He smoked a cigarette, and then another, and then another... Then he went to the kitchen, ate a bowl of cornflakes, and smoked another cigarette.

By the end of City of Glass, Quinn is exhausted. He has no idea what's going on with the case or with himself. He walks home, trying to cling to the knowledge that even if the case is a failure, his life will continue. For 100 pages he has taken careful notes, watched his target, and made sure to call Virginia Stillman every night. But by this point in the story none of that is working out for him and he feels compelled to give up. Everything he thought he knew turns out to be incorrect, or at least irrelevant, and his drive is significantly diminished. He reminds himself that he could blow all of this off and write another book (102). He's clearly not in a good state of mind...
 "Quinn was nowhere now. He had nothing, he knew nothing, he knew that he knew nothing. Not only had he been sent back to the beginning, he was now before the beginning, and so far before the beginning that it was worse than any end he could imagine" (102). Poor Quinn is an author, not a detective. And even the man he thought could help, Auster, turned out to be an author and not a detective, though Quinn won't learn that for several pages. Quinn wanted closure, as all authors probably do when they write. But Auster isn't a detective, he's just a writer like Quinn, and so he can't help Quinn reach a conclusion. Quinn is realizing that being a literary detective is not as great as it always seemed when he was writing about Work. He reflects on how gray he feels. His case isn't going well; his life is kind of a bummer. Even his walls are gray. He decides in the end to blow the whole thing off, but he also feels it's important to tell V. Stillman first. "As long as you tell people what you're going to do, he reasoned, it doesn't matter. Then you are free to do what you want" (103). Clearly, he feels like nothing good can come from continuing the case.
So he calls the lady Stillman and she doesn't pick up. The operators tell him the line is busy. He tries again and again; no luck. After another day of this, he decides that it must be a sign. "The fates had not allowed it" (108). Then he doubts that for a few pages in typical Quinn style.
Chapter 12 begins with an account from the narrator, referring to himself as the author of an entirely true account of Quinn's foray into private detective-hood. The direct account of Quinn's thoughts and feelings shifts here and the narrator's voice is more clear. Quinn becomes a faux drifter, living in an alley and trying to sleep as infrequently as possible so as not to miss anything important. We don't hear anything about Stillman, Virginia, or anyone else during these pages.
These 25 or so pages are very disorganized, story wise. I think this might be the saddest part of the book. At least at the beginning it seemed as if Quinn might solve the case and everything might turn out fine for him. But by this point, there aren't enough pages for the book to wrap up conveniently and the reader is left with a sad feeling, both for Quinn and for the unexplained characters like Virginia since she will obviously never get closure for her case and we will never get closure about her.

Word Count: 585