Corwin? File it away, under “Corey.”

“Maybe I don't,” I said. “I've been asleep for a while, remember?”

“You mean you haven't been in touch?”

“Haven't had a chance, since I woke up.”

She leaned her head to one side and narrowed her wonderful eyes.

“Rash,” she said, “but possible. Just possible. You might mean it. You might. I'll pretend that you do, for now. In that case, you may have done a smart safe thing. Let me think about it.”

I drew on my cigarette, hoping she'd say something more. But she didn't, so I decided to seize what seemed the advantage I'd obtained in this game I didn't understand with players I didn't know for stakes I had no inkling of.

“The fact that I'm here indicates something,” I said.

“Yes,” she replied, “I know. But you're smart, so it could indicate more than one thing. We'll wait and see.”

Wait for what? See what? Thing?

Steaks then arrived and a pitcher of beer, so I was temporarily freed from the necessity of making cryptic and general statements for her to ponder as subtle or cagey. Mine was a good steak, pink inside and full of juice, and I tore at the fresh tough-crested bread with my teeth and gulped the beer with a great hunger and a thirst. She laughed as she watched me, while cutting off tiny pieces of her own.

“I love the gusto with which you assail life, Corwin. It's one of the reasons I'd hate to see you part company with it.”

“Me, too,” I muttered.

And while I ate, I pondered her. I saw her in a low-cut gown, green as the green of the sea, with full skirts. There was music, dancing, voices behind us. I wore black and silver and ... The vision faded. But it was a true piece of my memory, I knew; and inwardly I cursed that I lacked it in its entirety. What had she been saying, in her green, to me in my black and silver, that night, behind the music, the dancing and the voices?