In the night room Page 0,48

an unforgettable face seen through a taxi window, all the usual riot south of Canal Street. As ever, Manhattan seemed to have produced an inexplicable number of men whose jobs involved surging along the pavement and yelling into mobile phones. I was glowering at one of these Masters of the Universe when I caught a quick, furtive movement reflected in the window of the little Thai restaurant behind him. Whatever it was, it seemed wrong—a sudden, sneaky dodge into concealment, a movement that had no real beginning and no real end, only an abrupt lateral shift from one obscurity into another. Then the asshole shouting into his hand moved on, and the restaurant window reflected only the kids from NYU and a homeless guy and the bright taxis rushing down West Broadway. When I stepped forward, so did the homeless guy, and with a flash of shock I realized that I was looking at myself. Evidently, I hadn’t paid much attention to what I was wearing when I left home. My old gray sweatshirt looked all wrong under the blazer I had wrestled myself into on my way out the door. The blazer itself appeared to have come from some charitable agency. The blue jeans, the sweatshirt, and the soft, almost shapeless loafers on my feet were the most comfortable clothes I owned, and on days when I wanted to get through a lot of work, they sort of slipped onto my body by mutual agreement, as if they, too, had a job to do. When the shock of recognition faded, I looked again for what was wrong, but it had concealed itself within the scene around me.

It seemed probable that Jasper Dan Kohle was still intent on punishing me for failing to write “I yam what I yam” in his book, or for the flaws in my writing, or whatever was bugging him. I kept glancing over my shoulder and looking at the reflections in plate-glass windows as I proceeded up the street. To draw him out of cover, I turned corners and crossed streets in the middle of the block.

I turned off Sixth Avenue at Thompson Street, still with the feeling that someone was following me. I quickened my pace. At my back, it seemed, an unclean spirit capered along, dancing, jigging, bopping in its glee at having me so close at hand. Not looking over my shoulder was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. When I could, I shot brief glances into the ghostly mirrors provided by windows, and saw only the ordinary street traffic of the Village. Mothers pushed strollers that looked like either phaetons or Jetsons vehicles, fiftyish New York frizz-heads waved their hands in conversation as they ambled along, a few underfed kids lip-synched to their iPods. The feeling of being shadowed clung to me as I hastened toward home.

At Grand Street I turned right and moved toward West Broadway. More people filled the sidewalks, and all of them looked as though they had been born to appear on Grand Street at precisely that moment. I mean, they looked at home in a way I knew I did not. I realized that I no longer had the feeling of being followed, but neither did I feel at ease.

Before I reached the corner, a slash of the blue of a Wedgwood plate—a mild English blue, an Adams blue, an Alice blue!—caught my eye, and my heart surged into my throat even before I realized that I was looking across the street at my sister, gorgeous unbeautiful April. Fists on her hips, she stood glaring at me within a small circular space of her own making. The people who approached her made an unconscious adjustment at about four feet away and swerved to pass behind her. She was a little blue fire, a blaze of blue and yellow. If you got too close, she’d singe your eyebrows off. I stopped moving so abruptly that a woman with a nose ring, a sleeveless black leather jacket that showed a lot of tattoos, and Paki-basher boots bumped against my back. She called me an ignorant turd and tried to dust me off the pavement with her fingertips. Without taking my eyes from April, I said, “Sorry.” Acting on an impulse I neither understood nor questioned, I placed my hand just above her hip and pushed her away. She flailed back, swearing at me.

April was on the verge of spitting out lightning bolts. She took her