The car began to move. He saw the first of the haircutting salons to his right, on the northwest corner, Filles et Garcons. He sensed Torval waiting, up front, for the order to stop the car.

He glimpsed the marquee of the second establishment, not far ahead, and spoke a coded phrase to a signal processor in the partition, the slide between the driver and rear cabin. This generated a command on one of the dashboard screens.

The car came to a stop in front of the apartment building that was situated between the two salons. He got out and went into the tunneled passage, not waiting for the doorman to shuffle to his phone. He entered the enclosed space of the courtyard, mentally naming what was in it, the shade-happy euonymus and lobelia, the dark-star coleus, the honey locust with its pinnate leaves and unsplit pods. He could not quite summon the Latin name of the tree but knew it would come to him within the hour or somewhere deep in the running lull of the next sleepless night.

He walked under a cross-vaulted arch of white latticework planted with climbing hydrangeas and then stepped into the building proper.

A minute later he was in her apartment.

She put a hand to his chest, self-dramatically, to determine he was here and real. Then they began to stumble and clutch, working toward the bedroom. They hit the doorpost and bounced. One of her shoes began to angle off but she could not shake free and he had to kick it away. He pressed her against the wall drawing, a minimalist grid executed over several weeks by two of the artist's adjutants working with measuring instruments and graphite pencils.

They did not get serious about undressing until they were finished making love.

"Was I expecting you?"

"Just passing by."

They stood on opposite sides of the bed, bending and flexing to remove final items of clothing.