"Mister? You okay?"

I blinked at the woman, then dug my wallet out of my pocket and found a twenty. "I want to make a phone call," I said. "From the booth right there on the corner. You take this and wait for me. All right?"

Maybe she'd drive off with the twenty. I didn't really care. I walked to the corner, dropped a dime, stood there listening to the dial tone.

It was too late to call. What time was it? After two, much too late for a social call.

Hell, I could go to my room. All I had to do was stay put for an hour and I'd be in the clear. At three the bars would close.

So? There was a deli that would sell me beer, legally or not. There was an after-hours on Fifty-first, way west between Eleventh and Twelfth. Unless it had closed by now; I hadn't been there in a long time.

There was a bottle of Wild Turkey in Kim Dakkinen's front closet. And I had her key in my pocket.

That scared me. The booze was right there, accessible to me at any hour, and if I went there I'd never stop after one or two drinks. I'd finish the bottle, and when I did there were a lot of other bottles to keep it company.

I made my call.

She'd been sleeping. I heard that in her voice when she answered the phone.

I said, "It's Matt. I'm sorry to call you so late."

"That's all right. What time is it? God, it's after two."

"I'm sorry.

"It's all right. Are you okay, Matthew?

"No."

"Have you been drinking?"

"No."

"Then you're okay."

"I'm falling apart," I said. "I called you because it was the only way I could think of to keep from drinking."

"You did the right thing."

"Can I come over?"

There was a pause. Never mind, I thought. Forget it. One quick drink at Farrell's before they closed, then back to the hotel. Never should have called her in the first place.

"Matthew, I don't know if it's a good idea. Just take it an hour at a time, a minute at a time if you have to, and call me as much as you want. I don't mind if you wake me, but-"

I said, "I almost got killed half an hour ago. I beat a kid up and broke his legs for him. I'm shaking like I never shook before in my life. The only thing that's going to make me feel right is a drink and I'm afraid to take one and scared I'll do it anyway. I thought being with someone and talking with someone might get me through it but it probably wouldn't anyway, and I'm sorry, I shouldn't have called. I'm not your responsibility. I'm sorry."

"Wait!"

"I'm here."

"There's a clubhouse on St. Marks Place where they have meetings all night long on the weekends. It's in the book, I can look it up for you."

"Sure."

"You won't go, will you?"

"I can't talk up at meetings. Forget it, Jan. I'll be all right."

"Where are you?"

"Fifty-eighth and Ninth."

"How long will it take you to get here?"

I glanced over at Armstrong's. My gypsy cab was still parked there. "I've got a cab waiting," I said.

"You remember how to get here?"

"I remember."

The cab dropped me in front of Jan's six-story loft building on Lispenard. The meter had eaten up most of the original twenty dollars. I gave her another twenty to go with it. It was too much but I was feeling grateful, and could afford to be generous.

I rang Jan's bell, two long and three short, and went out in front so that she could toss the key down to me. I rode the industrial elevator to the fifth floor and stepped out into her loft.

"That was quick," she said. "You really did have a cab waiting."

She'd had time to dress. She was wearing old Lee jeans and a flannel shirt with a red-and-black checkerboard pattern. She's an attractive woman, medium height, well fleshed, built more for comfort than for speed. A heart-shaped face, her hair dark brown salted with gray and hanging to her shoulders. Large well-spaced gray eyes. No makeup.

She said, "I made coffee. You don't take anything in it, do you?"

"Just bourbon."

"We're fresh out. Go sit down, I'll get the coffee."

When she came back with it I was standing by her Medusa, tracing a hair-snake with my fingertip. "Her hair reminded me of your girl here," I said. "She had blonde braids but she wrapped them around her head in a way that made me think of your Medusa."

"Who?"

"A woman who got killed. I don't know where to start."

"Anywhere," she said.

I talked for a long time and I skipped all over the place, from the beginning to that night's events and back and forth again. She got up now and then to get us more coffee, and when she came back I'd start in where I left off. Or I'd start somewhere else. It didn't seem to matter.

I said, "I didn't know what the hell to do with him. After I'd knocked him out, after I'd searched him. I couldn't have him arrested and I couldn't stand the thought of letting him go. I was going to shoot him but I couldn't do it. I don't know why. If I'd just smacked his head against the wall a couple more times it might have killed him, and I'll tell you, I'd have been glad of it. But I couldn't shoot him while he was lying there unconscious."

"Of course not."

"But I couldn't leave him there, I didn't want him walking the streets. He'd just get another gun and do it again. So I broke his legs. Eventually the bones'll knit and he'll be able to resume his career, but in the meantime he's off the streets." I shrugged. "It doesn't make any sense. But I couldn't think of anything else to do."

"The important thing is you didn't drink."

"Is that the important thing?"

"I think so."

"I almost drank. If I'd been in my own neighborhood, or if I hadn't reached you. God knows I wanted to drink. I still want to drink."

"But you're not going to."

"No."

"Do you have a sponsor, Matthew?"

"No."

"You should. It's a big help."

"How?"

"Well, a sponsor's someone you can call anytime, someone you can tell anything to."

"You have one?"

She nodded. "I called her after I spoke to you."

"Why?"

"Because I was nervous. Because it calms me down to talk to her. Because I wanted to see what she would say."

"What did she say?"

"That I shouldn't have told you to come over." She laughed. "Fortunately, you were already on your way."

"What else did she say?"

The big gray eyes avoided mine. "That I shouldn't sleep with you."

"Why'd she say that?"

"Because it's not a good idea to have relationships during the first year. And because it's a terrible idea to get involved with anybody who's newly sober."

"Christ," I said. "I came over because I was jumping out of my skin, not because I was horny."

"I know that."

"Do you do everything your sponsor says?"

"I try to."

"Who is this woman that she's the voice of God on earth?"

"Just a woman. She's my age, actually she's a year and a half younger. But she's been sober almost six years."

"Long time."

"It seems like a long time to me." She picked up her cup, saw it was empty, put it down again. "Isn't there someone you could ask to be your sponsor?"

"Is that how it works? You have to ask somebody?"

"That's right."

"Suppose I asked you?"

She shook her head. "In the first place, you should get a male sponsor. In the second place, I haven't been sober long enough. In the third place we're friends."

"A sponsor shouldn't be a friend?"

"Not that kind of friend. An AA friend. In the fourth place, it ought to be somebody in your home group so you have frequent contact."

I thought unwillingly of Jim. "There's a guy I talk to sometimes."

"It's important to pick someone you can talk to."

"I don't know if I can talk to him. I suppose I could."

"Do you respect his sobriety?"

"I don't know what that means."

"Well, do you-"

"This evening I told him I got upset by the stories in the newspapers. All the crime in the streets, the things people keep doing to each other. It gets to me, Jan."

"I know it does."

"He told me to quit reading the papers. Why are you laughing?"

"It's just such a program thing to say."

"People talk the damnedest crap. 'I lost my job and my mother's dying of cancer and I'm going to have to have my nose amputated but I didn't drink today so that makes me a winner.' "

"They really sound like that, don't they?"

"Sometimes. What's so funny?"

" 'I'm going to have my nose amputated.' A nose amputated?"

"Don't laugh," I said. "It's a serious problem."

A little later she was telling me about a member of her home group whose son had been killed by a hit-and-run driver. The man had gone to a meeting and talked about it, drawing strength from the group, and evidently it had been an inspirational experience all around. He'd stayed sober, and his sobriety had enabled him to deal with the situation and bolster the other members of his family while fully experiencing his own grief.

I wondered what was so wonderful about being able to experience your grief. Then I found myself speculating what would have happened some years ago if I'd stayed sober after an errant bullet of mine ricocheted and fatally wounded a six-year-old girl named Estrellita Rivera. I'd dealt with the resultant feelings by pouring bourbon on them. It had certainly seemed like a good idea at the time.

Maybe it hadn't been. Maybe there were no shortcuts, no detours. Maybe you had to go through things.

I said, "You don't worry about getting hit by a car in New York. But it happens here, the same as anywhere else. Did they ever catch the driver?"

"No."

"He was probably drunk. They usually are."

"Maybe he was in a blackout. Maybe he came to the next day and never knew what he'd done."

"Jesus," I said, and thought of that night's speaker, the man who stabbed his lover. "Eight million stories in the Emerald City. And eight million ways to die."

"The naked city."

"Isn't that what I said?"

"You said the Emerald City."

"I did? Where did I get that from?"

"The Wizard of Oz. Remember? Dorothy and Toto in Kansas? Judy Garland going over the rainbow?"

"Of course I remember."

" 'Follow the Yellow Brick Road.' It led to the Emerald City, where the wonderful wizard lived."

"I remember. The Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, I remember the whole thing. But where'd I get emeralds from?"

"You're an alcoholic," she suggested. "You're missing a couple of brain cells, that's all."

I nodded. "Must be it," I said.

The sky was turning light when we went to sleep. I slept on the couch wrapped up in a couple of spare blankets. At first I thought I wouldn't be able to sleep, but the tiredness came over me like a towering wave. I gave up and let it take me wherever it wanted.