O.K., let’s go in.

I know what I was expecting — some kind of East Village Lupe-haunted spider hole filled with the malodorous accumulation of decades stacked in every available space and threatening to breach the proverbial rafters — but that’s not what I walked into. What I walked into was so clean and brightly lit and uncluttered that the shift my mind was forced to make from the clogged-toilet imagery it had been preparing itself for was unsettling.

It’s nice, huh?

The Hat’s fedora shone in a dazzling blend of natural and electric light and his eyes twinkled. The cats I’d seen before came sauntering out from under a row of chairs, flicked their tails a couple of times, and brushed themselves against our legs.

Lupe, The Hat said. We’re going to get your fucking boxes. I got someone to help.

You want a beer?

I said I was fine but The Hat got me one anyway.

Lupe, he said again. We’re going to get your boxes.

Lupe was in the closet. With the door closed. When The Hat pulled it open she walked out and past us without saying a word. When she got to the middle of the room she stopped and turned and stood looking in our direction. The cats came back from wherever they had swooshed off to and sat on either side of her. She had on the same filthy housedress she had been wearing before and I got hit with dj vu so hard I felt like I needed to sit down. Instead I took a long swig of beer and wiped my forehead.

She likes that dress, she won’t take it off, will you, Lupe?

Lupe didn’t say anything.

She’s got a whole fucking drawer full of dresses and she won’t take that one off, The Hat said.

I wiped my forehead again.

The Hat asked me if I was all right, if I needed to take a break and maybe watch some Steve McQueen first before I got the boxes down. I told him it had been a late night and that I was under some job-related stress, but that I was perfectly fine.

Well, I know it would make Lupe happy if you could get them for her. She won’t come out of the closet anymore.

I got the boxes down. There were three of them, good-sized, wedged hard onto the shelf above the coatrack. The Hat had me take them into the back bedroom, presumably Lupe’s, which looked so spotless that but for the slightly warped floor and walls it could have belonged to a hotel. I set the boxes next to each other on the bed.

The Hat looked at them and shook his head. The tassel shook with it. It’s just some of her old stuff. Stuff she picked up and had as a kid. She’s been in that closet for a week. You want to sit down?

We went back into the living room. As soon as we had gotten there Lupe seemed to come alive. She beamed at her brother, then went to the bedroom and shut the door. The Hat sighed.

You got family?

No. Not anymore.

My kid sister. Used to be a beauty. Or anyway, not too bad. Once upon a time I had to crack some heads. Guys came sniffing. You wouldn’t believe it to look at me now, but I used to be able to crack a head when I had to.

I told The Hat I needed to leave.

You don’t want to watch The Great Escape? We can skip to the fence-jumping scene. It’s got real tragedy, this one. I choke up every time.

I told him I was busy. I stifled a yawn, pressed my beer against the side of my face. My bed at The Fidelity was calling me. Fumes or no fumes. I told him maybe some other time.

Some other time is like soon, I know what that means. You don’t get to be my age with a heart still beating without knowing some things. But, still, I’m grateful. Not everyone helps. I got a building full of yo-yos here. Won’t even stop to answer you in the hallways. Next door I got nuts.

I thought of the nuts next door. Then I thought of the couple leaving Two Boots with the stroller, wondered what they were like, wondered if, through some fluke, or some serious upgrade in my customers, I’d be paying them a visit soon. The woman had been good-looking, exceptional, even, like some Greek movie star. The guy had been tall and beefy. Not bad-looking, but nothing like the woman. Cute kid too. I let myself flash for exactly one ridiculous second on me and Tulip pushing a stroller, maybe stopping for pizza, buying diapers for the baby, laughing, heading home, unloading groceries, giving the baby a bath. I then gave the scenario a quick run-through with the knockout, handsomely stomping her way down the avenues, in place of Tulip, then the contortionists, pushing the stroller with their feet, and almost laughed out loud.

Come here, Henry, I want to show you something, The Hat said.

He was standing next to what looked a little like a medicine cabinet sunk into the side wall. I raised my eyebrow, went over, and he opened it. There was a peephole there that looked out — at his insistence I bent over and put my eye to it — on the hallway. The Hat left my side, went around the corner, and reappeared in my line of sight. He took off his fedora and did a bow. Then he came back in.

You can’t see it from the outside, he said. I got that from the old days. Some of us got them put in special. In the old days you didn’t want to be inspecting your visitors through the balsa wood they got for doors in these places.

I guess not, I said.

Now it’s just a convenience. Now if for example some guy, like you, Henry, comes and knocks at my neighbors’, then stands and has some words with my sister, who has seen better days and can’t answer right, I can see who it is.

Yeah? I said.

I don’t mean I care, he said, not one way or the other, but with this thing and with my old habits I can keep my eyes open. Then I can think about the sounds I heard coming out of my neighbors’ and put it together with things I’ve been hearing about jobs getting pulled in the neighborhood.

Jobs? I said.

You’re pulling jobs, he said.

They’re fake, it’s a service, I said.

Sure, he said. But fake is funny, don’t you think? Fake is like Steve McQueen and the movies — there’s always a little real there too. Fake is never 100 percent. And sometimes fake is real.

He looked up at me for what felt like a long time, then he said, Kindt’s working you good, huh?

I set my beer down on top of the peephole cabinet and told him it had been nice talking to him.

He’s tough, huh, Aris Kindt? I never met him, not even in the old days, but I’ve been hearing things for years. Independent. Ran funny jobs. Always an angle, that one. Always smart. He’ll fool you. He’ll take care of you. He took care of a guy not too long ago. Guy who kept his books. Some accountant. That’s what they say and that’s what I heard. I heard you don’t ever mess with him if you’re smart.

We’re friends, I said. It’s not really business. He’s retired. Someone else is running it. It’s all fake.

Friends, said The Hat, and grinned. Like my good friends across the hall and in this building and in this neighborhood. I got so many friends I’m going to have a heart attack. What I also got is my sister, in there, looking through some boxes of junk, and a peephole in my wall so I can see who comes around and who is getting up to what exactly in this fucking city. I can look through this hole and see straight through the building. I can see you hitting yo-yos with salad bowls and getting yourself tattooed without knowing what was getting put on you and sleeping on the street and getting hit by trucks and running into blonds you got no idea about and meeting friendly Mr. Kindt. I can see that when you say you’re busy, you mean you’re going to go back to a flop and take a nap. I can see you pulling jobs and saying some quiet bullshit to my sister who can’t answer you and I can see you looking at my hat now and saying, check out this old clown. Check out this old motherfucker who likes Steve McQueen. You want another beer? You want another beer, punk?

The Hat took a step toward me. I had the distinct feeling that he was going to produce a gun and put it in my face and pull the trigger and that there wouldn’t be anything fake about it.