Jake looked down and saw Oy sitting on the sidewalk with his tail curled neatly around him. The billy-bumbler wasn’t wearing little red booties and Jake wasn’t wearing the red Oxfords (thank God), but this was still very like their visit to Roland’s Gilead, which they had reached by traveling in the pink Wizard’s Glass. The glass ball that had caused so much trouble and woe.

No glass this time…he’d just gone to sleep. But this was no dream. It was more intense than any dream he’d ever had, and more textured. Also…

Also, people kept detouring around him and Oy as they stood to the left of a midtown saloon called Kansas City Blues. While Jake was making this observation, a woman actually stepped over Oy, hitching up her straight black skirt a bit at the knee in order to do so. Her preoccupied face ( I’m just one more New Yorker minding my business, so don’t screw with mewas what that face said to Jake) never changed.

They don’t see us, but somehow they sense us. And if they can sense us, we must really be here.

The first logical question was Why? Jake considered this for a moment, then decided to table it. He had an idea the answer would come. Meantime, why not enjoy New York while he had it?

“Come on, Oy,” he said, and walked around the corner. The billy-bumbler, clearly no city boy, walked so close to him that Jake could feel his breath feathering against his ankle.

Second Avenue,he thought. Then: My God —

Before he could finish the thought, he saw Eddie Dean standing outside of the Barcelona Luggage store, looking dazed and more than a little out of place in old jeans, a deerskin shirt, and deerskin moccasins. His hair was clean, but it hung to his shoulders in a way that suggested no professional had seen to it in quite some time. Jake realized he himself didn’t look much better; he was also wearing a deerskin shirt and, on his lower half, the battered remains of the Dockers he’d had on the day he left home for good, setting sail for Brooklyn, Dutch Hill, and another world.

Good thing no one can see us,Jake thought, then decided that wasn’t true. If people could see them, they’d probably get rich on spare change before noon. The thought made him grin. “Hey, Eddie,” he said. “Welcome home.”

Eddie nodded, looking bemused. “See you brought your friend.”

Jake reached down and gave Oy an affectionate pat. “He’s my version of the American Express Card. I don’t go home without him.”