I meant to ask if Ziegler was available, but she waved me off: “He said if you showed up you were to go on upstairs. That’s, uh, really unusual.”

“Shouldn’t you let him know I’m here?”

“Really, he’s expecting you.” She waved at the bead curtain, almost a challenge: Go on, if you must.

The curtain made a sound like chattering teeth behind me. The stairway was dim. Dust balls quivered on the risers and clung to the threadbare coco-mat tread. At the top was a door silted under so many layers of ancient paint that the molding had softened into gentle dunes.

Ziegler opened the door and waved me in.

His room was lined with books. He stepped back, settled himself into an immense overstuffed easy chair, and invited me to look at his collection. But the titles at eye level were disappointing. They were old cloth volumes of Gurdjieff and Ouspenski, Velikovsky and Crowley—the usual pseudo-gnostic spiritualist bullshit, pardon my language. Like the room itself, the books radiated dust and boredom. I felt obscurely disappointed. So this was Oscar Ziegler, one more pathetic old man with a penchant for magic and cabalism.

Between the books, medical supplies: inhalers, oxygen tanks, pill bottles.

Ziegler might be old, but his eyesight was still keen. “Judging by the expression on your face, you find my den distasteful.”

“Not at all.”

“Oh, fess up, Mr. Keller. You’re too old to be polite and I’m too old to pretend I don’t notice.”

I gestured at the books. “I was never much for the occult.”

“That’s understandable. It’s claptrap, really. I keep those volumes for nostalgic reasons. To be honest, there was a time when I looked there for answers. That time is long past.”

“I see.”