"They tell me I eat too many pickled eggs," Wirf finally continued. "The stuff they pickle the eggs with is dangerous. Eats away at your liver."

Sully nodded. "Especially if you wash each one down with about a gallon of beer."

"Especially," Wirf said.

"Well," Sully said. "You could cut back on your pickled eggs."

Wirf shrugged, then shook his head sadly. "The time to cut down on the pickled eggs was about five years ago. Ten, maybe. They tell me that my liver is irreversibly pickled. They don't like to say it right out, but I gather that it doesn't make much difference anymore whether I zig or zag."

Sully shook his head, feeling much of the same frustration he'd felt two days ago listening to Cass, who'd explained to him her lack of options with regard to her mother. Here was Wirf telling him the same thing, that he was damned if he did, damned if he didn't. Maybe Sully's young philosophy professor at the college had been right. Maybe free will was just something you thought you had. Maybe Sully's sitting there trying to figure out what he should do next was silly. Maybe there was no way out of this latest fix he'd gotten himself into. Maybe even the trump card he'd been saving, or imagined he was saving, wasn't in his hand at all. Maybe his father's house already belonged to the town of Bath or the state of New York. Maybe Carl Roebuck had bought it at auction for back taxes.

There was a certain symmetry to this possibility. Maybe Carl had used the money he refused to pay him and Rub as the down payment. Who knew? Maybe even Carl Roebuck didn't have any choices. Maybe it just wasn't in him to be thankful for having money and a big house and the prettiest woman in town for his very own. Maybe he was just programmed to wander around with a perpetual hard-on, oozing charm and winning lotteries. Maybe. Still, Sully felt the theory to be wrong. It made everything slack. He'd never considered life to be as tight as some people (Vera came to mind for one, Mrs. Harold for another) made it out to be, but it wasn't that loose either.

"So what's your plan?" he asked Wirf.

Wirf shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. To Sully's surprise, Wirf didn't sound all that discouraged. "Maybe I'll just keep zigging til I can't zig any more. I can't even imagine zagging at this late date."

Sully nodded. "How many more years of zigging do they figure?"

"Months," Wirf said. "If I continue to zig. If I zag, I might get a year or two. A little more. We all end up at the Waldorf-Astoria, Sully. Zigging or zagging. I'm not that afraid. At least not yet," he added. "In fact, I wasn't afraid at all until we started this conversation."

Sully stood, said he was sorry for bringing it up, which he was.

"That's all right," Wirf said. "I've been wondering when you'd say something."

Sully suddenly felt awash in guilt for not having seen it earlier, for not paying attention, or the right kind of attention.

"Where you off to?" Wirf wanted to know.

"Home, for once," Sully said. The idea of spending another long night at The Horse was suddenly insupportable. He'd been hoping to find someone to help him steal Carl Roebuck's snowblower, but it was just himself and Wirf, and he didn't see how enlisting another one-legged man would improve his chances. "See if I can plan my next move."

"I hope this doesn't mean you won't be zigging with me anymore."

Sully assured him this was not the case. "Maybe we should cut back, though," he said. "Without giving it up entirely."

"Hmmm." Wirf nodded thoughtfully. "Zigging in moderation. An interesting concept. I like it as an alternative to cowardly zagging."

Richard Russo, Nobody's Fool