"God, no," Doug begged and flung the plastic shaver in the trash. A knick, right off the corner of his mouth, and already oozing blood. He snatched a clean hotel towel, ran cold water on it, and pressed it hard against his cheek. "What am I supposed to do now? Cancel the visit?" No way was he going to show up at Raymond's with a cut on his face, no matter how far back their friendship went.

Outside the December wind howled down the Loop's skyscraper canyons, plunging the temperature toward zero. Another Alberta Clipper, according to The Sun-Times he had read on the El from O'Hare. Thank goodness southeast Ohio never got this frigid. Though Wisconsin certainly had, his home state that he'd only left when Reagan became President — and now the guy's second term was ending.

Holding the cloth against his skin, Doug studied the haggard face mirrored in the fluorescent light. Wan, wrinkled, and dark circles beneath the eyes — as if he were sick, instead of Ray. But no wonder, as poorly as he'd been sleeping of late. And he'd had to get up before six to catch a flight in Columbus, and after checking into this Hilton hadn't been able to nap. Not with the constant rumble of Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue traffic. How dumb to have imagined a room on Grant Park would be tranquil.

Doug felt guilty for not staying with Raymond this trip. If the situation were reversed, would Ray have kept his distance? Look how he had reacted four years ago when Doug had called to say Liz was filing for divorce: "You sound terrible, kid. I'm coming down there for a visit." And he had done it. And the emotional support and their good times together had indeed lifted Doug out of his funk. Nobody else had stepped forward like that, not even closer friends who lived just across town.

Raymond certainly had the space for him now, in fact an entire vacant bedroom. And in the past when it had been crowded, Doug had been perfectly happy sleeping on the couch. Not that he had ever needed to save the money. No, comfort had always yielded to seeing as much as possible of his old college buddy. Though Ray certainly wasn't as good a friend as Michael and Lenny, two faculty colleagues in Athens. But ever since he and Ray had first met in graduate school in Madison, they had felt close. Though exactly why, Doug couldn't say, because on paper they didn't have all that much in common. But when his marriage started foundering, who did he call? Raymond. And when that mysterious lump appeared in his groin that turned out to be only a swollen gland, he was phoning Chicago even before his own doctor. Somehow it had always been so easy to confide things to Ray which he would never reveal to Mike or Len. And Ray had always been as frank with him, that is, up until his lover, Danny, got sick.

Doug stood there waiting for the cut to dry, his left eyelid again twitching. Just as it used to in grad school when the relentless stress almost forced him to quit. He tried to hold the skin still with a fingertip, but it kept fluttering like a trapped mouse's heart. "To hell with it," Doug said, grabbing his bomber jacket. Why not just go straight to Ray's and take his chances, even if he wasn't expected for hours? Besides, the sooner he got the initial awkwardness over with, the sooner he could start enjoying this visit.

After only three blocks, his forehead and cheeks were already burning from the cold, but Doug trudged on. He turned up State Street and crossed the Chicago River, the wind raking his exposed face like razorblades. And when he finally reached Marina City's twin corn-cob towers, he stopped and pressed his hands against his stinging ears. And there he stood, flinching with the gusts, just sixty stories below Ray warmly ensconced in his apartment. He took off a glove and gently tapped the knick. It didn't feel wet, but a wound was still a wound. Should he maybe buy himself some Band-Aids first? Or how about going to a bank and cashing a couple of traveler's checks? His aching fingers fumbled with his wallet and counted only thirty-six dollars.

"Beautiful building, isn't it?" a woman greeted, sidling close. In garish makeup as thick as a mask, she was shivering beneath an ankle-length mink coat.

"Yes," Doug blurted, edging away.

"I bet it cost a bundle. The good things in life don't come cheap." The crimson of her lipstick was disgusting.

"Uh-huh," he agreed. She could have been forty five — or maybe only twenty eight — but whatever her age she terrified him.

"A hundred bucks could buy a lonely guy a pretty nice time."

"I'm very sorry, Miss — or I mean, Ma'am — but I have to meet a friend." With that, Doug darted out into traffic and just missed a careering taxi.

He cursed himself for not having worn his old parka. It was much too warm for one in Athens, but this was a real winter, like Wisconsin's, rather than southern Ohio's five months of penetrating rain and slush. He debated whether to walk right in to the elevators. His growling stomach decided for him that no matter how unappealing food sounded, he simply had to eat some lunch first. Besides, it'd be impolite to arrive at Ray's starving. So he hurried back down State Street, clutching the bridge railing for balance against the gale's buffeting.

A buttery three-egg omelet and home fries at a Wabash Street diner with a Dukakis-Bentsen poster in the window more than filled him up. And after finishing, he lingered until the ache left his half-frozen fingers and toes. Back outside, he aimed for his hotel and then abruptly halted, his tiny wound smarting in the swirling snow. What would be the point of returning to his room? He covered his ears with his unlined leather gloves.

A black panhandler in greasy jeans and a torn coat cut off his path. "Hear no evil?" the guy said with a three-toothed grin.

"What?"

"You be hear no evil, right?"

Doug abruptly jaywalked to escape this stranger and turned toward Ray's, but the stiff wind so stung his face he flipped around and let the relentless blast of air push him south. Soon he was loping down Michigan Avenue along Grant Park past his hotel, and then the Field Museum popped into view. Dinosaurs! Oh, he simply had to go see those creatures again, the ones he had so adored as a kid. Back when his mother and father had brought him here. God, he missed his deceased parents, especially his mom.

Doug bounded up the stairs and through the geology display as the attendant had directed. Sure enough, there they stood, arrayed around a long, narrow hall. Another good look and he scurried right back out. Because those weren't dinosaurs — those were dinosaur bones! The skeletons of species that once had thrived, but now were long extinct. So what if extinction was perfectly natural? So what if ninety-nine per cent of all the species that had ever lived were no longer alive? If some day we learned that they had been killed off by a comet or an unstoppable virus, would that bring a single animal back?

He wandered downstairs into the dioramas of Homo sapiens' ancestors. Australopithecus, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon Man — nothing but effigies one and all. Because they, too, were no more the living, breathing originals than had been the remains of Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex. And the ancient Egyptian artifacts — the mummies and the sarcophagi — were even worse.