As he leaves Hoffman’s offices, Joe is confident that Thomas will be in America soon, and he’s excited to have a dinner date with Rosa.

On the west side of Union Square, a crowd has gathered to look at a moth clinging to the bole of a maple tree. Joe asks someone next to him what type of moth it is. A man next to Joe answers that one man is telling everyone that the insect is a Luna Moth. Joe gets an idea:

‘Rosa,’ Joe said, under his breath. Then like an ambiguous trope of hopefulness, the Luna Moth took wing with an audible rustle, tumbled upward into the open sky, and staggered off in the general direction of the Flatiron Building (266).

This chapter introduces the back story of the comic book character Luna Moth. Deep in the sub-basement of the library in Empire City, Miss Judy Dark, Under-Assistant Cataloguer of Decommissioned Volumes, is hard at work. Judy is a solitary and lonely individual whose good looks are “marred forever by the cruelty of a pair of big black eyeglasses” (267).

As Judy prepares to leave, she walks past the security guard, Officer O’Hara.