Eugene retrieved his presentation materials and laid them carefully on the writing table. He had brought along a bottle of Johnny Walker Red, as a sleeping aid, and after removing the drum-tight plastic wrap from the tumbler in the bathroom, he poured a glass and sat at the writing desk near the window to brush up on his work.

After a few hours and another glass of Scotch, Eugene rose and went into the bathroom to urinate. The slick, antiseptic tiles of the tub and the wobble in his legs enticed him into running a hot shower. With the water thrumming across his scalp, Eugene thought about Margaret and what she might be doing. Probably reading in the living room, or perhaps she was talking on the phone with her sister, to whom she spoke, it seemed to him, far too frequently for any meaningful information to be conveyed.

He wondered just how long it had been since he had felt the relentless push to be at Margaret’s side, touching her, to have her attention each and every minute, and he was unable to remember, exactly, when it might have been. He wondered if she wondered about this, too. He had his work, and she volunteered two nights a week at Oakwood Hospital. She always returned home in a good mood, he thought, so at least she has some fulfillment in her life.

They were comfortable now, inhabiting the house together, but sometimes, in the evenings, he would abruptly realize that an image of her, of what she might be doing or feeling, hadn’t crossed the barrier of his thoughts in what seemed like hours. He supposed this was normal, expected; desirable, even, for a couple that had been together for more than three decades. At least they were still together, he thought, and still sleeping in the same bed, although they seemed to be often too tired anymore to make the kind of love that they had enjoyed throughout the first ten years of their marriage.

Eugene dressed in his pajamas and robe, poured another Scotch, and opened the window, inviting in the clamor of the night. He leaned out, laughing to himself that The Dorchester was one of the few hotels still in business that allowed its guests the dignity of making their own decisions as to whether or not to spring from the window in a fit of suicidal despair.

The view of the city, beyond the condominiums, was not so bad with his head and shoulders jutting outside the building; he dropped back into the room and lifted his camera from the suitcase. Rotating the telephoto lens onto the camera body, he checked the film, then returned to the window. The lamp on the writing desk interfered with his view of the darkened streets; he snapped it off, and the room was dim except for the light streaming from the half-open bathroom door and the yellow wash from the streetlights below.

He snapped a couple of shots of the Sears Tower, which, because of its enormous height, rose above the obstructing condos; he aimed his lens at the street below and squeezed off a composition containing what he hoped would be the streaky red blurs of time-lapse taillights. As he turned to his left, his Nikon still to his eye, his viewfinder framed a glass door over which there were no curtains. The condominium was on the same level as his room, and, though the light inside was indirect, he perceived a figure lying on a sofa, apparently watching a television which was out of Eugene’s view. The figure was a woman wearing only panties and a red cardigan sweater.