m he was no longer there. I walked through a door and found her standing in the center of the room and she said, I want to get out of here, right now, so we made for the door but a large individual appeared, shaking her head. Then I was moving gingerly through the warm dark with my arms outstretched, palpitating the occasional object — a table, a chair, a sharpened feather duster, a roll of red tape. That I had, in my palpitations, placed my hands on these objects, which upon entering I had placed in a drawer as per my instructions delivered over fried potatoes earlier, was quite significant. The procedure was regulated by rules which stipulated that if your hands closed over certain preselected objects you used them. Prior to that evening, my role in those proceedings had consisted in, among other things, transporting the evening’s realia — always different — and then standing very still in a corner; or in acting as a placer of the preselected objects, so that the key person, as it were, would find them. That I had been selected to play a substantive role, and not just a tangential one, was an unexpected development, and it was with both pride and trepidation that as the instructions began to be delivered over the intercom, instructions that were meant only for the holder of the preselected objects — take two steps forward, one left, not such a big step, three right — I began to move forward and left and then right as the others stood or sat or hid or lay together waiting. One of them marked the end of my itinerary, though none of them, as they waited, knew who had been chosen or who was coming or what exactly beyond unpleasantness would occur. At certain junctures I was prompted to say, I am coming, and so I said, I am coming, several times, and moved through the dark and, moving slowly, following their instructions, right then left then left then right, arrived at my terminus. Once, as we sat in the tub watching the green rubber duck float poorly between us, my acquaintance of the glamorous proportions and of the evocative calves and ankles, recounted the following anecdote. It appears that some time ago, she said, a certain party, A, was obliged to murder a certain party B. However, this obligation was complicated, as it occurred, by the need first to murder parties C, D, and E, none of whom, when A began, had yet been located. Why did A first have to murder C, D, and E? I asked. Because it was an essential part of the mechanism that A, or the person for whom A acted as instrument, had elaborated. I see. Yes. Did A find C? And D. But not E? It was necessary to substitute. F? F escaped. Was there a G? Yes, G, in effect, became E. So then B became possible. Yes, it all worked out in the end. I, too, was a part of something rather elaborate once, I said, giving the rubber duck, listing rather precariously at that moment, a shove. It was interesting and elaborate and also had a mechanism, albeit rather an indeterminate one. It involved fixed and moving points, some of which converged, and others of which dispersed. I ran first through streets and gardens and then through a woods. In the distance, it was possible to hear dogs barking. Occasionally in my running I would intersect with another point and we would confer. Then a siren sounded and we all went to see what there was to be seen but there was little left. When I had finished recounting this anecdote she sort of looked at me, then said, your anecdote is lovely, you may keep the duck. The duck? Yes, the duck. That is how I got the duck, which I think I still have. Is that you? I whispered. I was standing in the warm dark holding a sharpened feather duster. Not a duck. The duck never leaves my apartment. The duck is not really all that interesting. Not nearly as interesting as the gift I had been given previously by the individual I now imagined was standing before me in the dark, was breathing before me in the dark, and which I keep always in my pocket and that seems impervious to explanation, although I do make some attempt in my description of those earlier events, not an entirely successful one. Then I went home to bed. I mean after the entire affair had been completed. What affair besides the breathing? you might well be asking. But by then I was already fast asleep. Here is what I dreamed. The two of us are sitting at the edge of a castle wall. There is a considerable drop-off and I am concerned about her proximity to it. She, of course, finds my concern suspicious. I didn’t want to do it, I say. Oh, but you did it, didn’t you, she answers. And in a moment, even here, my erstwhile lover, you will push me off this wall and that will be that. But I wasn’t even sure that it was you. And why should that matter? Before I could answer, I woke to someone pounding on my door. I opened it and a very small man came in. Are you the detective? I asked. He nodded, then told me that I was required to answer a number of questions. Okay, but can we do it over breakfast? I asked. He shook his head. It won’t take long, he said. It didn’t, I suppose. But by the time he had left I was ravenous and began ripping the cupboards apart. No sooner, however, had I settled into some breakfast — a very beautiful loaf of bread, an excellent jar of fig jam — then someone else started pounding on the door. Uh, hi, I said, who are you? We are the police, you are under arrest, they said. Well can I be arrested after I have completed my breakfast? They looked at each other. Couple gals with big hair. One of them said, he is resisting arrest. I said, I am not. But they clobbered me just the same. In the instance of unconsciousness they knocked me into I was back on the castle wall alone. I really didn’t mean to, I said, my voice seeming to echo. I didn’t mean to all that much. I was lacking information. There was a key string missing from the sequence. Then I came to because someone was shaking me. As I have said, the organization I work for is very large, and while it is clear that the concept of large, and certainly of very large, is relative, there is about it a sense of comprehensiveness, of saturation even, such that some days one sees very many pairs of sunglasses in the city indeed. One sees also, of course, very many hats and hunting capes on individuals not wearing sunglasses. I find it an excellent aspect of the organization that its sunglasses, so to speak, can come off. Mine, you will have noticed, were off during a significant portion of this narrative. I am quite proud of that fact. One learns to plant the flag of triumph where one can. At any rate, the organization is large and within that largeness it expands and contracts, sunglasses coming on and off, and individuals arriving — just as I had arrived that previous autumn — and individuals leaving and going far away, like I have now done. Or will do. Soon. I have it in writing. Of course “leaving the organization” should also be understood in a relative sense. The process of leaving is rife with conditions and stipulations, and you often come back even when you don’t want to. That was her case, I’m sure. In fact, I asked her and she said, yes, you’re absolutely right, the fuckers made me come back. But at any rate, the organization does claim to arrange for the eventual permanent relocation of its assets, organic and otherwise — this is advertised in one of its many brochures. I once, however, went to the relocation office listed in the brochure, in hopes of scheduling an eventual exit interview, and found only a vacant lot. At the back of the lot a notice was posted to the effect that several years hence the ground would be broken for the office. The notice was not dated. Obviously, now I’ve admitted that I have nothing in writing, no written guarantee. We’ll run away, I said. What? she said. We’ll run, I think I can get us out of here. We will not. Why not? Because there are monitors watching us with infrared goggles. This was true. On a previous occasion it had been my role to serve as one of the monitors. So what should I do? I said. You should plead innocent, it’s your best option. This was the lawyer talking, the one who had been shaking me. The lawyer chewed gum and used great quantities of a fragrant product in his hair. I was sitting next to him in the trial chamber, which was very crowded and very warm. All rise, someone said. The judge came in. She had on a wig and a black robe and we all stood for some time while she instructed us to be seated. It was while she was working on the s in seated that I began to understand, but by the time she had finished the word I had been encouraged by my lawyer to stop. Then there was a trial. I was innocent, according to my lawyer and according to the other lawyer I was not. Order! the judge would occasionally attempt to say. Then the witnesses were called in. The first witness was the detective, who told the judge I had confessed. On the evening in question, the detective said, the defendant entered the dwelling place of the victim and, following drinks and light conversation, placed a piece of duct tape over the victim’s mouth and inserted the sharpened end of a feather duster into the victim’s ear. The second witness was a second detective whom I had not yet seen. This detective had found, she said, the remains of the roll of red duct tape and the sharpened feather duster, its point broken off, in my kitchen. The third witness was the woman who had earlier, you will remember, stroked my thigh and read my cards or her cards or someone’s cards, and who was now, I quickly noticed, again in possession of sunglasses. I told him this would happen, she said. What she had told me, I’d just like to set the record straight, is that I would see a large animal with the words, do not, under any circumstances, painted on its side, and that I would be, in whatever I undertook that day, a big success. The fourth and fifth witnesses were my two guides, and they pretty much sold me out. Hey fats, I yelled as the larger one left the box. Then there were some other witnesses, including the bartender, the heavies, and the judge. The judge took off her sunglasses and wig, stepped into the witness box, and testified that she had dined with me during the course of the afternoon of the day in question, and that I had pressed her for information regarding certain swimming strokes, and that I had commented, somewhat lasciviously, on her perfume, and that I had eyed her bosom, and that I had sworn up and down that I would kill a certain party who had some years previously jilted and perhaps also betrayed me. Then there was a video, clearly doctored, which showed someone who looked a little like me running around and someone who looked a little like my alleged victim wrapped up in red duct tape. Which was all pretty damning evidence and then I was pronounced innocent (the small computer / electronic organizer found on her person clearly indicated that she had had a rendezvous at exactly the time of her murder with another individual “of the worst element”). So I was released, and the compliment was placed in my file, and the locale of the murder was scrubbed down, and the people who lived there came back from their vacation, and the subject was buried in the woods, and I went back to selling cakes, end of story, or almost. There is still a bit more that can be proposed, conjectured, said. For instance, on the evening of my reaffirmation, as I lay on the deck of the swimming pool all those pages ago, the boss, holding what I had thought was a nifty little automatic but that wasn’t (it was a cigar wrapped in silver paper), told me that should my brain functions during my assignment to this particular branch of operations prove to be enhanced, I would earn a reward, a lovely one. What reward? I sputtered. You may, she said, see her again. Yeah? I said. Yes, she said. Before or after the operations? After. As often as I like? Absolutely. What I mean, you understand, is that she might have said that. She might also have said, you will see her again and then you will be forced without quite knowing who it is to murder her and wrap her up in tape and toss her in the river or bury her in the woods, you dumb sucker. Or she might, further, have said, you will, asshole, see someone very much like her and will wonder if it is her and if it really matters anymore after all this time and will never be entirely clear on this point and meanwhile some events, events in which you will have a small role, will be played out. But here is what really happened. Fuck you, tell me something, I said. She did not. Individuals picked me up and carried me to a bed, wrapped me in towels, turned on some nice music, and went away. So I wandered through the dark room thinking about this and about other things. I thought about my shitty day and about my two guides and about the rubber duck and about the message — do not, under any circumstances — which seemed like words to live by, I would have to give some thought to their implementation, I have, it has worked, most days I do not, stupendously, and thinking about that message I thought of my journey through the underground rooms, which had not happened, and about how when I was down there, in addition to the waiter, I had run into her, or had been led to her, my guide had said, oh yes, over there near the rocket-ship display there is someone who would like to speak with you. We spoke. She told me what had happened that previous autumn afternoon. How she had been there the whole time. Had even once or twice burned me with a cigar. Had sat laughing in the back bedroom with John and Deau. Had splashed all the objects in the room with violet paint. You’re kidding, right? I asked. She didn’t answer. You weren’t really there were you? I asked. She didn’t answer. So we talked some more and I told her a story that took place in the desert although I only knew the ending, which she liked, then I asked her, are you, you? And she said, yes, are you, you? And I thought, that’s it, I’m not. No, I’m not, I said. Well that’s good. Yes it is. Okay, I’ll see you upstairs. We were upstairs. It was all already happening. But then I called her back. I’m definitely not me, I said. And the truth is I’m not her, she said. So that was finally settled. Before we parted ways, she said, incidentally, whoever I am, I’m in trouble — I’ve been in trouble for a while and now it’s time, I’ve been told, for me to pay for it. What did you do? I don’t know, something, it’s been years — I double-crossed someone. The boss? No, not the boss. You’re being disaffirmed? You could put it that way. Do I have anything to do with it? You’re here, aren’t you? I was. She had blue eyes. I was placing duct tape over someone’s mouth. We were holding hands. I got out the feather duster. I’m coming, I said. Or at any rate I was thinking something, I must absolutely have been thinking something as I drifted through the dark where there was the sound of breathing and whispering and I thought, this is something and I am something and that is something and she is standing before me or she is not standing before me and now she is taking my hand and afterward I went back to selling cakes they are good cakes and I am quite happy that is the strange part and even fatter and there is more although none of this has happened and tonight I had my cards read again and the prediction was not pleasant and I thought this is how things seem these days they seem not pleasant it is raining it is cold I have long since given up on shorts and fine sunshine I heard breathing and I thought, I thought to myself, at any rate, all this is long past.