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muttered. “Eleanora, Eleanora, my love, my love.”
    He staggered out of sight into the bedroom.
    I waited. There were no other sounds.
    It took me a moment to fight my way to my feet. I set my drink down on the coffee table. I walked to the bedroom door as if I were balancing on a tightrope. I peered in. Colt lay sprawled facedown across the nearest bed. I saw his back lift and fall with his breathing. I heard him start to snore.
    I turned unsteadily. I don’t know why. I dared the tightrope back to the sofa to get my coat. I picked up the coat but decided it would be best to put it on sitting down. I sat down heavily, with the coat on my lap. The sofa seemed very deep, very soft. I blinked. I blinked again. I blinked several times over. Maybe it would be better, I thought, to put the coat on lying down. I lay down. I pulled the coat up over me. I closed my eyes.
    I opened my eyes quickly when I felt the whole world start to spin. My stomach flipped as I lay on the sofa. I stared at the lamp in the ceiling to bring the room to a halt. I had to fight to bring all the split images together. For many long minutes, I hung in that precarious place where it is impossible to keep your eyes open and sickening to close them.
    Then, mercifully, I passed into oblivion.

A n insistent knock—and a taste like sand—brought me round. The room was bright with morning. It was a piercing brightness: the optical equivalent of a dentist’s drill. I groaned when it hit me. I tried to go to sleep again. The knock kept on. My head ached with it. I blinked. I ran my tongue through the sand in my mouth. I sat up. I groaned.
    The knocking kept on. I figured it out. Someone was knocking on the door. The door, I noticed now, was not where it usually was. The window was not where it usually was. I, as it turned out, was not where I usually was. The knocking continued to hammer at my head from the outside. A dull throbbing began to answer it from within. I called up the memory of the night before. I remembered Timothy Colt. His hotel room. I looked down at the coat on my lap.
    The knocking kept on.
    â€œAll right!” I shouted. The sound of my own voice ricocheted off my internal organs like a pinball. “All right,” I said more quietly.
    I tried to push myself off the sofa. It seemed a long way. I tried again, my stomach heaving.
    I stood. The room rocked this way and that. The knocking—which had paused when I shouted—started up again. I cursed. I turned slowly to find the door.
    â€œI’ll get it!”
    The voice startled me. It was Colt. He had come, not from the bedroom to my left, but from the bathroom to my right. He came striding out vigorously. He was dressed and pressed and ready to meet the day. His wiry frame was wrapped in a natty tan suit with a western cut. There was a string tie in a neat bow around his neck. His chin was clean-shaven. His hair was wet and slapped back on his skull as if he’d just come out of the shower.
    I groaned at the sight of him. He grinned at me as he passed to the door.
    â€œYou look awful there, friend,” he said. “Go on back to sleep for a while.”
    I made the only response I could think of without the use of a pistol. Colt laughed. He grabbed hold of the doorknob and pulled the door in. I stumbled into the bathroom.
    I heard Colt say: “Well, hey!” He sounded surprised and pleased.
    I heard a low, breathy voice answer, “Compliments of the house, Mr. Colt.”
    Colt laughed. “Fine by me.”
    I relieved myself, then stumbled to the sink. I splashed water on my aching face. I looked up in the mirror. It was not a pleasant sight. The usual crags and lines of a thin, fierce face had sagged in the light until I looked like a basset hound. Above the high hairline, my gray hair lay damp and tangled.
    Behind this travesty, I saw the reflection of the sitting room. A bellboy had entered carrying a tray. He took it to the