Time, I thought. Upstate, with low companions and nothing good to read. But maybe it wouldn’t come to that. Maybe I could talk my way out of it, or bribe a cop, or get Wally Hemphill to work a legal miracle. Maybe I could-

There were two of them. I could hear them talking, a man and a woman. I couldn’t make out what they were saying-the closet door was thick and fit snugly-but I could hear them well enough to distinguish the pitch of their voices. Two of them, a man and a woman, in the apartment.

Oh, wonderful. Candlemas had assured me I’d have plenty of time, that the portfolio’s current owner was out for the evening. But he was quite obviously back, and he had his girlfriend with him, and all I could hope for was that they would go to sleep fairly soon, and without opening the closet door.

They didn’t sound sleepy, though. They sounded fervent, even impassioned, and I realized why I couldn’t make out what they were saying. They were talking in a language I couldn’t understand.

That covered everything but English, actually. But there are other languages I can recognize when I hear them, even if I can’t understand what it is I’m hearing. French, German, Spanish, Italian-I know what those all sound like, and can even catch the odd word or phrase. But these folks were flailing away at one another in a tongue I hadn’t heard before. It didn’t even sound like a language, but more like what you used to hear when you tried to play a Beatles album backward, looking for evidence that Paul was dead.

They went on nattering and I went on stupidly trying to make sense out of it, and struggling mightily not to sneeze. Something in the closet was evidently playing host to a little mold or mildew, and I seemed to be the slightest bit allergic to it. I swallowed and pinched my nose and did all the things you think of, hoping they’ll work and knowing they won’t. Then I got angry, furious at myself for getting in a pickle like this, and that worked. The urge to sneeze went away.