I felt like Dante waking up in Hell.

A sick rushing sensation coursed through me. The dream I awoke with faded in my effort to reach the bathroom in the hall. I wasn't nauseated-I merely felt as if my insides had been shish-kabobbed.

The door slammed open under my urgings. Bennie the Dipso sat in one of the stalls, singing old sailor chanteys. I headed toward the wall. A certain portion of me was so filled that I thought it might burst. I faced the urinal and nearly fainted.

It felt like pissing thumbtacks. Blood and milky strands swirled around in the drain.

The room spun back and forth. My fingers clutched the edge of the urinal and held tight.

I wondered whether I'd make it to Dr. La Vecque.

I didn't notice any pain as I hurried down the stairs. My brain was working overtime on suspicion. Maybe Doc had lied about how much time I had. Maybe Zacharias had slipped me a contact poison-it was possible he knew what I had had to do with the murder of Pope John Paul I. I considered everything.

La Vecque frowned. "Doesn't look good. Aside from the blood, there're cancer cells and proteins. The cancer may have reached your kidneys. If so, it's metastasized further than I thought."

"And?"

"And I'd like another body scan. Tomorrow at the hospital. And I think you should stay there awhile."

"No, thanks." I stood. "If I go, I go. I'll see you tomorrow, but that's all. I've got a lot to do."

"I'm glad you feel that way."

He watched me leave as if I were walking into the Outer Limits.

Back in my office, I half-fretted about dying, half-wondered why I thought it mattered. A cog in a machine never wonders whether it can be replaced or whether its failure will stop the machine. My universe ends with me, sure, but all the other universes go on.

I spent the day and evening rereading an old book called The Dice Man. One of the lines that I remembered enough for it to bother me when I read it again was, "Life is islands of ecstasy in an ocean of ennui, and after the age of thirty land is seldom seen."

Except for those brief moments during an assassination-when I could feel the tides of history flow around me like a palpable, living stream-I'd been adrift in that featureless ocean.

I spent the night getting drunk.

The next morning-afternoon, actually-I rolled off the couch, poured myself breakfast, and made my way down First Street to Belvedere Hospital. I had a date with an NMR scanner. The walk took over an hour. I considered it a bad sign that my bones didn't bother me at all during that time. Maybe even my nervous system had entered the breakdown stage.

I reached the desk breathing heavily and wheezing. The short, fat girl behind the desk popped her chewing gum and handed me a plaque of forms to fill out. She stuck her thumb at a cracked coffee cup that held three styli. I picked out the cleanest one and punched up an image. The top right hand corner read, "Page 1 of 17."

An hour later, I lay naked on a table that had the look and feel of a block of ice. I was still beefy, I observed dispassionately, though a lot of my muscle had turned to flab in recent years. When I realized in what direction that line of thought led, I quit and turned to La Vecque.

"How's it going?"

"Shut up and turn your head back. Breathe normally. It's going fine." He looked even more birdlike, hovering over the tech's shoulder.

"Dr. La Vecque?" A scrawny kid with glasses stuck his head through the doorway, followed by a folder and a plaque. Doc took both from the boy and read through the reports.

"My latest sample?" I asked.

He waved his hand around as if a palsy had struck him and then sat down by the scanner technician. The tech showed him a readout of my condition. Beady eyes narrowed in interest. He said nothing for a long time.

"Can I get up, Doc?"

"Sure, Dell, sure." His fingers tapped against his jawline like a dancing spider.

"Is it something worse?" I reached for my slacks.

The tech moved around the two of us, preparing the machine for the next patient. I dressed and kept an eye on the good doctor. He looked like a sinking ship.

His first words in five minutes were, "Have you had a bowel movement today?"

His skill at charming banter was exceeded only by his taste in conversational topics.

"No," I said. "I haven't."

"Go to the lab."

The whole process was growing repulsive. With a sigh, I went to the lab to do what he wanted.

La Vecque told me that the computer analysis would be ready the next day.

"Go home and get some rest." He shook like a youngster commanding a firing squad for the first time. Or a man standing before one. His bedside manner instilled little hope for my future.

I hardly noticed the walk back to my office except to observe that my wheezing had eased up a bit. I stopped in the garment district to buy some evening clothes with money I'd taken from another bank under another name. I have that sort of build upon which even new clothes look as if I'd slept in them. I felt better, though, strolling to Auberge. If the news was as bad as La Vecque's demeanor indicated, I figured I should have some fun before I cashed it all in.

And maybe I had another reason to go there.

The redhead was there at the cloakroom again. As I headed toward the Casino of the Angels, I was aware of a feeling of… anticipation.

What if I saw her again?

The thought stopped me in midstride. What was I looking for-a final adventure? A last fling with a woman half my age?

Someone bumped me from behind. A sensation of enormous rage radiated from about two feet below my eyes. I turned around to see a kid. Not a normal kid, of course. My luck's not that good.

She wore a slinky peach satin dress that clung to what would in a few years be called her body. Her makeup, expertly applied, made her look mature and sensuous. Her long nails mimicked the color of her dress. I guessed that she wore high heels from the audible scuff they made on the carpet. She brushed back her long mane of tousled auburn hair and spoke in a low child's voice.

"Watch your fucking step, asshole."

I looked at her for a confused moment, then broke into a bellyful of laughter.

Her orange lips pouted. "Whyn't you watch where you're going?" she demanded. Small fists rested angrily on her hips; innocent green eyes stared up at me, filled with a child's fury.

"Why don't you?" I snapped back. "You were behind me." I expected her to run off crying. I wasn't in any mood to coddle.

"Ah, shut up." She whipped ahead of me and walked with womanly grace down the hallway. In a few steps she quickly vanished from sight in the twists and turns of the maze. I shook my head-half in amusement, half in pity.

I turned a corner and the kid stepped in front of me, her arms folded. The cigarette nipped between two of her small fingers looked as big as a cigar.

"Aren't you on the wrong level?" I asked. "Hooking is two floors down."

"Rules are made to be broken for a price. I've got a couple of the guards up here on the take. I walk around till someone picks me up, then we go down to Three."

"In that case," I said, "I'm restricting your business by hanging around. So long." Stepping past her, I noticed a look of amazement that her youth left undisguised.

"Hey, mister!" She trotted up behind me to pull at my coattails. "Don't you want to go to bed with me?" She struck a sultry pose.

"I'm not a politician, kid. I don't kiss babies."

"But every man I talk to wants to make it with me. And give me things."

I shrugged. "Consider me your first strikeout."

She pulled close enough to me that I could smell the heavy scent of Opium perfume. Her voice dropped half an octave lower.

"I can do anything you want. I can take it anywhere you want to give it to me."