I didn't stay in Buffalo for very long. It's just as depressing a place as people say. Upstate New York is full of towns and cities that are long past their prime, but there's a certain rundown charm to, say, Watertown. Even Syracuse has its merits. But Buffalo was too big to decay gracefully.

Keating set me up with a job at a place called Paragon Advertising. I'd known Keating ever since we'd both published our first novels back in Portland. We did the tour of local bookstores together, shilling our lousy stories that we somehow managed to get into print thanks to a small press that accepted anything it deemed to depict the "authentic" Portland, whatever that meant. As far as I'm concerned my story could have taken place in Anchorage, Alaska and it wouldn't have made any difference. Of course I didn't tell them that.

What I'm trying to say is that I came to Buffalo because I didn't have anywhere else to go. I'd lost the few friends I did have in Portland after Keating left. He called me up after he'd settled in there and told me about the opening at Paragon. "It's work, " he told me. "You're not supposed to like it. But the pay is steady."

"I was thinking of becoming a freelancer, " I said. "I was talking to Maya. She said their company might be looking to hire someone on contract."

"Maya's being polite, " Keating said. "Nobody you know there is going to hire you for anything. You know that. You just have to admit it to yourself."

"I have something that's in the planning stages, " I said. "I think it's going to be a series. Three novellas in one volume."

"I don't want to hear about it, " Keating said.

"It's set in an old railroad town in the middle of the country. Maybe Nebraska. But I'm not going to use a real place name."

"You should, " Keating said. "People are tired of phony places."

"You don't even know what you're talking about, " I said. "But you have to listen to me. The whole point of this is that the town is all run down now, of course, because the railroads don't run through it anymore. Everyone takes the interstate, and that's miles away. But the town's past starts to seep through in people's minds. What I mean is that someone will be walking down the street and suddenly it'll be 1875. Everything will change on them. But they won't even know that the switch was made because they'll think they they've always been living in the past. You know, their mind will play some kind of trick on them. They won't remember that they belong in the future."

"That won't work, " Keating told me. "It's too complex."

"But here's the important part. They'll believe that they belong in 1875, but everyone that they meet won't recognize them. You know, because the locals there actually belong in 1875, and then this person shows up out of nowhere. So of course now the whole town is all worked up because these strangers keep showing up and disappearing. And then some of them start to blame to railroad. You know, they think that the trains are bringing these evil people into their midst. I'm going to work religion in there somehow in a big way. You know, they don't understand the technology. At one point there's a riot at the station. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"You can't afford to write anything now, " Keating said. "Listen to me."

Keating explained the work he did at Paragon, and after a week of back and forth I finally upped and moved. Keating even paid for the ticket. I only took what I could carry on a plane, and left everything else behind.

I did an interview with the company, but it was obviously just a formality. The people who met with me spent most of the time asking about what Keating was like back in Portland. They'd heard about the novel, and one of them said that they were actively trying to acquire a copy. Keating wouldn't bring one in for them, they said. The problem was that the press had done the one printing and sold off all the copies. I told them that I could bring it in for them, and they were thrilled.

But then, you know, I started soon after that and Keating was waiting for me in the lobby of the building on Court Street where Paragon had its offices. And he comes right up to me and says, "Don't show anyone my book."

"I only mentioned it because they seemed to want to see it so badly, " I said. "You know, I wanted to make a good impression."

"Understood, " Keating said. "But nobody sees the book."

"I'll tell them I lost it, " I said. "I forgot to pack it."

Keating nodded approvingly. "I wish I'd never brought it up, " he then said. "But, you know, I had to tell them what I'd been up to the last few years. They don't like it when you tell them you've been doing nothing. You do nothing for more than a year, and you're unemployable."

The first day they took me around to meet everyone, bought me lunch, and left me to read through their standards manual in the afternoon. The day after that they paired me up with Keating to meet up with a new client. "We don't know much about him, " Keating told me. We were both in the break room, waiting for this person's cab to arrive. "His name is Pullman. He runs a hedge fund. He calls it 'Blauer Hof Capital'."

"I don't get it, " I said.

Keating took a piece of paper and wrote it down, "'Blauer Hof Capital', " he repeated. "The first part is in German, I believe."

"So he's German?" I asked.

"I don't know anything about him, " Keating said. "That's what I was trying to tell you. He calls us up out of the blue a few days ago and says he's in town."

"Why is he here?" I said. "Buffalo, I mean."

"Let's not ask that question, " Keating said. "I mean it."

Pullman arrived in the early afternoon. He was short and somewhat balding, but looked younger than Keating and I. He took off an elaborate winter coat after we all shook hands. "The weather people told me it would be cold, " he said.

"It was cold last week, " Keating said.

"Then I should have come last week, I suppose, " Pullman said. And then we all laughed, because that's what you do when a client makes a joke.

We took him to a meeting room designed for clients, which meant that it was fancier than the rooms we used. "If you have a computer with you we can get you online, " Keating said.

"Maybe after we talk, " Pullman told us.

We all sat down, with the two of us facing Pullman. And then the strangest thing happened. This was my first real day on the job, and I figured that Keating would take the lead. But after we were all arranged, Keating folded his hands in front of him, coughed, and then didn't say a word. I kept waiting for him to speak up. Nearly a minute passed, according to the clock on the wall. Pullman looked back and forth at us, a meek smile on his face. So then I figured that I had to say something.

"So why us?" I said. Keating then turned his head in my direction ever so slightly.

"Pardon me?" Pullman said.

"Why go with our firm?" I said. "You're a big financial hotshot, or so we hear. Isn't there a place in Manhattan that can handle your business?"

I looked over at Keating. His mouth was half-open in surprise. But still, he didn't speak.

"I grew up in Stoney Creek, " Pullman told us. "That's in Ontario. You probably haven't heard of it. It's near Hamilton, which you may have heard of. Actually I believe it's part of Hamilton now. A merger of sorts."

"I know Hamilton, " I said. "I'm from Vermont. But Keating and I lived out on the west coast for a while."

"I like places, " Pullman said. "Stoney Creek is a place. Manhattan is a shopping mall. Maybe it used to be a place. I don't know enough about it."

"So how would you describe Buffalo, then?" I asked him.

Pullman thought about for a moment before answering. "Buffalo is a compromise, " he then said.

It was at that moment that Keating got up out of his chair. "Excuse me a moment, " he said to us. "I'll be right back." He fumbled around with something on the far side of the room, and then he left.

So now it was Pullman and I. The two of us. And I'm wondering what I got myself into. But I decide to keep going. "So what's with the name of your company?" I said, and I then I looked over at the sheet of paper Keating had written on. "'Blauer Hof', " I said.

"It means 'Blue Court', if you translate it directly, " he said. "But it's actually a palace. Or, rather, they call it a castle. The 'New Castle'. That's its official name."

I grabbed Keating's sheet of paper and wrote down what I remembered of what Pullman said. "I guess this is important to you, " I said.

"It's terribly important, " Pullman told me. "I live in Laxenburg. That's in Austria."

"I thought you were German, " I said.

"I'm from Stoney Creek, " Pullman said. "But I've been to many places. Work keeps me busy now, though."

"So you run your whole operation over there?" I asked.

"My clients are American, for the most part, " Pullman told me. "I come to the States often. That's why I need an American company to help me."

"I don't know much about hedge funds, " I said. "I have to be honest with you. I'm new here. I'm a writer. I have a novel, though nobody knows about it."

"Don't worry about my business, " Pullman said. "The fund does fine. Even these days. I wasn't as foolish as everyone else."

At that point I ran out of things to say. I mean, the situation was incredibly absurd. Keating still wasn't back. This odd little person was telling me about a place I'd never heard of before in my life. "Laxenburg, " I repeated.

"I live in a little room next to the church, " he told me. "It's a Baroque place, though it took them a while to finish. The church, I mean. The plague kept killing off workers. Even one of the architects died from it."

"Well, we don't have to worry about that sort of thing, " I said.

At that moment Pullman suddenly became rather agitated. He leaned in over the table and spoke with an intensity that was not present earlier. "You don't understand, " he said to me. "You need to know these details."

I wrote down a few words about the church from what I could recall. "What did you say again?" I asked.

Pullman leaned back and sighed. "Perhaps I chose the wrong firm for this, " he said.

Keating was still absent. This was getting crazy. "You have to help me out a little, " I said. "We only just started talking."

"I live and I work in a room in the attic of an old house by the church, " he said. "The Blauer Hof is steps away. This is a town, you understand. It became a summer retreat for the Habsburgs, but it's still a town. There's a marketplace. It was a market town. There's a charter to prove it."

He was speaking quickly, and I was trying to write down as much as I could. "I'm still trying to understand the big picture here, " I told him.

"This is what I want you to write about, " he told me. "The town. There's a church. You can get out and wander around the market. There's the Blauer Hof. It was a bustling place. Laxenburg. It's mostly tourists out there now. But I can look out my window and I can see the past. You understand me? I can see what it used to be like."

I put the pen down for a moment. I took a good look at this Pullman fellow. He was young and rich and successful, but something was bothering him. He was not happy. "I can do a write-up of this place, if that's what you'd like, " I said.

Pullman waved his hand dismissively. "It's a bad idea, " he said. "I'll tell you what I was thinking. I have to send my clients quarterly updates. I tell them about the performance of their investments. They expect this. But I hate doing this sort of thing. It takes me nearly a month to finish one of these reports. And then a couple of months later I have to do another one."

"We can take over that work, " I said, trying to sound confident. "That's not a problem. I know we can handle that."

"That's not it, " Pullman said. "Well, yes, I do expect that. But I was thinking about something. It's a bad idea. I can see that now. But I wanted people to know about the town. Laxenburg. The town that I see when I look out my window. Not the way it is now. It's what I see that's important. That's what I wanted you to write about."

I took a moment before responding. "Is that standard for this kind of report?" I asked.

"What do you think?" Pullman said.

"Well, you know, you might wrap up the thing with your own thoughts about the world, " I said. "I'm sure it's been done before."

"If we went through with this, I'd lose everyone, " Pullman said. "They're confused enough as it is that I live where I do."

We sat in silence for a long while after that. Finally, Pullman composed himself, looking nearly as relaxed as when he came in. "The quarterly reports will be fine, " he said.

"I could work on some of the other stuff on my own if you wanted, " I said.

"Don't worry about it, " Pullman told me. "Forget I said anything."

"I think I understand, though, " I said. "The concept, I mean. It's worth holding onto that idea."

"It's better to forget about it altogether, " Pullman said. "I suggest you do the same."

We wrapped up a few details, and then I walked Pullman to the elevators. I shook hands and wished him a good day like I'd been doing this work my whole life.

As soon as I got back to the office, Keating was waiting for me near the reception desk. "You shouldn't have indulged him, " he said to me.

"I don't know what you're talking about, " I said.

"I turned on the speaker phone in the corner, " he said. "I listened in at my desk."

"You shouldn't have left me in there alone, " I told him.

"I knew what was going to happen, " Keating said. "I didn't want to be a part of it."

"I got us a new client, " I said. "That's what happened."

"He has the same disease you do, " Keating said. "I didn't want to catch it."

"You have it as well, " I told him. "You don't want to admit it."

"You're not going to like it here, " Keating said.

"Maybe not, " I told him.

"Definitely not, " Keating said.