You say you want this, that you will pay the price; I say a fool will not be separated from his destiny. You feign understanding, misinterpret my half-smile and ask me to pour you one as I pull the stopper from the decanter.

You ask where you can find her; I ask where you cannot. You look confused. I relent, pour you a drink out of pity.

She is the formless shape, like the pipe of smoke from a blown-out candle. She is the woman standing in the shadows beneath an awning, out of the rain. She is on a billboard by the interstate and seen for a moment sitting at the back of a grunting city bus. You think I’m being poetic; have you ever known me to be poetic?

You ask how she knows so much, you ask who her contacts are, you ask if she has detectives or investigators and about her rates and when I laugh so hard my drink sloshes onto the back of my hand, you nervously join in as if you get the joke.

I remember thinking I could pay her with sex, and trying to.

I remember when she came to collect her fee.