"I'm not really who you should talk to but I can tell you what they'll say. It's not about getting centered, or, you know, stress reduction stress reduction. A lot of people-Americans, I mean-have that idea. But it's really a religious discipline, and not easy at all. Do you know about zazen?"

"Tell me."

"It'll make your back hurt a lot lot. That's one thing." She rolled her eyes at me, already commiserating.

"You mean meditation."

"Zazen, it's called. Or sitting sitting. It sounds like nothing, but it's the heart of Zen practice. I'm not very good at it."

I recalled the Quakers who'd adopted Tony, and their brick meetinghouse across eight lanes of traffic from St. Vincent's. Sunday mornings we could look through their tall windows and see them gathered in silence on hard benches. "What's to be good at?" I said.

"You have no idea. Breathing, for starters. And thinking, except it's not supposed to be be thinking." thinking."

"Thinking about not thinking?"

"Not thinking about it. One Mind, they call it. Like realizing that everything has Buddha nature, the flag and the wind are the same thing, that sort of stuff."

I wasn't exactly following her, but One Mind One Mind seemed an honorable goal, albeit positively chimerical. "Could we-could I sit with you sometime? Or is it done alone?" seemed an honorable goal, albeit positively chimerical. "Could we-could I sit with you sometime? Or is it done alone?"

"Both. But here at the Zendo theres regular sessions." She lifted her cup of tea with both hands, steaming her glasses instantly. "Anyone can come. And you're really lucky if you stick around today. Some important monks from Japan are in town to see the Zendo, and one of them is going to talk this evening, after zazen."

Important monks, imported rugs, unimportant ducks-jabber was building up in the ocean of my brain like flotsam, and soon a wave would toss it ashore. "So it's run out of Japan," I said. "And now they're checking up on you-like the Pope coming in from Rome."

"Not exactly. Roshi set the Zendo up on his own. Zen isn't centralized. There are different teachers, and sometimes they move around."

"But Roshi did come here from Japan." From the name I pictured a wizened old man, a little bigger than Yoda in Return of the Jedi Return of the Jedi.

"No, Roshi's American. He used to have an American name."

"Which was?"

"I don't know. Roshi Roshi just basically means teacher, but that's the only name he has anymore." just basically means teacher, but that's the only name he has anymore."

I sipped my scalding tea. "Does anyone else use this building for anything?"

"Anything like what?"

"Killing me!-sorry. Just anything besides sitting."

"You can't shout like that in here," she said.

"Well, if-kissing me!-something strange was going on, say if Roshi were in some kind of trouble, would you know about it?" I twisted my neck-if I could I would have tied it in a knot, like the top of a plastic garbage bag. "Eating me!" "Eating me!"

"I guess I don't know what you're talking about." She was oddly blase, sipping her tea and watching me over the top of the cup. I recalled the legends of Zen masters slapping and kicking students to induce sudden realizations. Perhaps that practice was common here in the Zendo, and so she'd inured herself to outbursts, abrupt outlandish gestures.

"Forget it," I said. "Listen: Have you had any visitors lately?" I was thinking of Tony, who'd ostensibly called on the Zendo after our conference at L&L. "Anyone come sniffing around here last night?"

She only looked puzzled, and faintly annoyed. "No."

I considered pushing it, describing Tony to her, then decided he must have visited unseen, at least by Kimmery. Instead I asked, "Is there anybody in the building right now?"

"Well, Roshi lives on the top floor."

"He's up there now?" I said, startled.

"Sure. He's in sesshin sesshin-it's like an extended retreat-because of these monks. He took a vow of silence, so it's been a little quiet around here."

"Do you live here?"

"No. I'm cleaning up for morning zazen. The other students will show up in an hour. They're out doing work service now. That's how the Zendo can afford to pay the rent here. Wallace is downstairs already, but that's basically it."

"Wallace?" I was distracted by the tea leaves in my cup settling gradually into a mound at the bottom, like astronauts on a planet with barely any gravity.

"He's like this old hippie who hardly ever does anything but sit. I think his legs must be made of plastic or something. We went past him on the way up."

"Where? In the room with the mats?"

"Uh-huh. He's like a piece of furniture, easy to miss."

"Biggish, you mean?"

"Not so big. I meant still, he sits still." She whispered, "I always wonder if he's dead."

"But he's not a really big big person." person."

"You wouldn't say that."

I plunged two fingers into my cup, needing to unsettle the floating leaves again, force them to resume their dance. If the girl saw me do it she didn't say anything.

"You haven't seen any really big people lately, have you?" Though I'd not encountered them yet, Roshi and Wallace seemed both unpromising suspects to be the Polish giant. I wondered if instead one might be the sardonic conversationalist I'd heard taunting Minna over the wire.

"Mmmmm, no," she said.

"Pierogi monster," I said, then coughed five times for cover. Thoughts of Minna's killers had overwhelmed the girl's calming influence-my brain sizzled with language, my body with gestures. I said, then coughed five times for cover. Thoughts of Minna's killers had overwhelmed the girl's calming influence-my brain sizzled with language, my body with gestures.

In reply she only refilled my cup, then moved the pot to the countertop. While her back was turned I stroked her chair, ran my palm over the warmth where she'd been sitting, played the spokes of the chair's back like a noiseless harp.

"Lionel? Is that your name?"

"Yes."

"You don't seem very calm, Lionel." She'd pivoted, almost catching my chair-molestation, and now she leaned back against the counter instead of retaking her seat.

I didn't ordinarily hesitate to reveal my syndrome, but something in me fought it now. "Do you have something to eat?" I said. Perhaps calories would restore my equilibrium.

"Um, I don't know," she said. "You want some bread or something? There might be some yogurt left."

"Because this tea is corked with caffeine. It only looks harmless. Do you drink this stuff all the time?"

"Well, it's sort of traditional."

"Is that part of the Zen thing, getting punchy so you can see God?

Isn't that cheating?"

"It's more just to stay awake. Because we don't really have God in Zen Buddhism." She turned away from me and began rifling through the cabinets, but didn't quit her musings. "We just sit and try not to fall asleep, so I guess in a way staying awake is is seeing God, sort of. So you're right." seeing God, sort of. So you're right."

The little triumph didn't thrill me. I was feeling trapped, with the wizened teacher a floor above me and the plastic-legged hippie a floor below. I wanted to get out of the Zendo now, but I hadn't figured a next move.

And when I left I wanted to take Kimmery with me. I wanted to protect her-the impulse surged in me, looking to affix to a suitable target. Now that I'd failed Minna, who deserved my protection? Was it Tony? Was it Julia? I wished that Frank would whisper a clue in my ear from the beyond. In the meantime, Kimmery would do.

"Here, do you want some Oreos?"

"Sure," I said distractedly. "Buddhists eat Oreos?"

"We eat anything we want, Lionel. This isn't Japan." She took a blue carton of cookies and put it on the table.

I helped myself, craving the snack, glad we weren't in Japan.

"I used to know this guy who once worked for Nabisco," she said, musing as she bit into a cookie. "You know, the company that makes Oreos? He said they had two main plants for making Oreos, in different parts of the country. Two head bakers, you know, different quality control."

"Uh-" I took a cookie and dunked it in my tea.

"And he used to swear he could tell the difference just by tasting them. This guy, when we ate Oreos, he would just go through the pack sniffing them and tasting the chocolate part and then he'd put the bad ones in a pile. And like, a really good package was one where less than a third had to go in the bad pile, because they were from the wrong bakery, you know? But sometimes there wouldn't be more than five or six good ones in a whole package."

"Wait a minute. You're saying every package of Oreos has cookies from both both bakeries?" bakeries?"

"Uh-huh."

I tried to keep from thinking about it, tried to keep it in the blind spot of my obsessiveness, the way I would flinch my eyes fro a tempting shoulder. But it was impossible. "What motive could they possibly have for mixing batches in the same package?"

"Well, easy. If word got out that one bakery was better than the other, they wouldn't want people, you know, shunning shunning whole cartons, or maybe even whole truckloads, whole deliveries of Oreos. They'd have to keep them mixed up, so you'd buy any package knowing you'd probably get some good ones." whole cartons, or maybe even whole truckloads, whole deliveries of Oreos. They'd have to keep them mixed up, so you'd buy any package knowing you'd probably get some good ones."

"So you're saying they ship batches from the two bakeries to one central boxing location just to mix them together."

"I guess that's what it would entail, isn't it?" she said brightly.

"That's stupid," I said, but it was only the sound of my crumbling resistance.

She shrugged. "All I know is we'd eat them and he'd be frantically building this pile of rejected cookies. And he'd be pushing them at me saying, 'See, see?' I could never tell the difference."

No, no, no, no.

Eatmeoreo, I mouthed inaudibly. I crinkled in the cellophane sleeve for another cookie, then nibbled off the overhang of chocolate top. I let the pulverized crumbs saturate my tongue, then reached for another, performed the same operation. They were identical. I put both nibbled cookies in the same pile. I needed to find a good one, or a bad one, before I could tell the difference.

Maybe I'd only ever eaten bad ones.

"I thought you didn't believe me," said Kimmery.

"Mushytest," I mumbled, my lips pasty with cookie mud, my eyes wild as I considered the task my brain had set for my sorry tongue. There were three sleeves in the box of Oreos. We were into just the first of them.

She nodded at my pile of discards. "What are those, good ones or bad ones?"

"I don't know." I tried sniffing the next. "Was this guy your boyfriend or something?"

"For a little while." "Was he a Zen Buddhist too?"

She snorted lightly. I nibbled another cookie and began to despair. I would have been happy now for an ordinary interruptive tic, something to throw my bloodhoundlike obsessions off the scent. The Minna Men were in shambles, yes, but I'd get to the bottom of the Oreo conundrum.

I jumped to my feet, rattling both our teacups. I had to get out of there, quell my panic, restart my investigation, put some distance between myself and the cookies.

"Barnamum Bakery!" I yelped, reassuring myself. I yelped, reassuring myself.

"What?"

"Nothing." I jerked my head sideways, then turned it slowly, as if to work out a kink. "We'd better go, Kimmery."

"Go where?" She leaned forward, her pupils big and trusting. I felt a thrill at being taken so seriously. This making the rounds without Gilbert could get to be a habit. For once I was playing lead detective instead of comic-or Tourettic-relief.

"Downstairs," I said, at a loss for a better answer.

"Okay," she said, whispering conspiratorially. "But be quiet."

We crept past the half-open door on the second landing, and I retrieved my shoes from the rack. This time I got a look at Wallace. He sat with his back to us, limp blond hair tucked behind his ears and giving way to a bald spot. He wore a sweater and sweatpants and sat still as advertised, inert, asleep, or, I suppose, dead-though death was not a still thing to me at the moment, more a matter of skid marks in blood and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Wallace looked harmless anyway. Kimmery's idea of a hippie, apparently, was a white man over forty-five not in a business suit. In Brooklyn we would have just said loser loser.

She opened the front door of the Zendo. "I've got to finish cleaning," she said. "You know, for the monks."

"Importantmonks," I said, ticcing gently.

"Yes."

"I don't think you should be alone here." I looked up and down the block to see if anyone was watching us. My neck prickled, alert to wind and fear. The Upper East Siders had retaken their streets, and walked obliviously crinkling doggie-doo bags and the New York Times New York Times and the wax paper around bagels. My feeling of advantage, of beginning my investigation while the world was still asleep, was gone. and the wax paper around bagels. My feeling of advantage, of beginning my investigation while the world was still asleep, was gone.

"I'm con-worried," con-worried," I said, Tourette's mangling my speech again. I wanted to get away from her before I shouted, barked, or ran my fingers around the neck of her T-shirt. I said, Tourette's mangling my speech again. I wanted to get away from her before I shouted, barked, or ran my fingers around the neck of her T-shirt.

She smiled. "What's that-like confused and worried?"

I nodded. It was close enough.

"I'll be okay. Don't be conworried." She spoke calmly, and it calmed me. "You'll come back later, right? To sit?"

"Absolutely."

"Okay." She craned up on her toes and kissed my cheek. Startled, I couldn't move, stood instead feeling her kiss-print burning on my flesh in the cold morning air. Was it personal, or some sort of fuzzy Zen coercion? Were they that desperate to fill mats at the Zendo?