I asked.

You can look later, she said. It’s just something simple. A souvenir. The irritation will go away soon.

She brought me over a glass of water and a couple of Tylenol and told me to take them. I did so, then wiped my mouth, then told her I’d had a dream about this place, only it had been transformed into a kind of operating room and we were all swimming around and she was cutting Mr. Kindt to pieces. She was smiling and cutting into him and talking about it and pretty soon we all came over and watched. By the end we were in a kind of semicircle around the operating slab while she cut and tugged.

Sound familiar? I said as I put my shirt back on.

How funny, she said.

Yes, I said. Did you bring Anthony here after your drinks?

Be nice, she said.

Then we went to Grand Central.

Grand Central Station was recently renovated. Renovation meaning that a lot of expensive shops have been added, and that you can really truly and profitably look up at the ceiling in the central concourse, which has reclaimed its brass and marble heritage, and learn a thing or two about the zodiac, because now it has been cleaned.

Scorpio, said Tulip, looking up at the ceiling, how about you?

I said what I was, and Tulip said, Mr. Kindt too, and I said, speaking of, any idea what was going on tonight?

What do you mean?

You know: the namesake of the namesake and the namesake is a corpse with an alias and the recent trend in his relationship with Cornelius and the thing about stepping forward.

Tulip shrugged.

I looked at her.

She shrugged again.

So I said, O.K., now what?

Now we go.

What do you mean, go?

We’re taking a little trip.

Right now?

Soon.

But first she wanted to show me something. We went down one of the two conjoining chandelier-lit slopes that mediate between the upper and lower levels of the station and stopped under a central walkway, near enough to the Oyster Bar that I thought that was where we were going. Instead, Tulip told me to go stand over in one of the corners of the intersection made by the two slopes and the passage leading down from the restaurant.

Turn around and put your face against the wall, she said.

Seriously? I said.

It’s clean. Or clean enough.

I leaned forward. The tile, where I touched it, was cool against my forehead, which was pleasant, as thinking about my dream and Mr. Kindt and Rembrandt et al had gotten me a little heated. I pressed my forehead harder against the tile, took a deep breath, then pulled away and looked over my shoulder. Tulip was more or less doing the same thing in the opposite corner, looking very good doing it. Then she was talking to me.

Henry, she said.

Her voice seemed to be coming out of the piece of tile in front of my face.

Nice, I said.

How’s your chest?

It hurts.

That’s normal.

What’s the tattoo?

Like I said, it’s a little keepsake.

Something to remember you by?

That’s right.

Are you going somewhere?

We’re going somewhere.

Where?

We’re leaving, getting out.

Out of New York?

You interested?

Very. I guess.

Good. But, Henry, promise me something.

Sure.

No more comments about Anthony, all right? That’s boring. You have to give it a rest. Mind your own business.

O.K., you’re right, sorry, I said.

Anyway, we are creepy, Henry. Anthony has a point.

I’m creepy?

But she didn’t answer, wasn’t there anymore.

I found her a couple of minutes later standing by the information booth soaking up, she said, the train station atmosphere, something she had liked to do as a kid.

I wasn’t quite done talking, I said.

So talk, she said.

But, beyond elaborating on the subject of creepiness, which suddenly seemed to me painfully self-evident and basically played out, or trying to dig a little more at the conversation we’d had at Mr. Kindt’s, which seemed to be covered by the creepiness thing anyway, I didn’t really have anything to say.

There were plenty of people going by and Tulip blabbed a little, in watered-down Mr. Kindt style, remarking, for example, on the patterns the people made striding across the regularly cleaned marble floors and going up and down the marble staircases and I said, uh huh.

Then it was time to catch the train we were apparently interested in, so we went downstairs to track 122, which was hot and crowded despite the late hour. There were a couple of conductors conferring at the top of the platform, wearing their tall blue hats and short-sleeve shirts, and the inside of the train was brightly lit, but cool and surprisingly quiet given the amount of activity. I thought then of that feeling you get on a train that is just leaving the station, going slowly, and all the heads in the car are rocking back and forth and the lights blink on and off and there is a strange calm. Thinking about this, I began to feel a little better and more hopeful.

This is very nice, I said.

Yes, it is, Tulip said.

Where’s this train going? I didn’t look.

No idea. It’s the New Haven line. I think Portchester is one of the stops. Maybe Stamford.

So we’re just going to see where it takes us?

She looked out the window at the gray platform, her face clearly reflected in the dirty glass.

Mr. Kindt wants you to murder him, she said.

Come again, I said.

There’s a script.

I looked down at my hands. They looked in need of some scrubbing. I felt my face flushing, the heat coming back. Is that why we came out tonight, so you could tell me that? Was that the whole point?

It was Aris’s idea. He wanted me to be the one to ask you.

Why?

Think about it.

I thought. Just then the conductor came over the intercom to announce the train’s imminent departure. People kept coming in, taking their coats off, putting bags on the overhead racks, unfolding newspapers, opening books.

What kind of murder are we talking about? I said.

You’ll have to ask Cornelius, he has the script now.

I’m asking you.

She didn’t answer.

He wanted you to ask because it’s part of the script.

Tulip nodded.

I would have figured he’d go for something more exotic. Something intricate or whatever.

His tastes are sometimes surprising. I mean, his favorite game is Operation.

He wants it to play like a movie, something a little racy. His lovely young friend, who stands to gain in some significant way, persuades a creepy young ne’er-do-well down on his luck to bump him off. It’s like a poor man’s version of The Postman Always Rings Twice.

Tulip smiled. That ends badly, she said.

It certainly does.

And I wouldn’t say you’re down on your luck.

But you would say I’m creepy.

Yes, but not that you’re a ne’er-do-well.

After she said this she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

Was that part of the scenario?

She didn’t answer. Instead, she said, I am kind of lovely, aren’t I?

She was. There was no doubt about it. There was no, in fact, getting around it, not for me.

Why not Cornelius or the knockout or the contortionists? I said. He could have gotten something cheap and thrilling out of them. Why me?

I don’t know, she said. Because it turns out you’re good. Because you got him excited with all those descriptions of murders. Because, clearly, he’s eccentric. Because he’s a rich guy from Cooperstown who likes to play, among other things, crime boss in the village.