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I needed Wisper.

As I, again, lamented ruining my chance with her on the beach, I noticed Morgan skittering nervously down the street, leaning against each darkened pane of glass he came to and peering in. When he at last reached the window I was staring out of, I watched as he slapped himself against the casement, and—after a good, long, lingering look at the waitress’ exposed bits—spotted me sitting at my table drinking my tea. He waved vigorously for me to come out, obviously very agitated, so much so that I got up immediately. If it had been anyone but Morgan, I would have been afraid of what might have happened that had him so plainly agitated. But with him, the trauma could have been as simple as he’d read on some website that Marvel was planning on making Toad an X-Man.

As I approached the door, the chef held out a plate and called to me.

“Your order’s just ready, sir.”

“Thanks. I’ll just be a minute.”

I went outside into the carless street and found Morgan wearing a hotel towel around his waist, staring at some girl’s pubic area. I literally had to pull his face away from her and back to me.

“What?” he asked.

“What do you mean, ‘what’? You’re the one who waved me out here.”

“Oh, yeah. Your credit card’s been declined,” he said, and turned back to the girl and her pubes. She had moved on, but fortunately for him, another had come along to replace her.

“My what? My credit card’s been what?”

“Declined. Cancelled. Sophie told me.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to know why I was being kicked out of the room. So she told me.”

“No, I mean why has it been cancelled? What happened?”

“I don’t know.” He paused a moment as the new girl moved on. Eventually she—or at least the ogle-able part of her—was hidden by other, I assume, less attractive nudists, because he sighed heavily and began looking at me again. “She said the company had called and said it was a stolen number. They had notified the owner, and he confirmed that he wasn’t in Naked Bottoms.”

“Nikkid Bottoms.”

“Whatever.”

“But I’m the owner. And I never…”

Suddenly it dawned on me. I wasn’t the owner. Not in this dimension.

Here, I didn’t exist.

Here, my fortune belonged to someone else.

Here—dear God—I was penniless.

A sensation exploded through my brain that must have been a stroke. Or at least a severe ice-cream headache. I grabbed my head and had to steady myself against a wall.

“What’s the matter?” Morgan asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

“My credit cards…”

“Use another one. You got—like—a gajillion of ‘em.”

“None of them will work. We’re in a different dimension, remember?”

“They don’t use credit cards, here?”

“Of course they do! But they belong to some other Corky Wopplesdown!”

“They do?”

“It’s a different dimension!”

“With a different Corky Wopplesdown? That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Morgan. Think of it as Mirror Mirror in Star Trek.”

He looked at me blankly.

“Earth Two,” I said, realizing my mistake. “On Earth One, there’s Superman. And on Earth Two, there’s…”

“Evil Superman.”

“Or a different Superman.”

“This Corky Wopplesdown is evil!”

“Or…just a guy who’s not happy someone else is using his credit cards.”

“That bastard!”

“Okay,” I said, trying not to hyperventilate. “What the hell am I going to do? I have no money.”

I looked through the window at the chef and waitress, both of whom were staring back and forth from me to the table where a plate of food I could no longer afford was patiently awaiting my return.

“I can’t pay for my meal,” I said, shocked.

“Wow,” Morgan said. “Really?”

“Really. What am I going to do?”

“What I do whenever I go to Denny’s,” he said, grinning. “Dine and Dash.”

Suddenly Morgan sprinted off, and I saw the chef through the window tense up, as if he’d been expecting this. He grabbed something behind the counter that looked like it could put rather large dents in my skull, and began moving around the counter in my direction.

I could explain this to him, I’m sure. He would understand. I was an honest man, who was wealthy in my world, because