He began to feel both sick and scared. After a time he made it to the row of basins and splashed cold water on his face and head. There was a mirror above the basin. He looked into it. "Hello, bum," he said.
Face it, Durham. You're a drunken bum. You are exactly what Willa Paulsen said you were, what Susan Hawtree said you were, what they all said you were. You get a second chance, and you go right out and get drunk and blow it. Or, almost. Another minute and you'd have blabbed everything you know to Baya.
Baya, who cried because he wouldn't tell her; who had brought him to this rathole.
He took a clearer look at it when he went shakily out of the men's room. The place was almost empty, and it had a close, smothery feeling. Durham had never liked these underground streets, this vaguely unsavory demi-world that wound itself around the foundations of the city. It was considered smart to go slumming here, but this place was somehow wrong.
There were a man and woman at a table across the room, a young, pale green couple who pretended too carefully not to see him. There was Varnik, the plum colored proprietor, at a tall desk beside the main door. And there was Baya at their table.
She handed him a glass when he came over. "Feel better? I ordered you a sedative."
Without sitting down he put the glass to his lips. It did not taste like any sedative he could remember, and he thought he had tried them all.
"I don't want it."
"Don't be a fool, Lloyd. Take it." Her eyes were cold now, and he was suddenly quite sure why he had been brought here.
Durham said softly, "Good night, tramp. Good night and good-bye." He ran around the table and made a rush for the entrance.