The tension drained visibly from Tom Lambert. He snorted in relief. “Ten years from now? Drake, if you come back to me in eight or ten years and ask me again, I’ll admit I was completely wrong. And I promise you, I’ll help you to do what you’ve asked.”

“An absolute promise? I don’t want to hear some day that you changed your mind, or didn’t mean what you said.”

“An absolute promise. Sure, I’ll give you that.” Tom laughed. “But I’m not worried that I’ll ever be called on it. I’ll bet you everything I own that after a year or two have gone by, you’ll never mention that promise again. Hard as it seems to believe today, you’ll be living a new life, and you’ll be enjoying it.” He walked over to the sideboard and poured himself a drink. “I’d like to propose a toast, Drake. Or actually, three toasts. To us. To your future. And to your next — and greatest — composition.”

Drake raised his glass in return. “To us, and the future. I’ll drink to those. But I can’t drink to my next work, because I don’t know when I’ll create it. I have lots of other things to do — for one thing, you told me to get out of town. I’m going

to do that, right away. But don’t worry, Tom. I’ll be in touch when the time is right.”

Chapter 4

Into the Abyss

There were two problems. The first was easy to define but hard to solve: money.

In the early days, Drake and Ana had been very poor. As a result they talked about money quite a lot. She would glance through their joint checking account book, with its zero balance, and groan. He would laugh, with more worry than humor, and once he quoted something he had just read by Somerset Maugham: “Money is the sixth sense that enables us to enjoy the other five.” He added: “I guess that leaves us six senses short.”

Unfortunately, neither groans nor quotations produced income. Money, or the lack of it, seemed important, as important as anything in the world except music” and each other.