Chapter 11: Vision's Perfect Memory

The roof garden at dawn is a particular kind of quiet that the rest of the tower never manages. Forty-seven floors of steel and argument and extraordinary people below, and up here: three terracotta planters that someone chose with care, a teak bench that has weathered three seasons of New York, and a sky in the early process of deciding what color it intends to be.

Vision was already there when I came through the door at five forty-two. He was standing at the eastern parapet, not leaning against it the way a person leans, but positioned near it with the deliberate stillness of someone who had calculated exactly where to stand and then stood there. He was wearing a charcoal cardigan. I do not know where he acquires his cardigans. I have never asked.

"Mr. Marsh," he said, without turning. "You are four minutes earlier than I anticipated."