O.K., said Cornelius, placing a hand on the table, does anyone have anything germane to say? Otherwise this meeting is adjourned.
I looked at the knockout. She looked at her fingernails, which were tapping away on the table in front of her.
Why? I said.
What do you mean, why? said Cornelius.
I mean why am I murdering Mr. Kindt?
You already asked Tulip that.
Yeah, she told me a ton. Real helpful. I’m going to write a book. Incidentally, she referred, in this illuminating chronicle, to the fact that Mr. Kindt comes from Cooperstown.
So what, he does. We’ve already talked about this.
So what I’m asking you is, does this murder I’m supposed to carry out have anything to do with Cooperstown?
What are you, Sherlock Holmes? You’re getting paid. Mind your fucking business.
How do you say that in French?
Plus you’re a real joker.
O.K., never mind, let me ask you this — does it matter if I know or don’t know about what happened in Cooperstown or what, exactly, you and Mr. Kindt are up to?
Cornelius paused here. He looked at the knockout. She looked at the contortionists. They shrugged.
No, it doesn’t matter, Henry.
But you aren’t going to tell me?
Cornelius shrugged.
All right, forget it, how about the first question?
The first question?
Why?
Because he wants you to.
He wants me to?
Yeah, he fucking wants you to, you fucking sad ass.
This last remark surprised me. Because it wasn’t said by the knockout, it was said by one of the contortionists.
Whoa, I said.
This is getting very, very fucking boring, the other contortionist said.
O.K., I won’t bore you much longer. But I do want to know if this whole thing, this whole thing about me committing murders, was a lead-up to this? To killing Mr. Kindt tomorrow night?
I don’t know, said Cornelius, lying. You’ll have to ask him.
Obviously, when Cornelius told me I would have to ask Mr. Kindt, he meant after the murder, when it wouldn’t matter anymore. But as it turned out, I got to ask him before. That very afternoon, in fact. My brain, having found a rare felicitous moment, was starting to whir away about Tulip and murder and the mattress in the back room and the look on the contortionists’ faces and the supposed importance of this particular job, and the still-unexplained murk about the old business on Lake Otsego, and as I was sitting over a burger at Stingy Lulu’s on St. Mark’s Place, I got the urge to go over and see my friend.
In connection with this impromptu visit, and the little detail that Mr. Kindt was in a bad way during it, I’ll relate that one night over several brandies and a couple of cigars, Mr. Kindt, in vintage Mr. Kindt fashion, told me it had been said that the body, in dying, releases a thick white mist, which until that point has been held by mysterious forces within the skin. He did not say what this mist was for or why dying released it, but did note that it tended to gather in the mind when its host was sleeping, and that, in some instances, especially in the case of those “not long for this terrible earth,” did not leave the mind even after the host was awake. He then said he had more than once, when wide-awake, experienced a curious phenomenon that could be attributed to such a mist. When it happened, people and objects tended to lose their definition and bleed into each other, an erosion of border and contour he found very troubling. On those days, he canceled all his appointments and stayed inside, eyes closed, barely moving, as contexts and circumstances that had long seemed inviolable to him came unhinged. It was, he told me, partly to preempt the noxious effects of these occasional bouts that he had taken to admitting a greater-than-average measure of calculated falsification into his life.
That was all I had gotten out of him on the subject that day, but when I went to visit him when I wasn’t supposed to I got a little more. It was a bright afternoon in Manhattan, and the cool air as I went through the park smelled like it is supposed to, or you think it is supposed to, on a cool bright day in a small city park; by that I mean something like almost fresh, so that, in a way that was totally unrelated to what I was thinking about, I felt pretty good. For a few minutes, my mind ceased its whirring and my unease took a break and I was just some guy with a pretty good job walking across the park on a sunny day. I thought about this afterward, after leaving Mr. Kindt’s, about having felt, for those few minutes crossing the park and walking into his building, almost, as I say, good, or, as I put it, pretty good, and I thought about it while I sat in the bar looking out at the rain over the same park, at the glowing lamps and dark trunks and wet benches, getting ready to murder him. It wasn’t like I left Mr. Kindt’s that afternoon feeling awful — I didn’t. It’s just that after I had left him, especially the first time, I definitely no longer felt “pretty good,” and walking through the park wasn’t going to help.
Anyway, still sucking in reasonably fresh air, I left the park, crossed Avenue B, and let myself into his building. I took the stairs two at a time, started to knock, and discovered the door was open. I went in. It didn’t take long to realize that Mr. Kindt’s mist or whatever was gnawing away at him, because when I said, hey, buddy (he was sitting, hatless, heart monitor in his lap, in a black rocker by the window), how about some herring? he started to scream.
Mr. Kindt, hey, I said.
I could barely hear myself say this. His hands were gripping the arms of the rocker like he wanted to splinter them.
Hey, I said, starting to move toward him.
His eyes widened and he began rocking violently back and forth and stomping his legs on the floor.
All right, I said, moving away. I’ll come back later.
I left. I walked around the park. I did not feel good. Not awful, but not good.
About an hour later I went back. Before I had a chance to say anything, Mr. Kindt smiled, and said, I know, my dear boy, I’m sorry, and I may start screaming again at any moment, but what came in the door speaking about herring wasn’t you, although for the first time in a very long while I was me.
I looked at him.
I suppose that’s not going to be very easy to understand, is it? he said.
He definitely seemed calmer. He had put his hat on and left the rocker, which was lying on its side in a tangle with the heart monitor.
You were screaming pretty loud there, I said.
I know, Henry, it came over me, and as I say it may well come over me again. Incidentally, you know, I very much like it when you call me buddy. Even in the state I was in I found that very calming.
Well sure, buddy, I’m glad you do.
Yes, I like it very much, he said.
I’ll call you that whenever you like. I’ll spread the word.
Call me buddy now.
O.K., buddy, I said.
I called him buddy a couple more times, then he said that that was enough for the time being and I agreed and changed the subject.
What did you mean a minute ago when you said “I was me?”
Well, it might be too hard to explain that just at the moment, Henry.
Can you try?
No, I don’t think I can. I think it might precipitate another, you know, my boy, screaming episode.
From the mist?
Yes, he said. I suppose it is.
While we were talking, he had opened a plastic container, one of several spread across the coffee table, and had begun putting generous amounts of creamed herring and onion onto crackers.
The herring you mentioned, he said. It was a lovely idea.
I’m glad, I said, taking a cracker and putting it in my mouth. Delicious. A little warm maybe, but good.