She remembered the feeling from a time before, lying in a hospital bed after the nurse had given her the shot. Like that, but a deeper, more complete feeling: her mind and body wrapped in comfortable comforting softness, floating without moving in warm water that had no wetness, floating without moving to keep afloat, suspended in the good feeling. She was aware but not sure if she was awake. It was not something to think about because there was nothing, no reason to think. Being, without touching, lying on a bed, her bed, their bed, that had always been firm but now had no feeling, as though she were lying not on the bed but in the bed and the bed was warm motionless water. Someone else was in the room. The skinny man. Skinny legs and shoulders and long hair, his hair hanging, his skinny face looking down at her. Now he was closer to her and she felt him touch her, his hand on her thigh, on her stomach. She said, "I'm so tired." His voice, someone's voice, said, "Then why don't you go sleepy-bye? Close your eyes-"

"How was it?"

Her eyes were open. She was looking at the white ceiling. She thought of the hospital room again. No, she was at home, lying on her bed. In bed. Someone had spoken to her, a sound of words, or a dream. There was light in the room, maybe time to get up, but she felt more asleep than awake: the nice drowsy early-morning feeling of peace and quiet and a warm bed. Roll over and look at the alarm clock on the bed table. Next to the telephone. The telephone had been moved and was in the way. She raised her head from the pillow. It was only six o'clock. It seemed later. She let her face sink into the pillow and closed her eyes. A few more minutes. Lying on her side she drew her legs up. Her body was warm, but she felt a chill, a draft, on her back and she reached down for the sheet and blanket. Her hand felt only her bare thigh and hip. She turned, opening her eyes and pushing up on one arm, still with the drowsy feeling, but with awareness and memory clicking in her mind. She was naked except for the yellow bikini bra covering her breasts.

"I asked you how was it?"

"What time is it?"

"Six."

"You were here all night?"

"It's six in the evening, Slim, not the morning."

She sat up, too quickly, almost falling back down again, seeing Alan at the foot of the bed, and had to put her hands behind her to support herself, closing and opening her eyes with the warm light feeling in her head, but also aware of herself reclining naked in front of him, like a painting, a model in a painting. The Nude Maja. By-she rolled to the edge of the bed, trying to push her legs over the side and get up.

Alan came around from the foot of the bed, holding the syringe upright in one hand. As her feet touched the floor he pushed her down again, effortlessly.

Alan smiled at her. "Feel pretty good, huh? You been up and away almost three hours. Tomorrow you may be a little constipated, but you'll get over it."

She had nothing to cover herself with so she lay without moving, her hands flat on the bed at her sides. A patient watching her doctor.

"What did you to do me?"

"Guess."

Barbara stared at him but said nothing.

Alan grinned. "You squirmed around a lot. You don't remember? You moaned, said a few things. Nothing dirty."

"What did you do to me?"

"Give you a hint," Alan said. "You can't even knock anybody up doing it." He grinned at her and winked. "Now I got to shoot you up again. We're about ready to get out of here."

As Barbara started to push up, to lunge at him or get past him, Alan hit her with a fist, chopping it quick and hard into her upturned face. "Be nice," Alan said. He got her leg under his arm and squeezed the ankle to pop the vein.

The telephone rang.

Leo began that day with a vodka and 7-Up. It didn't help any. He had two more, not wasting much time. Usually the vodka picked him up and a couple of them would give him a nice glow; but he still couldn't feel anything. He ordered another one and said to the owner of the Kit Kat, who was behind the bar, "You haven't seen them today by any chance, have you?"

"Not since last night," the bar owner said.

"They were together though, last night?"

"I don't know if they came in together. What I told you before, they left together."

"What time was that?"

"I don't know what time. They're sitting at the bar, they got up and left."

"I'll have another one," Leo said.

The bar owner looked at him because Leo had only taken an inch off the top of his fourth drink; but when he came back with a fresh vodka and Seven-Up Leo was ready for it. The bar owner moved away and Leo sat there alone. One other guy was sitting up toward the front end of the bar with a Strohs.

Leo hadn't been able to locate either of them yesterday, to find out what the hell was going on. Alan hadn't been home or at work. Doreen said she hadn't seen Bobby or Alan all day. Bobby disappeared sometimes, but not Alan. He always knew where Alan was, or Alan knew where he was. Since getting into this deal they'd seen each other every day. Now, all of a sudden, Alan wasn't anywhere around.

Drinking the vodka Leo thought it over carefully, seeing Alan in his apartment the last time and remembering what he'd said. It was over. The guy couldn't pay. But the guy knew who they were. They couldn't take a chance on the guy not going to the police. Then sounding friendly toward the end, saying they had to stick together and maybe, after a while, look for another guy to hit. Why had he sounded so friendly? The whole deal blows up. They kill the girl for nothing. They have to kill the guy now. And Alan sounds friendly, not the least bothered about it or nervous. If they were supposed to stick together then where the hell was Alan? Like they were ditching him.

There were guys he hung around with a long time ago used to do that, ditch him. Sometimes they'd just take off running and leave him behind when he couldn't catch up. Or he was supposed to meet them somewhere and they wouldn't be there. Or he'd find out they'd all gone to a show and nobody had bothered to call him or come by his house. Once he was sixteen his mother let him use the car a lot, a blue six-cylinder Plymouth coupe, and for a while they let him drive them around and hardly ever ditched him. He hadn't seen any of them in a long time now. Not since he worked at his first motel as a night clerk, a six-buck place out on Telegraph. They found out he could fix them up with young fifteen-dollar broads out of high school and sometimes they'd come by two-thirty in the morning half-loaded on beer.

Something was going on.

He wondered if maybe Alan had seen Mitchell again. Or if Bobby had seen him and put the guy away. There was nothing in the morning Free Press or the early edition of the News. It could be too soon. They could have taken the guy somewhere and dumped him and his body hadn't been found yet. He said to himself, What's the matter with you?

Leo went to the pay phone near the entrance. He had to get the number of Ranco Manufacturing from the operator because it was out of the city, in Fraser. When he dialed the number and asked for Mr. Mitchell, the girl's voice asked who was calling please. He said, "Tell him Alan Raimy." He waited. When he heard Mitchell's voice, recognizing it immediately, he hung up the receiver and held it down hard in the cradle until he was sure Mitchell was off the line. He lifted it to his face again and dialed Alan's apartment. Still no answer. He dialed the movie theater. Alan wasn't in yet. Was he expected? Nobody seemed to know. He dialed Doreen's number again. No answer.

Leo had two more vodka and Seven-Ups at the bar. He was sure something was going on. He was beginning to be sure they didn't want to be seen with him. Because something was going to happen to him and if they were seen with him anytime before it happened they could be taken in and questioned. This way, if they were questioned for any reason, they'd say no, they hadn't seen him in a couple of days. And nobody could prove otherwise.