“Was a time they burned fourteen-foot logs in there,” Kellen said. “Imagine that, right? Like cutting telephone poles in half and tossing them into the fireplace. You ought to get a shot of it.”

Eric nodded, got the camera out but didn’t put it on the tripod, just stood and held it up to his shoulder, turned and focused on the mural and watched the Sprudel figure fill the lens.

There was a piano not far from the bar, a full-size grand, and a man in a tuxedo was playing it. Eric swiveled to catch a shot of it, and the piano player saw him, looked back at the camera and winked. For some reason that made Eric turn away immediately, lower the camera and click it off and put it back in the bag. When he straightened from the bag he was dizzy, and squares of light floated in front of his eyes when he faced the rows of bottles behind the bar.

“Did that quick,” Kellen said.

“Light’s wrong,” Eric muttered, reaching for his drink. He took a long swallow and blinked a few times, waiting for steadiness to return. It didn’t.

The size of the rotunda was getting to him now, giving him a strange sense of vertigo even though he was standing at the bottom of it, feet firm on the floor. The place was just too damn open and too damn big. He and Kellen were standing at the short length of bar that extended into the atrium, but opposite them the bar was enclosed, secluded in a small room with wood paneling and dim lights. He suddenly wanted to get in there. Into the tighter space, into the dark.

But Kellen Cage was still talking, going on about the Waddy Hotel and a Negro League baseball team called the Plutos, so Eric put one hand on the bar and one foot on the brass rail to steady himself, had another long pull of the Grey Goose. Let the guy talk, don’t freak out. There was no problem here. Everything was fine.

His mouth was dry despite the drink, and Kellen Cage’s voice seemed to be coming from far away, with a trace of an echo to it. The lights in the atrium were growing brighter, slowly but obviously, as if someone had a hand on a dimmer switch and was rotating it gently, turning up the wattage. The headache was back, a faint throb down at the base of his skull, and that too-large buffet dinner was shifting in his stomach.

He put both hands on the bar, leaning onto the cold granite top, and was about to interrupt Kellen Cage to say he needed to step outside and get some air, when a new sound replaced that strange, echoing conversation around him. Music, a clear melody, pure and beautiful. Strings. A cello in the background, maybe, but at the forefront was a violin, a violin played as sweetly as anything Eric had ever heard. It was a soothing sound, a caress, and he felt the trapped air leave his lungs and the headache fade and his stomach settle. The cello hit on a low, long note and then the violin came back in over the top, soaring now, exuberant, and Eric was in awe of the beauty of it, turned to look for the source. It had to be live; he’d been around a lot of recording equipment and was certain they had yet to invent something that could capture sound this well.

The atrium was empty except for a few people in chairs, no band in sight, nothing but the piano player. He turned to look at him again then as the violin music dipped away, the song sad and sweet again. The piano player had his head bowed, and his hands were flying along, their motions completely out of sync with the strings. But the violin piece was coming from the piano. There wasn’t any doubt about it. The thing was no more than thirty feet away and Eric, blessed with good ears and better vision, knew without question that the violin music was coming from beneath the lid of that grand piano.

“You dig the music, huh?” Kellen Cage said.

Eric was still staring, waiting for something that showed him he was wrong but finding nothing-the piano, somehow, was playing a strings melody. The most beautiful strings melody he’d ever heard. But the hands didn’t match. The hands were not playing this song.

“What’s this song?” he said. His voice was a rasp.

“Huh?” Cage said, leaning closer, smelling of cologne.

“What’s the name of this song?”

Kellen Cage pulled his head back and gave Eric a curious smile. “You kidding me? It’s the thing from Casablanca, man. Everybody knows this one. ‘As Time Goes By.’”

That wasn’t the song Eric was hearing, but he could tell that Kellen was right from the way the piano player’s hands moved, locked in that gentle, familiar rhythm.

“I mean the violin thing,” Eric said.

“Violin?” Kellen said, and then the piano player’s tuxedo was gone and in its place he wore a rumpled suit and a bowler hat, and if Kellen said anything else, Eric did not hear it. He was staring at the piano player, whose face was hidden by the angle and by the bowler hat. Just over his shoulder, standing not five feet away, was a tall, thin boy with a violin at his shoulder, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. He wore ill-fitting clothes, his bony forearms protruding from the shirtsleeves and several inches of socks exposed. His blond hair had not been cut in many weeks. There was an open violin case at his feet with scattered bills and coins tossed inside.

For a moment they just played on in that soft duet, the boy always with eyes shut, and then the man at the piano looked up. He lifted his head and looked Eric full in the face and smiled wide, and when he did, the beautiful, haunting strings melody shattered once again into a violent, urgent sawing, the notes frenzied and terrifying.

Eric opened his hand and the glass fell from it and hit the edge of the bar before dropping to the tile floor and breaking, sending splinters of glass sliding in all directions. The moment the glass broke, the music vanished. Cut off in midnote, like somebody had jerked out a stereo power cord. With it went the boy with the violin and the man in the bowler hat, replaced by the first piano player, who frowned but didn’t stop playing, bowed his head again, and now Eric could hear the song-“You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss…”

“As Time Goes By.” Made famous by Casablanca. Kellen was right, everybody knew this one.

“Uh-oh, going to need a mop if you want to finish that drink,” the bartender said, smiling, jocular. Eric felt Kellen’s hand on his arm, the grip strong.

“You okay? Eric? You all right?”

He was now. On one level, at least. On another…

“You mind if we go somewhere else?” Eric said. “There’s gotta be someplace to get a drink that isn’t in this hotel.”

Kellen Cage was watching him with raised eyebrows, but he gave a slow nod and set his drink down and released Eric’s arm.

“Sure, man. There’s places.”

He felt better as soon as they were outside. It was still warm, had to be close to eighty, but some of the humidity had left with the sun, and the air outside the hotel was fresh and fragrant, pushed by a mild breeze.

“You didn’t look so good back there,” Kellen said as they went around the building and up toward the parking lot.

“Got a little dizzy,” Eric said.

“What were you talking about with the violins, though?”

“Just confused.”

Logical thing to do was shake Kellen’s hand, tell him it had been good talking, and then go up to the room and get some sleep. Something seemed to be tugging him elsewhere, though. He wanted to be away from the hotel.

“Head up to the casino?” Kellen asked as they approached the parking lot.

Eric shook his head. “No, I’d rather find someplace”-without so many lights-“quieter. Smaller.”

Kellen pursed his lips, thinking. “Be honest with you, there aren’t many places around here. There’s a little bar up the road that’s decent, though. Called Rooster’s. Went in there a couple times for lunch. Friendly woman behind the bar, if nothing else.”

“That’ll do.”

Kellen lifted his hand and punched a button on his key chain and the lights of a car in front of them flicked on. A black Porsche Cayenne that looked brand-new.