“All that time, working on it,” Sara said, marveling. “And all the time during the Saturday nights with the boys and all the trouble with Janis. No wonder you were kind of tetchy.”

“Tetchy’s one word for it,” Todd said.

“Yeah well, I don’t have time to list all the other words for it.” Sara smiled. Todd tried to smile back.

“Todd,” said Sara. She put her hands on his shoulders. “You wrote this book, didn’t you?”

“Excuse me?” Todd almost stammered.

“It’s a rhetorical question.”

“Yes, I wrote it,” said Todd. “Of course I did.”

“Then go out there and get ’em.”

Sara kissed him on the lips.

*  *  *

Todd’s flight was relatively short and not too uncomfortable. He declined a free drink and tried to nap instead. He had just succeeded when the plane began its descent.

*  *  *

Todd carried his sole bag through the concourse and was about to start looking for the transit stop when he saw a huge young man holding a piece of card with MILSTEAD written on it.

“Is that for me?” he asked. “I’m Todd Milstead.”

“Then it’s you,” said the huge young man. “Welcome to New York. I’m Barry.”

Barry took Todd’s bag in a hand so large that the action reminded Todd of Gulliver picking up a barrel of beer. “Follow me,” he said.

*  *  *

“New York’s cold for the time of year,” said Barry. He wasn’t wrong. Everything around them was gray or white, except the sky, which was both. Barry led Todd to a large gray sedan, opened the trunk to let it swallow Todd’s bag, and then opened the sedan’s door for Todd.

Todd slid inside. Barry started the engine and the sedan nosed its way out of the airport parking lot.

“Ever been to New York before?” said Barry.

“Few times,” said Todd, by which he meant he’d been once.

“Great city, despite what they say,” Barry said.

Todd had to take his word for that, as they were now enveloped in rolling clouds of sleet. When he could see anything, it was boarded up and covered in angular, sprawling graffiti.

“Manhattan,” said Barry as they cruised past Times Square. Now Todd could see through the snow, not the wealthy socialites of his favorite noir movies, but an entire city of people swathed up in huge coats, heads wrapped in what looked like gray rags, huddled around braziers, walking through clouds of steam belched from subways, and all dodging around hundreds—no, thousands—of yellow taxi cabs. Todd wondered how it was that there were so many cabs and yet so few people were having any luck hailing one.

Barry turned the sedan abruptly right and drew up outside a large building with a low gold-frosted frontage.

“The Excelsior,” he said. “This is where you’ll be staying tonight.”

“I had planned to go home this evening,” Todd said.