"What are you saying, Victor?"

"Out is in. Got it?"

"In is . . . not in anymore?"JD asks. "Is that it?"

I glance at him as we descend the next flight of stairs. "No, inis out. Out is in. Simple, non?"

JD blinks twice, shivering, both of us moving farther down into thedarkness.

"See, out is in, JD."

"Victor, I'm really nervous as it is," he says. "Don'tstart with me today."

"You don't even have to think about it. Out is in. In is out."

"Wait, okay. In is out? Do I have that down so far?"

At the bottom, it is so cold that I've noticed candles don't evenstay lit, they keep going out as we pass, and the TV monitors showonly static. At the foot of the stairs by the bar, a magician wholooks like a young German version of Antonio Banderas with a buzz cutidly shuffles a deck of cards, slump-shouldered, smoking a smalljoint, drinking a Diet Coke, wearing ripped jeans and a pocket T, theback-to-basics look, exaggeratedly sloppy, the rows of emptychampagne glasses behind him reflecting what little light exists downhere.

"Right. Out is in."

"But then what exactly is in?"JD asks, his breath steaming.

"Out is, JD."

"So . . . in is not in?"

"That's the whole p-p-point." It's so cold my biceps arecovered with goose bumps.

"But then what's out? It's alwaysin? What about specifics?"

"If you need this defined for you, maybe you're in the wrongworld," I murmur.

The magician gives us the peace sign in a vague way.

"You did Brad Pitt's party?" I ask.

The magician makes a deck of cards, the stool he's sitting on, one ofmy slippers and a large bottle of Absolut Currant disappear, thensays "Abracadabra."

"You did Brad Pitt's party?" I sigh.