“I don’t believe you,” Ricky said. “I’m not going to believe anything you say. Not now, not ever. You were also there, outside my apartment, with the message in the Times a couple of days later. I know it was you.”

“Outside your apartment? How strange. When was this?”

“At five in the morning.”

“Remarkable. How can you be so certain it was me?”

“The deliveryman described your shoes perfectly. And the rest of you adequately.”

Merlin again shook his head. He smiled, with a catlike quality that Ricky remembered from their first meeting. It was the sensation that the attorney was confident in his ability to remain just slippery enough so that he couldn’t be pinned down. An important capability for any lawyer. “Well, I suppose I like to think that my dress and my appearance are unique, Doctor Starks, but I imagine the truth is a little bit more mundane. My shoes, nice as they might be, are available at dozens of shoe stores and not all that uncommon in midtown Manhattan. My suits are off-the-rack blue pinstriped standard business in the city fare. Nice, but still available to you or anyone else with five hundred bucks in their pocket. Perhaps in the near future, I will join the custom-tailored crew. I have aspirations in that direction. But, at least for now, I’m still in the fourth floor, men’s wear segment of our populace. Was this deliveryman able to describe my face? How about the thinning hair, alas? No? I can tell from your look what the answer is. So, I would have my doubts about any identification you think someone made standing up under any professionally intense scrutiny. Certainly an identification that has persuaded you so completely. I think this is more a byproduct of your profession, doctor. You take what people tell you and value it too highly. You see words spoken as a means of getting to truths. I see them as methods of obscuring truths.”

The attorney eyed Ricky with a half grin. Then he added, “You seem under pressure, doctor.”

“You would know about that, Mr. Merlin. Because it is either you or your employer who has created this.”

“I am employed by a young woman that you took advantage of, as I’ve said before, doctor. Really, that is what has brought me into contact with you.”

“Sure. You know what, Mr. Merlin?” Ricky said with the first harsh tones of anger sliding into his voice. “You know what? Go find another seat. That seat is being used. By me. I don’t want to speak with you anymore. I dislike being lied to as much as you do, and I won’t listen to any more. There are plenty of seats on this train…” Ricky gestured wildly at the nearly empty car, “… take one of those and leave me alone. Or at least stop lying to me.”

Merlin did not budge.

“That would not be wise,” he said slowly.

“Perhaps I’m tired of behaving wisely,” Ricky said. “Maybe I should behave rashly. Now leave me alone.” He didn’t expect the attorney would act upon this demand.

“Is that how you’ve behaved?” Merlin asked. “Wisely? Have you contacted an attorney as I recommended? Have you taken steps to protect yourself and your possessions from lawsuit and embarrassment? Have you been rational and intelligent about your choices?”

“I’ve taken steps,” Ricky answered. He wasn’t certain that this was accurate.

The attorney obviously didn’t believe him. He smiled. “Well, I’m delighted to hear that. Perhaps we can discuss a settlement, then. You, your attorney, and I?”

Ricky lowered his voice. “You know what the settlement demand is, don’t you, Mr. Merlin, or whatever your real name is. So, please, can we dispense with the charade you persist in employing, and get to the reason you are on this train and sitting beside me?”

“Ah, Doctor Starks. I detect some desperation in your voice, as well.”

“Well, Mr. Merlin, just how much time do you think I have remaining?”

“Time, Doctor Starks? Time? Why all the time you need…”

“Indulge me, Mr. Merlin, by either moving or quit lying. You know what I’m saying.”

Merlin eyed Ricky closely, the same Cheshire cat grin playing around the corners of his mouth. But despite the self-satisfied smile, some pretense dropped alongside it. “Well, doctor, ticktock, ticktock. The answer to your last question is this: I would think you have less than a week remaining.”

Ricky breathed in sharply. “There’s a truthful statement. Finally. Now, who are you?”

“Not important. Just another bit player. Someone hired to do a job. And certainly not the person you might hope I am.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I told you: encouragement.”

“All right, then,” Ricky said firmly. “Encourage me.”

Merlin seemed to think for a moment, then answered, “There is a line from the opening of Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, which I think is appropriate for this moment…”

“I never had occasion to read that book,” Ricky said bitterly.

“The line is: ‘You know more than you think you do. ’”

Ricky paused, considering, before replying sarcastically: “Great. Dandy. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

“It would be worth your while.”

Ricky did not reply to this. Instead, he said, “Deliver your message, why don’t you. That’s what you are, after all, right? A message boy. So get on with it. What is it that you want to get through to me?”

“Urgency, doctor. Pace. Speed.”

“How so?”

“Pick ’em up,” Merlin said, grinning, slipping into an unfamiliar vernacular. “You need to ask your second question in tomorrow’s paper. You’ve got to get a move on, doctor. Time is being if not exactly wasted, at least flitting past.”

“I haven’t figured out my second question yet,” Ricky said.

The lawyer made a slight face, as if he was uncomfortable in his seat, or felt the twinge of a toothache coming on. “That was the fear,” he said, “in some circles. Hence the decision to prod you along a bit.”

Merlin reached down and lifted the leather briefcase that was beneath his feet up to his lap. He put it down and opened it up. Ricky saw that it contained a laptop computer, several manila file folders, and a portable telephone. It also contained a small, steel-blue semiautomatic pistol in a leather holster. The attorney pushed the weapon to the side, grinning when he saw Ricky stare at the weapon, and seized the phone. He flipped it open, so that it glowed with that unique electronic green that is so commonplace in the modern world. He turned to Ricky. “Isn’t there a question left over from this morning on your mind?”

Ricky continued to eye the pistol, before speaking.

“What do you mean?”

“What did you see this morning, on the way to the train?”

Ricky paused. He did not know that Merlin or Virgil or Rumplestiltskin knew about his visit to Dr. Lewis, then, in a burst, he realized that they must know, because otherwise they would not have been able to place Merlin on the train to meet him.

“What did you see?” Merlin asked again.

Ricky’s face was set, his voice steely. “An accident,” he answered.

The lawyer nodded. “Are you certain about that, doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Certainty is such a wondrous conceit,” Merlin said. “The advantage to being a lawyer over, say, a psychoanalyst, is that lawyers work in a world devoid of certainty. We live in the world of persuasion, instead. But now that I think about it, perhaps it isn’t that different for you, doctor. After all, are you not persuaded of things?”

“Get to your point.”

The lawyer smiled again. “I’ll bet that’s a phrase you’ve never used with a patient, is it?”

“You’re not my patient.”

“True. So, you believe you saw an accident. Involving…?”

Ricky was unsure how much the man knew about Dr. Lewis. It was possible he knew everything. Also possible he didn’t know anything. Ricky remained silent.

The attorney finally answered his question. “… involving someone you knew once and trusted, and whom you went to visit in the rather optimistic hope that he might be able to help you with your current situation. Here…” He punched a series of numbers onto the phone’s keypad, then handed Ricky the cell phone. “Ask your question. Press send to make it work.”