'I caught sight of you over an hour ago, several bars back. That one was fairly crowded, though. Just as I'd started toward you, you got up to leave. I called out, but you didn't hear me over the noise. By the time I'd paid up and gotten out myself you were part way up the street. I started after you and saw this fellow come out of a doorway and do the same. I thought nothing of it at first, but you did wander awhile and he was making all the same turns. Then when you found another bar, he just stopped and stared at it. Then he went into a doorway, lit a cigar, coughed several times and waited there, watching the place. So I walked on by as far as the corner. There was a phone booth, and I got inside and watched him while I pretended to make a call. You didn't stay in that place very long, and when you came out and moved on, he did the same. I held off approaching you for two more bars, just to be positive. But I am convinced now. You are being followed.'
'Okay,' I said. 'I buy that.'
'Your casual acceptance of the situation causes me to believe that it was not wholly unexpected.'
'Exactly.'
'Does it involve anything I might be able to help you with?'
'Not in terms of the headache's causes. But possibly the immediate symptoms ... '
'Like getting you away from here without his noting it?'
'That is what I had in mind.'
He gestured with a bandaged hand.
'No problem. Take your time with your drink. Relax. Consider it done. Pretend to study the merchandise.'
'Why?'
'Why not?'
'What happened to your hand?'
'Accident, sort of, with a butcher knife. Have they graduated you yet?'
'No. They're still working on it.'
A waiter came-by, deposited a napkin and a drink before him, took his money, glanced at the photos, gave me a wink and moved back toward the bar.
'I thought I had you cornered in History when I left,' he said, raising the drink, taking a sip, pursing his lips, taking another. 'What happened?'
'I escaped into Archaeology.'
'Shaky. You had too many of the Anthro and Ancient History requirements for that to last long.'
'True. But it provided a resting place for the second semester, which was all I needed. In the fall they started a Geology program. I mined that for a year and a half. By then, several new areas had opened up.'
He shook his head.
'Exceptionally absurd,' he said.
'Thank you.'
I took a big, cold swallow.
He cleared his throat.
'How serious is this situation, anyway?'
'Offhand, I'd say it's fairly serious-though it seems to be based on a misunderstanding.'
'I mean, does it involve the authorities-or private individuals?'
'Both, it seems. Why? You having second thoughts about helping me?'
'No, of course not! I was trying to estimate the opposition.'
'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I guess I do owe you an appraisal of the risk ... '
He raised a hand as if to stop me, but I went on anyway.
'I have no idea who that is outside. But at least a couple people involved in the whole business seem to be dangerous.'
'All right, that is sufficient,' he said. 'I am, as always, totally responsible for my own actions, and I choose to assist you. Enough!'
We drank on it. He rearranged the pictures, smiling.
'I really could fix you up for tonight with one of them,' he said, 'if you wanted.'
'Thanks. But tonight's my night for getting drunk.'
'They are not mutually exclusive pastimes.'
'They are tonight.'
'Well,' he said, shrugging, 'I'd no intention to force anything on you. It is just that you aroused my hospitality. Success often does that.'
'Success?'
'You are one of the few successful persons I know.'
'Me? Why?'
'You know precisely what you are doing and you do it well.'
'But I don't really do much of anything.'
'And of course the quantity means nothing to you, nor the weight others place upon your actions. In my eyes, that makes you a success.'
'By not giving a damn? But I do, you know.'
'Of course you do, of course you do! But it is a matter of style, an awareness of choice-'
'Okay,' I said. 'Observation acknowledged and accepted in the proper spirit. Now-'
'-and that makes us kindred souls,' he went on. 'For I am just that way myself.'
'Naturally. I knew it all along. Now about getting me out of here ... '
'There is a kitchen with a back door to it,' he said. 'They serve meals here during the day. We will go out that way. The barman is a friend of mine. No problem there. Then I will take you a roundabout way to my place. There is a party should be going on there now. Enjoy as much as you want of it and sleep wherever you find a warm corner.'
'Sounds very inviting, especially the corner. Thanks.'
We finished our drinks and he put the ladies back in his pocket. He went to talk with the bartender and I saw the man nodding. Then he turned and gestured with his eyes toward the rear. I met him at the door to the kitchen.
He guided me through the kitchen and out the back door into an alleyway. I turned up my collar against the continuing drizzle and followed him off to the right. We turned left at an intersecting alley, passed among the dark shapes of trash containers, splashed through a lake of a puddle that soaked my socks and emerged near the middle of the next block.
Three or four blocks and twice as many minutes later, I followed him up the stairs in the building that held his quarters. The dampness had raised a musty smell and the stairs creaked beneath us. As we ascended, I heard faint sounds of music mixed in with voices and a bit of laughter.
We followed the sounds, coming at last to his door. We entered, he performed a dozen or so introductions and took my coat. I found a glass and some ice and some mix, took it and myself and my bottle to a chair and sat down, to talk, watch and hope that enjoyment was contagious while I drank myself into the big blank place that was waiting somewhere for me.
I found it eventually, of course, but not before seeing the party through to the dust-and-ashes stage. As everyone else present was headed along paths that led in the same direction, I did not feel too far removed from the action. Through the haze, the sound, the booze, everything came to seem normal, appropriate and unusually bright, even the re-entrance of Merimee, clad only in a garland of bay leaves and mounted on the small gray donkey that made its home in one of the back rooms. A grinning dwarf preceded him with a pair of cymbals. For a while, nobody seemed to notice. The procession halted before me.
'Fred?'
'Yes?'
'Before I forget, if you should oversleep in the morning and I'm gone when you get up, the bacon is in the lower drawer on the right in the refrigerator, and I keep the bread in the cupboard to the left. The eggs are in plain sight. Help yourself.'
'Thanks. I'll remember that.'
'One other thing ... '
