“See you around then,” I said.

This time, she nodded. The train came to a halt.

—

I stood on the platform, hidden among people, as the train pulled out again. I saw Johnny furiously scan the crowd for me from our compartment window. Appropriately, in the filtered glass, his features were almost indistinguishable.

JOHNNY’S MONEY PAID FOR MY FLIGHT HOME.

I rode business class, to take advantage of his largesse. I read a free Wall Street Journal and actually found its entertainment page. There was one story of interest:

STUDIO BETS MILLIONS ON A QUIRKY “QUELMAN”

Alan Boilerman, maker of acclaimed whimsical indie films about dysfunctional familes, has been handed his biggest studio assignment yet. It’s a huge, multipart adaptation of the beloved cult dodeca-ology, The Seven Ordeals of Quelman. Boilerman plans to bring his trademark loony comic style to the project, adding and altering many elements of the fantasy. So far, he’s received only thumbs-up from fan Web sites.…

No stalking or attacks for glamorous young directors, I thought. I almost felt sorry for Abner. Almost. I figured out how to fold the paper this time, and left it, in a tidy pile, on my seat.

Dena was staying on the water again.

This time, her house was only an apartment. It was located up a rickety exterior staircase that was attached to a bait store. It sat half a mile from the tacky main street of Bar Harbor, Maine, where T-shirts, kayak rentals, and lobster tchotchkes ruled. Still, the Sound was basically in her backyard, and it smelled better than an Amsterdam canal.

And she was glad to see me.

“I was worried,” she said.

I was glad to see her, too. The red streak in her hair was now green. Otherwise, she looked the same, maybe a little thinner from anxiety. She wore a SpongeBob T-shirt over pants to a grandmother’s suit.

Her father’s one-bedroom had essentially been cleaned out. Only a few packed boxes remained, plus a mattress, a lamp, and a clock radio, all on the floor.

“I’m almost done here,” she said. “They start showing it next week.”

“And then you go back … where?” I realized I never knew where Dena lived, before she worked for Howie.

“I’ve sublet my place in Brooklyn,” she said. “But I’ll … I’ll figure it out.”

Never one for sentiment or disorder, she wouldn’t be more expansive. Still, I could tell that uncertainty was weighing on her. And I only had more to offer.

“So this Johnny Cooper was the guy who’s been following you? The other guy who got to my father’s hotel before you?” she said, after I explained.

“Right. And this time he almost had me, too.”

“How did he always know where you were?”

“Beats me.” I stayed away from speculation. I was too wiped out from the long flight home.

“Do you think he thought my father’s tape was Clown? And that’s why he stole it from you?”

I smiled at her using the film’s trivial nickname now. “I guess. And maybe he stashed it with Graus for safekeeping. He didn’t know Graus would want to see some ‘entertainment’ with his maid friend.”

“Maybe.” Dena wasn’t so sure.

“Sorry I lost it. I mean, you … you might have wanted more of your father’s pictures of you. This time, in motion.”

She shrugged, dismissing the letdown. “I’ve got enough.”

There was a pause, as both of us slowly saw the dead end we had reached. I considered Johnny’s cash in my pocket. I knew I should hold on to it, for my mother, and for anything else I might need. It was basically all I had. But, looking at Dena’s weary face, I knew there were all kinds of responsibilities.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get a big, overpriced dinner.”

—

We went to one of those lobster joints where you sit outside and eat as much fish, bread, and corn as you can fit into your face. In her own impassive way, Dena ate like someone who’d been starving. I’d only seen a Dorito’s bag in her father’s kitchen.

I tried to gorge as much as she. But something reduced my appetite. I realized that, even if I were done with the chase for the movie, someone else might not be.

And if Johnny Cooper had gotten as far as Europe, how hard was Bar Harbor, Maine?

I looked around the picnic area. I saw a family of three, two chubby adults with one fat, screaming kid. I saw a teenage couple, practically licking each other’s faces. An elderly woman was sitting alone, sucking on a lobster leg.

“What are you looking at?”

“I’m not sure,” I answered.

“You think he’d—”

“Well, why not?”

Dena had no reply. I saw a maintenance worker shaking out a garbage can. More kids. I looked past the restaurant grounds to the water it abutted. There were all kinds of boats docked there, from sailboats to yachts. Who knew who was on them?

“Well, if you’re not going to eat this,” Dena said, ever practical, “you ought to wrap it up.”

My round robin of suspicion ended at our table. I saw Dena placing the rest of my dinner in a doggie bag. She was doing it carefully; she so clearly cared about me. I couldn’t help it, I felt more disappointment about her father’s tape than gratitude. And that didn’t make me proud.

—

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “You can’t go back to New York tonight.”

I hadn’t intended to. I was exhausted; I’d even hoped to stay a few days. But suddenly I felt that being alone again would help me think.

Besides, there was just the one mattress.

“All right,” I said, weakly. “The floor will be fine.”

“Now you’re being infantile.”

It was a statement of fact from Dena. Precise, businesslike, she pulled down the cover and sheet of her father’s mattress and plumped the single pillow. Then she doused the light.