Motherless Brooklyn

It is the morning after Frank’s murder. Half-asleep, Lionel, in a moment of honest reflection in front of his bathroom mirror, assures himself that he is indeed now a real detective on a real case: “I’d woken to the realization that I was Minna’s successor and avenger, that the city shone with clues” (132). He decides he will start with his only lead: the Yorkville Zendo.

The doorman is no help and suspects Lionel is a cop. When the girl Lionel saw during the stakeout arrives, Lionel approaches her. She introduces herself as Kimmery. She works at the Zendo, she tells him, and invites him inside. She explains the purpose of the meditation center and particularly the importance the facility’s founder, a mysterious American-born Zen teacher known only by his title: Roshi. Lionel inquires about the giant but gets nothing. The girl is nothing like Julia—Kimmery is quiet, sweet, retiring, studious—and Lionel finds her fascinating. 

As Lionel departs the Zendo, two men suddenly come up behind him and brusquely hustle him into a waiting rental car. In the car are two other men. They are dressed like doormen in the same blue suit and sunglasses that still have the price tags on them.