"What do you mean: half-witted?"

"He only got a piece of the thing, not the whole solution."

"I don't follow."

"Even Kissoon didn't know what the Art was. He had clues, but only clues. It's vast. It collapses time and place. It makes everything one again. The past, the future and the dreaming moment between...one immortal day..."

"Beautiful," Grillo said.

"Would Swift approve?"

"f.u.c.k Swift."

"Somebody should have."

"So...Omaha?"

"That's where we start. That's where all the lost mail of America ends up, and it may have some clues for us. People know stuff, Grillo. Even without realizing it, they know. That's what makes us wonderful."

"And they write it down?"

"Yes. Then they send the letters out."

"And they end up in Omaha."

"Some of them. Pay for the cheeseburger. I'll be waiting outside."

He did, and she was.

"I should have eaten," he said. "I'm suddenly hungry."

D'Amour didn't leave until late in the evening, and when he did he left two exhausted storytellers behind him. He took copious notes, flipping the pages of his pad back and forth as he tried to make sense of the way fragments of information related to one another.

When Howie and Jo-Beth were talked out, he gave them his card with a New York address and number on it, scrawling another, private number on the back.

"Move as soon as you can," he advised. "Tell n.o.body where you're going. n.o.body at all. And when you get there- wherever it is-change your names. Pretend you're married."

Jo-Beth laughed.

"Old-fashioned, but why not?" D'Amour said. "People don't gossip about married folks. And as soon as you've arrived, call me and tell me where I'll be able to find you. I'll be in contact from then on. I can't promise guardian angels, but there are forces that can watch out for you. I've got a friend called Norma I'd like you to meet. She's good at finding watchdogs."

"We can buy a dog for ourselves," Howie said.

"Not her kind you can't. Thank you for all you've told me. I have to get going. It's a long drive."

"You driving to New York?"

"I hate flying," he said. "I had a bad experience in the air one time, minus plane. Remind me to tell you about it. You should know the dirt on me now I know it about you."

He went to the door, and let himself out, leaving the small apartment reeking of European cigarettes.

"I need some fresh air," Howie said to Jo-Beth once he'd gone. "Want to walk with me?"

It was well past midnight, and the cold from which D'Amour had stepped five hours before had worsened, but it stirred them from their exhaustion. As their torpor lifted they talked.

"There was a lot you told D'Amour that I didn't know," Jo-Beth said.

"Like what?"

"The stuff that happened on the Ephemeris."

"You mean Byrne?"

"Yes. I wonder what he saw up there."

"He said he'd come back and tell me, if we all survived."

"I don't want secondhand reports. I'd like to see for myself."

"Go back to the Ephemeris?"

"Yes. As long as it was with you, I'd like that."

Perhaps inevitably, their route had brought them down to the Lake. The wind had teeth, but its breath was fresh.

"Aren't you afraid of what Quiddity could do to us," Howie said, "if we ever go back?"

"Not really. Not if we're together."

She took hold of his hand. They were both suddenly sweating, despite the cold, their innards churning the way they had the first time, when their eyes had met across Butrick's Steak House. A little age had pa.s.sed since then, transforming them both.

"We're both desperadoes now," Howie murmured "I suppose we are," Jo-Beth said. "But it's all right. n.o.body can separate us."

"I wish that was true. "

"It is true. You know it is. "

She raised her hand, which was still locked in his, between them.

"Remember this?" she said. "That's what Quiddity showed us. It joined us together. "

The shudders in her body pa.s.sed through her hand, through the sweat that ran between their palms, and into him.

"We have to be true to that. "

"Marry me?" he said.

"Too late, " she replied. "I already did. "

They were at the Lake's edge now, but of course it wasn't Michigan they saw as they looked out into the night, it was Quiddity. It hurt, thinking of that place. The same kind of hurt that touched any living soul when a whisper of the dream-sea touched the edge of consciousness. But so much sharper for them, who couldn't dismiss the longing, but knew Quiddity was real; a place where love might found continents.

It would not be long before dawn, and at the first sign of the sun they'd have to go to sleep. But until the light came-until the real insisted upon their imaginations-they stood watching the darkness, waiting, half in hope and half in fear, for that other sea to rise from dreams and claim them from the sh.o.r.e.

end