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the end. I took it off the shelf and glanced through it. Private eyes were nowhere to be found, although I liked the first sentence.
    Sands's First Case. The possessive sounded ugly. Sandman. That was Linc's nickname for me. I didn't like it. The Sandman went around putting people to sleep, and I—I only did that for Gwen.
    I smiled.
    The Sandman's First Case.
    It would have to do, until I came up with something better.
    I rummaged through a rotting carton of textbooks until I found one on cellular biology. I took it out, sat in my old, overstuffed armchair, and read by lamplight until dawn. Then I tiptoed back downstairs and got back into the warm bed beside Gwen.
    I shut my eyes and snuggled up to Gwen, and after a while sleep came for the Sandman—short and troubled as always, but enough to let him make it through another day.

 
     
     
    Chapter 5

     
    Stretch and Gwen left for work early. Linc stayed home. He had a job at the Salvage Market downtown, but he had been showing up less and less lately. He sat at the kitchen table and watched with amusement as I prepared to go out into the cold cruel world.
    "So the Sandman starts his case," he said. "Is he nervous?"
    "A private eye is never nervous," I replied.
    "Should I wish him luck?" he asked. "Or do private eyes not need luck?"
    "A little luck never hurt anyone."
    "Good luck, then."
    "Thanks, Linc."
    He came and stood at the door as I carried my bicycle down the front steps and wobbled off.
    The day was crisp and clear for a change, and Louisburg Square glistened in the sunlight. As was my custom, I stopped off at the north side of the square and said hello to the statue of Christopher Columbus, which by some absurd historical irony had managed to survive everything unscathed.
    "Discovered any new worlds recently?" I asked it.
    As usual, it didn't deign to reply.
    "Well, if you do, let me know. I'm always interested in hearing about new worlds."
    The statue had nothing to tell me, so I continued my journey.
    It wasn't a very good day for bicycling, but I had a feeling I might be covering a lot of ground, so I decided to risk a fall or two onto the ice. I took a right on Mount Vernon Street and coasted down to Charles; then left on Charles, past the Garden and the Common, and right on Boylston. There were no cars, and only a couple of other brave souls on bicycles. Everyone else was on foot, hurrying to jobs in buildings that were scarcely warmer than the outside air. Another day, another new dollar.
    I turned left by the empty shell of the Public Library, then right onto Huntington. A mile or so south on Huntington was Northeastern University.
    Odd what the Frenzy got and what it missed. The library, of course, but why Symphony Hall? MIT, certainly, but why not Northeastern? People said the Frenzy was antilearning, antiscience. But maybe, I thought, it had more to do with power. When the people went crazy on those awful nights, maybe they just ransacked the places that somehow symbolized to them the power of the old world. The forces that ran the old world also ran MIT, ran the Symphony, ran Harvard. They were the forces that had to be destroyed.
    Northeastern? Well, Northeastern was different. Northeastern produced engineers, but they were working-class engineers, struggling to make tuition payments and pass calculus. They were victims as much as anyone else. So Northeastern survived to become a power in the new world that had been created.
    Just a theory, of course. Probably ascribed too much rationality to what was the ultimate irrational act. I thought of all the books in the Public Library that were now ashes. The new world could have used those books.
    An ancient man was guarding the bicycles in the quadrangle outside the main building. I parked my bike at the end of the row and tossed him a penny. He tipped his cap.
    I went into the main building. It wasn't warm, but there was heat coming from somewhere. I took off my cap. After a little searching I found the