After she headed for the kitchen I got a sudden flash of a martini, straight up and bone dry and ice cold in a stemmed glass. I could see it, I could smell the odor of juniper and the tang of a lemon twist. I could feel the bite as it hit bottom.

Jesus, I thought.

The urge for a drink passed as suddenly as it had come on me. I decided it was a reflex, a reaction to the atmosphere of Armstrong’s. I’d done so much drinking here for so long, I’d been eighty-sixed here after my last bender, and I hadn’t crossed the threshold since. It was only natural that I’d think of a drink. It didn’t mean I had to have one.

I ate my meal, drank a second cup of coffee afterward. I read my newspaper, paid my check, left a tip. Then it was time to go over to St. Paul’s.

The qualification was an alcoholic version of the American Dream. The speaker was a poor boy from Worcester, Mass. who worked his way through college, rose to a vice-presidency at one of the television networks, then lost it all drinking. He went all the way down, wound up in Los Angeles drinking Sterno in Pershing Square, then found AA and got it all back.

It would have been inspiring if I could have kept my mind on it. But my attention kept straying. I thought about Sunny’s funeral, I thought about what Chance had told me, and I found my thoughts wandering all over the whole case, trying to make sense out of it.

Damnit, it was all there. I just wasn’t looking at it right.

I left during the discussion, before it was my turn to speak. I didn’t even feel like saying my name tonight. I walked back to my hotel, fighting the urge to stop in at Armstrong’s for a minute or two.

I called Durkin. He was out. I hung up without leaving a message and called Jan.

No answer. Well, she was probably still at her meeting. And she’d go out for coffee afterward, probably wouldn’t get home until after eleven.

I could have stayed at my own meeting until it ended, then gone to coffee with some of the others. I could join them now, as far as that went. The Cobb’s Corner where they hung out wasn’t all that far away.

I thought about it. And decided I didn’t really want to go there.