After leaving the gallery area, Patch crosses the street without looking back and disappears into Manhattan alone. He walks up Sixth Avenue, notices the smell of sugared almonds, and realizes he has not eaten all day. At Barbetta he has a solitary late dinner of pasta and red wine, tells the waiter the meal was "almost perfect," and then keeps moving through the city all night, feeling both adrift and as if he is following a path that matters to him.

By sunrise, Patch is still walking. He passes the Brooklyn Bridge and the fish market, which makes him think of Skip and the night he went into Boston when everything changed. He moves through Union Square Greenmarket, watches shoppers and commuters, and takes in the tourists, families, and landmarks around him. When he stops to study the Twin Towers and the skyline, the chapter emphasizes that Patch is fixing the city in his memory.

Once it is late enough in the morning, Patch goes to the Plaza and waits in a quiet corner. Sammy arrives first, still fresh because he has not gone to bed, and tells Patch that the exhibition sold out in the first hour. By the second hour, buyers were already trying to purchase the earlier sales for double the price, a response Sammy says is extraordinary even by art-world standards.

Patch makes clear that he wants the money directed where it belongs, and Sammy confirms that he understands. The total is not immense by elite gallery standards, but it is enough to give the families of the missing girls some relief and practical freedom, whether to keep searching, to mourn, or simply to breathe.

At eleven, Charlotte joins Sammy and Mrs. Meyer at the Plaza's champagne bar carrying a newspaper. She opens to the Arts section and reveals a full-page feature on Patch under the headline "A Pirate Takes Manhattan." Charlotte turns away to hide her smile, because her father has not only succeeded privately but has become a public story in The New York Times.