“I beg your pardon?”

“There’s still time.”

“You don’t understand. They’ve killed a friend of mine.” But seeing it in the Times that way, so public… how could any of that be real, real enough to convince him Tantivy won’t just come popping in the door some day, howdyfoax and a bashful smile… hey, Tantivy. Where were you?

“Where was I, Slothrop? That’s a good one.” His smile lighting the time again, and the world all free… .

He flashes Waxwing’s card. The old woman breaks into an amazing smile, the two teeth left in her head beam under the night’s new bulbs. She thumbs him upstairs and then gives him either the V-for-victory sign or some spell from distant countryside against the evil eye that sours the milk. Whichever it is, she is chuckling sarcastically.

Upstairs is a roof, a kind of penthouse in the middle. Three young men with Apache sideburns and a young woman packing a braided leather sap are sitting in front of the entrance smoking a thin cigarette of ambiguous odor. “You are lost, mon ami.”

“Uh, well,” out with Waxwing’s card again.

“Ah, bien… .” They roll aside, and he passes into a bickering of canary-yellow Borsalini, corksoled comicbook shoes with enormous round toes, lotta that saddle-stitching in contrasting colors (such as orange on blue, and the perennial favorite, green on magenta), workaday groans of comforted annoyance commonly heard in public toilets, telephone traffic inside clouds of cigar smoke. Waxwing isn’t in, but a colleague interrupts some loud dealing soon as he sees the card.

“What do you need?”

“Carte d’identité, passage to Zürich, Switzerland.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Place to sleep.”

The man hands over a key to one of the rooms downstairs. “Do you have any money?”

“Not much. I don’t know when I could—”

Count, squint, riffle, “Here.”

“Uh…”

“It’s all right, it’s not a loan. It comes out of overhead. Now, don’t go outside, don’t get drunk, stay away from the girls who work here.”

“Aw…”

“See you tomorrow.” Back to business.

Slothrop’s night passes uncomfortably. There is no position he can manage to sleep in for more than ten minutes. The bugs sally out onto his body in skirmish parties not uncoordinated with his level of wakefulness. Drunks come to the door, drunks and revenants.

“’Rone, you’ve gotta let me in, it’s Dumpster, Dumpster Villard.”

“What’s ’at—”

“It’s really bad tonight. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t impose this way, I’m more trouble than I’m worth… listen… I’m cold… I’ve been a long way… .”

A sharp knock. “Dumpster—”

“No, no, it’s Murray Smile, I was next to you in basic, company 84, remember? Our serial numbers are only two digits apart.”

“I had to let… let Dumpster in… where’d he go? Was I asleep?”

“Don’t tell them I was here. I just came to tell you you don’t have to go back.”

“Really? Did they say it was all right?”

“It’s all right.”

“Yeah, but did they say it was?” Silence. “Hey? Murray?” Silence.