He shook his head again and then he shook hands with the young man in the tweed suit.
"I'm going home, Ricky," he said firmly. "Say hello to all the gang for me."
"Name isn't Ricky," the young man said, sipping from his drink, "but I'll tell the boys you were asking."
"Good," Reggie said.
He left the crowded bar by a back entrance. The warm sunshine was pleasant and reassuring. People hurried past him, traffic surged in the streets, and everything was quite normal. He breathed a deep sigh and hailed a cab. He gave the driver the address of his apartment and then settled back against the soft leather cushions.
Sleep was all he needed. That was all.
When he reached his apartment on the near North Side he had succeeded in convincing himself that his peculiar experiences of the afternoon were only products of his fevered imagination.
As he let himself into his apartment he had firmly resolved to strictly ration his reading of comic strips and spy magazines. They were pretty strong meat if they weren't handled with discretion.
The pleasantly furnished living room of his apartment was shrouded in late-afternoon semi-darkness and, when he closed and locked the door behind him, he switched on the lights.