I was coming up with a lot of questions and few answers. What was there about their missing son that worried the Olsens so much? Concern, yes, that I would expect. But the Olsens did not seem concerned about Jo-Jo; they seemed concerned about themselves. They seemed worried about anyone looking for Jo-Jo — for what it would do to them, not to Jo-Jo. And then I could have it all wrong. Maybe they were just protecting Jo-Jo.

I felt uneasy. The night was hot, and as I walked I did not feel good. Questions without answers make me uneasy. Key questions that I can’t get a grip on, that keep slipping away, make me as uneasy as hell. It is like looking into a dark abyss and wondering what monsters might be lurking down there. Monsters that might be waiting for me. Nobody likes the unknown.

‘You look terrible,’ Marty said at the door. ‘Come on in.’

Martine Adair. That is her name on the off-Broadway theatre programmes and on the semi-nude come-on posters outside the tourist club on Third Street. It is not her real name. Her real name doesn’t matter. She changed her name for a new identity, and I tell stories about how I lost my arm because I don’t like the real story. Marty is twenty-seven. Young but no kid. She has not been a kid since she was sixteen. She’s a good actress and an adequate girl-show dancer. Her work is more important to her than anything else in the world. The acting, not the girl-show. She studies hard. She has a reason to work. She acts because she must act, for its own sake. And she is good. Someday other people may even know that.

‘Irish?’ she asked.

‘Beer. It’s hot enough to boil whiskey.’

‘Not in here it isn’t. In here it’s cool. Respect my air-conditioning; it cost plenty.’

She brought my beer from the kitchen. Her pyjama top came down to the bottom of her white panties. Marty wears only white underwear. She says she gets sick of coloured skivvies in her money work. She never wants to see a spangle or a fringe anywhere in her apartment.