Finally the party repaired to a bar down the street. Shouts and laughter like gunfire erupted on Seventh Street as the agency folks wandered down the deep canyons made by the fifty-one-storey IDS Centre and several department stores, including Dayton's. One couple, whose respective husband and wife had been unable to be at the party, stood in the centre of the street alternately kissing and then pointing up at one of the tall buildings where Brolan-Foster had its agency on the ninth and tenth floors. The chill night only made all this insanity even more fetching and precarious-soon enough it would be bitter Minnesota winter; soon enough they would be home and sober with their respective mates. But for now it was time to laugh and shout and hit on whomever you could get away with hitting on. Before the predicted snow came the following day.

The five bartenders behind the bar looked as wary as cops at a particularly unruly demonstration. In less than five minutes the place had filled up, the jukebox thundered rock and roll, and people usually so staid they looked like Bible college graduates were out there shaking their asses as if they were trying to get rid of them.

Brolan paced. He was a pacer. Maybe that was why, at forty-five, he was reasonably trim. Pacing. He'd paced his way through nine different jobs in twenty-three years in advertising, paced his way through a divorce, and paced his way through three earnest but hopeless affairs. He tried hard not to think about Kathleen Logan. Jealousy never did anybody any good, least of all somebody as naturally suspicious and pessimistic as Brolan. So, even in his dinner jacket, his startling white hair and gaslight-blue eyes complementing the black outfit well enough that he should be able to pick up somebody that night, he paced.