"Not a hundred percent, no. But it's probably the name the account is under."

"Kelly had that guy one year. It could be someone just using his name, right? A pissed-off student, maybe."

"Could be. But the Internet service bills your credit card, so it would have to be a pretty big scam."

"This is first-class work, Lise. First-class."

Delorme grinned. "It's not too bad, I have to admit."

25

THE nausea had finally lifted. For days it had hung over the bed like smog, so that the slightest movement made his head whirl and the bile climb in his throat. A few bites of food, and the bed had begun to feel like a boat pitching headlong from crest to trough.

At other times- usually just before Eric or Edie brought in his tray- the nausea would recede a little, and he began to think he would soon be out in the sunlight and fresh air. Then strange fancies would take hold of him: The bedposts dissolved into minarets, his feet beneath the covers formed distant dunes, a dripping tap became a tambourine. He would imagine he was in some exotic locale- Bahrain, Tangiers- where he had been laid low with exotic fevers. His eyes felt webbed; his muscles were dead as meat.

The figure on the edge of the bed blurred and shifted. Keith tried to focus. The smell of toast and jam was overwhelming. When was the last time he'd kept anything down? "God, I'm so hungry." He spoke to where the figure had been, but it had shifted again.

"Take it." Eric was holding the plate under Keith's nose. The smell nearly made him faint.

Keith ate four pieces of toast. He began to feel solid again, as if he could get up and do things. "Eric. I need to use the phone. I need a phone."

"Sorry. Edie doesn't have a phone. I have one, but I live across town."

"She doesn't have a phone?"

"No. I just told you."

"Karen will be worried. We arranged to call regularly. I've been sick for, what- three days?"

"Four."

Keith started to sit up. His muscles were achy from being in bed so long.

"You're too sick to go out, Keith. Why don't you write her a letter?"

"She lives in Guelph. It would take days to reach her. She'd be so pissed off by then she probably wouldn't read it. Do you guys have e-mail?"

"No," Eric said. "Why don't you give me her number? I'll call for you."

"Thanks, Eric. But I think I'd better get to a doctor anyway. I shouldn't be sleeping like this. I'll call Karen from the hospital."

"All right. Why don't you stand up and give it a try?" Eric got off the bed and sat in the broken chair. Keith made a great effort to lower his feet to the floor. Slowly, fixing his gaze now on the radiator, now on Eric, he straightened. He swallowed hard and forced his right foot toward the door. He gave up and fell back down on the bed with a groan. "Why am I so exhausted?"

"All your traveling. No doubt you picked up some exotic bug somewhere."

"Please, Eric. Take me to the hospital."

"Sorry. Can't. I don't drive."

"Oh, come on." He tried to sound stern, but it was hard when he could barely keep his eyes open. "You told me you had a van. The other night. You said you'd bring the tape stuff over in your van."

"My license has expired. I just discovered it this morning. It expired six months ago."

"Edie, then. Let Edie drive me. God, I'm so sleepy."

Darkness closed around him. Once more he was drifting down a web-filled corridor, pulled as if on skates toward a receding tower of light. Or was it the CN Tower? Insects the size of cats hung from a low ceiling; their mandibles worked up a foul white foam that dripped on him and scalded his flesh.

He slept and woke, slept and woke.

Then finally he woke with a new clarity. Whatever succubus had been draining his energy seemed to have relaxed its grip, and except for the aching muscles, he felt almost normal. He discovered pen and paper beside the bed, even a stamped envelope. He wrote a letter to Karen, a letter filled with love and longing. He remembered her face with tenderness, her body. Details of the physical joys he and Karen had shared came back to him, and he wrote of them in vivid images. He had to stop for a moment; he was trying to think of another word for rapture; enthrallment wasn't right, and he'd already used pleasure twice. Bliss, he was thinking. He was about to write the word, when a noise from upstairs made him stop with pen poised over the paper: the muffled but unmistakable sound of a ringing phone.

26

EDIE'S stomach hurt, she was laughing so hard.

"I've been very sick for a week," Eric was reading. "I'm not exactly sure how long, but you wouldn't believe how boring throwing up can get after the tenth time."

"See, Eric. Keith liked my ipecac cocktails. My magic barf potions. It's mixing it with the Valium does the trick. Gives it that extra something special." Oh, she loved it when Eric laughed. Why couldn't he be like this all the time? So funny, so easy. At times like this, she could almost believe they were a normal couple, just your normal basic couple enjoying a good laugh together. You could forget the dreary winter and the endless cold. At times like this she could almost forget what she looked like: Oh yes, she had seen Keith London's eyes do that male survey of her face and figure, summing her up and spitting her out, despite his friendly manner. He'd just as soon run her over. But it didn't matter when Eric was with her, when Eric was happy.

"Better ease up on the ipecac and stick with the Valium," Eric was saying. "Can't have him throwing it up as soon as we give it to him. Listen to this."

There was a thump, thump, thump from upstairs. God, Gram, give it a rest. I'm with the man I love and I'm having fun for once in my life. Why can't you let us be?

Eric's response to the summons was just to read all the louder. "I'm staying with a young couple. They're very strange, Karen, but the fact is without them I'd probably be dead."

"Hear that, Eric? Without us, Keith would probably be dead."

"The woman, Edie, works in a drugstore and gets all sorts of medicine free. At least she says she gets it free. I have a feeling she's just stealing it."

"That rotten little prick," Edie said. "He's going to wish he never wrote that letter, Eric. You watch. I'm going to make him scream."

Another thump, thump, thump from upstairs.

"Listen to this." Eric read, "I think of you, I dream of you, I miss you. I miss making love with you- you make me feel so good!" There were some very explicit passages after that, and Eric read them in a funny, high-pitched voice that had them both doubled over with laughter, tears rolling down their faces.

"Eric told me they don't have a phone here, but I heard one ringing just now. It's a little disturbing."

"A little disturbing, is it, Keith? You find the phone ringing a little disturbing?"

"We'll show you disturbing, Keith. We'll disturb your balls right off your bloody carcass."

"We'll disturb your brains right out of your bloody head, you little shit. What's wrong?"

Eric had suddenly gone quiet.

"What is it, Eric?"

He showed her the letter, pointing to a line scrawled across the bottom. It was Edie's address. "How did he remember the address, for God's sake? He was drunk as a skunk."

Eric folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope they had steamed open. "I'll throw it away. In fact, I'll flush it down the-"

"What's going on in here? Why didn't you come when I called you?" Edie's grandmother tottered in the doorway, leaning on her walker. Her red-rimmed eyes were pits of accusation.

"Sorry, Gram. We were just listening to some music."

"I don't hear any music. I've been banging and banging, Edie, and you didn't come. Banging and banging. Why is Eric still here?"