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wind.
    'I've got something to tell you,' Will said. 'I was going to wait for Cornelius but ... I don't think there's going to
be another book after this.'
    'I knew you were fretting about something. I thought maybe it was me-'
    'Oh God no,' Will said. 'You're the best, Adie. Without you and Cornelius I'd have given up on all this shit a
long time ago.'
    'So why now?'
    'I'm out of love with the whole thing,' he said. 'None of it makes any difference. We'll show the pictures of the
bears and all it'll do is make more people come and watch them getting their noses stuck in mayonnaise jars. It's
a waste of bloody time.'
    'What will you do instead?'
    'I don't know. It's a good question. It feels like ... I don't know...'
    'What does it feel like?'
    'That everything's winding down. I'm forty-one and it feels like I've seen too much and been too many places
and it's all blurred together. There's no magic left. I've done my drugs. I've had my infatuations. I've outgrown
Wagner. This is as good as it's going to get. And it's not that great.'
    Adrianna came to join him at the door, putting her chin on his shoulder. 'Oh my poor Will,' she said, in her best
cocktail clip. 'So famous, so celebrated, and so very, very bored.'
    'Are you mocking my ennui?'
    'Yes.'
    'I thought so.'
'You're tired. You should take a year off. Go sit in the sun with a beautiful boy. That's Dr Adrianna's advice.'
    'Will you find me the boy?'
    'Oh Lord. Are you that exhausted?'
    'I couldn't cruise a bar if my life depended upon it.'
    'So don't. Have another martini.'
    'No, I've got a better idea,' Will said. 'You make the drinks, I'll go fetch Cornelius. Then we can all get maudlin
together.'
     

CHAPTER VI
     
    Cornelius had spent the dregs of the afternoon with the Lauterbach brothers, and had a fine time of it, watching
the wrestling flicks and smoking their weed. He'd left as darkness fell, intending to head back to the house for a
couple of shots of vodka, but halfway along Main Street the prospect of dealing with Adrianna had loomed. He
wasn't in the mood for apologies and justifications; they'd only bring him down. So instead of heading back he
fished out the fat roach he'd connived from Gert, and wandered down towards the water to smoke it.
    As he walked, weaving between the houses, the wind carried flecks of snow from across the Bay, grazing his
face. He stopped beneath one of the lamps that illuminated the ground between the back of the houses and the
water's edge and turned his face up to the light so as to watch the flakes spilling down. 'Pretty ...' he said to
himself. So much prettier than bears. When he got back, he'd tell Will he should give up with animals and start
photographing snowflakes instead. They were a lot more endangered, his gently befuddled wits decided. As
soon as the sun came out they were gone, weren't they? All their perfection, melted away. It was tragic.
    Will didn't get as far as the Lauterbach house. He'd trudged maybe a hundred yards down Main Street - the wind
getting stronger with every gust, the snow it carried thickening - when he caught sight of Cornelius, reeling
around, face to the sky. He was obviously high, which was no great surprise. It had always been Cornelius' way
of dealing with life, and Will had far too many quirks of his own to be judgmental about it. But there was a time
and a place for such excesses, and the Main Street of Balthazar in bear season was not one of them.
    'Cornelius!' Will yelled. 'Cornelius? Can you hear me?'
    The answer was apparently no. Cornelius just kept up his dervish dance under the lamp. Will started down the
street in the man's direction, cursing him ripely as he went. He didn't waste his breath shouting, the wind was
too strong, but part of the way down the street he regretted not doing so because without warning Cornelius
gave up his spinning and slipped out of sight between the houses. Will picked up his pace, though he was
tempted to head back to the