“He was probably drunk. They usually are.”

“Maybe he was in a blackout. Maybe he came to the next day and never knew what he’d done.”

“Jesus,” I said, and thought of that night’s speaker, the man who stabbed his lover. “Eight million stories in the Emerald City. And eight million ways to die.”

“The naked city.”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“You said the Emerald City.”

“I did? Where did I get that from?”

“The Wizard of Oz. Remember? Dorothy and Toto in Kansas? Judy Garland going over the rainbow?”

“Of course I remember.”

“ ‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road.’ It led to the Emerald City, where the wonderful wizard lived.”

“I remember. The Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, I remember the whole thing. But where’d I get emeralds from?”

“You’re an alcoholic,” she suggested. “You’re missing a couple of brain cells, that’s all.”

I nodded. “Must be it,” I said.

The sky was turning light when we went to sleep. I slept on the couch wrapped up in a couple of spare blankets. At first I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but the tiredness came over me like a towering wave. I gave up and let it take me wherever it wanted.

I can’t say where it took me because I slept like a dead man. If I dreamed at all I never knew about it. I awoke to the smells of coffee perking and bacon frying, showered, shaved with a disposable razor she’d laid out for me, then got dressed and joined her at a pine plank table in the kitchen. I drank orange juice and coffee and ate scrambled eggs and bacon and whole wheat muffins with peach preserves, and I couldn’t remember when my appetite had been so keen.

There was a group that met Sunday afternoons a few blocks to the east of us, she informed me. She made it one of her regular meetings. Did I feel like joining her?

“I ought to do some work,” I said.

“On a Sunday?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Are you really going to be able to accomplish anything on a Sunday afternoon?”

I hadn’t really accomplished anything since I’d started. Was there anything I could do today?

I got out my notebook, dialed Sunny’s number. No answer. I called my hotel. Nothing from Sunny. Nothing from Danny Boy Bell or anyone else I’d seen last night. Well, Danny Boy would still be sleeping at this hour, and so might most of the others.

There was a message to call Chance. I started dialing his number, then stopped myself. If Jan was going to a meeting, I didn’t want to sit around her loft waiting for him to call back. Her sponsor might not approve.