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squared off. With the key between thumb and forefinger, he let his hand drop to his side. Kaddish’s home, Kaddish’s apartment, and there it was, moved out of place. There was a lock, like a heart, in the center of the door.

[ Five ]
    IT WAS IN THE SPANKING-WHITE private clinic of the illustrious Dr. Julio Mazursky that the good doctor, looking through the window as if reading from the sky, shared with Kaddish Poznan an intimate detail or two. Kaddish, standing—not invited to sit—wrote the names in ballpoint pen on the nubbly sanitary paper that covered the examination table. The table itself was upholstered in fine leather and padded, so that in jotting down the names twice Kaddish’s pen poked through. There was a knock and Kaddish vaulted up onto the table. He planted himself at the foot end, sitting on his details, an open pen in his hand.
    A nurse entered—having waited for a moment to pass but not for an answer—and there was Kaddish grasping the edge of the table, swinging his legs. The doctor looked out the window as if alone in the room, hand holding hand behind his back.
    Kaddish thought this must be a popular position, that the doctor did his thinking this way, as the nurse approached him with a chart and wordlessly he took it, still not turning round. The doctor flipped a page. The nurse gave an order into an intercom mounted on the wall.
    “Take your shirt off, please,” the doctor said.
    Kaddish stopped his legs.
    “My shirt?”
    “Your shirt, yes, please,” the doctor said, with the confidence of a busy man.
    Kaddish took his shirt off and threw it onto a chair.
    Now it was the nurse’s turn. Looking up at him, she said, “Your undershirt as well, please.” Kaddish took off the undershirt and sat up straight. He had strong arms and shoulders. He had a gut, but it looked solid. The nurse gave it a glance and dismissed him.
    “I’ll be in four,” she said. The doctor nodded to the window and the nurse left. Kaddish followed her out with his eyes, jumping from the table before the door had closed behind her.
    With the particulars down, first pulling the left side, then the right, Kaddish worked the paper through the metal guide at the foot of the table. He gave it a yank, jamming all the paper to one side, and coming away with a jagged strip. He reached back and yanked off the rest, a tail of paper with the last of the names. “Fat fingers,” Kaddish said.
    The offices had a commanding view and the doctor lowered his gaze to the city below, Buenos Aires spread out before him like a puzzle. Something wasn’t right. Dr. Mazursky hadn’t noticed anything on his way to work that morning. He’d walked from his house to the open car door. There was a book in the backseat that he left there for his commute. And, as he did every day, he read it as he was driven to his office, sometimes sharing a smart passage with his driver. Dr. Mazursky hadn’t been aware of anything beyond the time. He’d said, “What is taking so long?” and received the answer—“Detours, sir”—in reply. Looking down at the city he saw that the puzzle had shifted, traffic patterns switched. A great swath of empty city was visible where it should have been congested. There was too much military green and too many helicopters in the sky.
    “The list,” the doctor said, “would you please, Mr. Poznan, read it back to me.”
    Kaddish tried for the same tone the doctor had used, as if he were ticking off the names of a disease in all its forms. These are the names as Kaddish read them: “Pinkus Mazursky, Toothless Mazursky, HappyMazursky, and,” from the second piece of paper, uncrumpling the scrap in his fist (a smile and cough, acknowledging), “Pinkus ‘Toothless’ Mazursky.”
    “Mazursky,” the doctor said, as if there had been an error in pronunciation. There was no difference to be heard. “I apologize for the variations. I wasn’t at my father’s unveiling. His associates,” and this with disdain,