He picked up a hamburger he'd ordered and took a bite. A trickle of grease ran from his lip. "What if they used us?" he said.

The grease reached the part of his chin where his sense of feeling was intact, and he wiped at it with his napkin.

"What if we used them?" I said. "That's the game, isn't it? You use them, they use you. . . ."

"It isn't always like that," he said. "It doesn't have to be . . ." He thought a moment, perhaps trying to remember a case when it wasn't.

"It's like fishing,"I said. "You really aren't up to it if you start out worrying about the worm."

He leaned across the table, lowering his voice. "You haven't seen it when you get it exactly right, Jack," he said. "When you get things down just the way they were . . ."

"What then?" I said.

He smiled at me, his chin shining with grease. "It makes it bearable," he said.

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