I sat for a long while, hoping for some answer to come. The only thing that arrived, however, was more drowsiness and eventual sleep. This time it was the Big, dark, quiet thing it is supposed to be, sans all vicissitudes and angst, peaceful. All the way through into night and my station, I slept. Refreshed for a change, I stepped down to familiar concrete, remapped the world about me and threaded my way through its parking lot, an alley and four blocks of closed stores.
I satisfied myself that I was not being followed, entered an all-night diner and ate a strange-tasting meal. Strange, because the place was a greasy spoon and the food was deliciously different. I ate two of their notorious hamburgers and great masses of soggy French fries. A sheaf of wilted lettuce and several slices of overripe tomato added to the treat. I wolfed everything down, not really caring whether or not it satisfied all my nutritional needs. It was the finest meal I had ever eaten. Except for the milkshake. It was undrinkable and I left it.
Then I walked. It was a good distance, but then I was in no hurry, I was rested and my posterior had had enough of public transportation for a time. It took the better part of an hour to reach the Woof & Warp, but it was a good night for walking.
The shop was closed, of course, but I could see a light in Ralph’s apartment upstairs. I went around back, shinnied up the drainpipe and peered in the window. He sat reading a book, and I could hear the faint sounds of a string quartet-I couldn’t tell whose-from within. Good. That he was alone, I mean. I hate to break in on people.
I rapped on the pane.
He looked up, stared a moment, rose and came over.
The window slid upward.
“Hi, Fred. Come on in.”
“Thanks, Ralph. How’ve you been?”
“Fine,” he said. “Business has been good, too.”
“Great.”
I climbed in, closed the window, crossed the room with him. I accepted a drink whose taste I did not recognize, though it looked like a fruit juice there in the pitcher on the table. We sat down, and I did not feel especially disoriented. He rearranges his rooms so often that I can never remember the layout from one time to the next, anyway. Ralph is a tall, wiry guy with lots of dark hair and bad posture. He knows all manner of crafty things. Even teaches basket weaving at the university.
“How did you like Australia?”
“Oh, barring a few mishaps, I might have enjoyed it I haven’t decided yet.”
“What sort of mishaps?”
“Later, later,” I said. “Another time, maybe. Say, would it be too much trouble to put me up in the back room tonight?”
“Not unless you and Woof have had an argument.”
“We have an arrangement,” I said. “He sleeps with his nose under his tail and I get the blankets.”
“The last time you stayed over it worked out the other way around.”
“That’s what led to the arrangement.”
“We’ll see what happens this time. Did you just get back in town?”
“Well, yes and no.”
He clasped his hands about his knee and smiled.
“I admire your straightforward approach to things, Fred. Nothing evasive or misleading about you.”
“I’m always being misunderstood,” I said. “It is the burden of an honest man in a world of knaves. Yes, I just got back in town, but not from Australia. I did that a couple days ago, then went away and just now came back again. No, I did not just get back in town from Australia. See?”
He shook his head.
“You have a simple, almost classic life-style, too. What sort of trouble are you in this time? Irate husband? Mad bomber? Syndicate creditor?”
“Nothing like that,” I said.
“Worse? Or better?”
“More complicated. What have you heard?”
“Nothing. But your adviser phoned me.”
“When?”
“A little over a week ago. Then again this morning.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to know where you were, wanted to know whether I had heard from you. I told him no on both counts. He told me a man would be stopping by to ask some questions. The university would appreciate my cooperation. That was the first time. The man showed up a little later, asked me the same questions, got the same answers.”