It was not as bad as she thought it would be. In fact, the hospital looked kind of peaceful through the trees. A castle of red brick. Round towers rising to peaked roofs. Arched windows with stained glass traced in stone. It was not bad at all.

Nancy pressed her face to the window as the police cruiser wound down the long driveway. The building appeared at intervals through the row of cypresses. It stood at the center of gently rolling grounds. Hills of green grass, low hedges, shady trees. White figures glided serenely along the pathways. At this distance, Nancy couldn’t tell if they were the patients or the nuns. They looked almost ghostly, floating like that from bench to fountain, from birch to flowering laurel bush.

Still, she felt encouraged. The patrol car rounded the cul-de-sac and stopped before the main doors. The doors swung open and out stepped the hospital’s director. He stood on the steps to greet her. He was smiling, holding out his arms. Nancy grew excited as she watched him through the window. His eyes were so kind and sad. His sharp, lined face framed with long black hair—it was so sensitive. There was so much understanding in him.

She got out of the car on her own. She climbed the steps to him as he smiled down at her. It gave her a warm rush—the way he seemed to comprehend her. The way he seemed to know her down to the very bone. It was all going to be all right.

Smiling, he stood aside as she came. He held the heavy door open with one hand to let her enter.

“Maybe there will be deer in the mist at the edge of the meadow,” he murmured to her gently as she passed. “Maybe raccoons will waddle down the driveway for the trash. Maybe there will be sightings of bobcats, their yellow gazes reaching from the woods …”

She felt reassured by this. She entered the hospital almost expectantly. The door shut behind her with a hollow thud.

She was alone in a white corridor. A corridor of closed doors. Behind the doors, people were whispering, whispering. Reluctantly, she started down the hall. The whispers reached her.

“Nancy. Nancy.”

They were whispering her name.

“Oh, Nancy.”

A whispered song.

Slowly, she continued down the corridor. At the end of it, a dark figure was sitting on a throne. It was a slender figure draped in a flowing black robe. It held a scepter in its hand. Its hand was white bones. Its head was a grinning skull; Death’s head.

“Nancy. Nannnnceeeee.”

The whispers came to her through the doors. Frightened now, she turned from side to side, looking for help, looking for a way out. But there were only the voices.

“Nancy. Oh, Nancy …”

She did not want to go on. She did not want to go toward the throne, toward the skeleton. But she could not stop herself. She drifted toward it, as if floating above the floor. Her hand reached out to the skull, even as she recoiled from the thought of touching it. Her hand came closer; closer. She looked into the skull’s eye sockets. She saw that it had china blue eyes.

Oh no! Oh no!

But she could not stop herself. In another moment, she had clutched the skull. Grabbed a fistful of its rubbery skin. It was a mask. She yanked it up. She saw the face beneath …

“Nancy. Oh, Nancy Kincaid.”

It was her own face. Towering there above her. Grinning down at her from the throne, the blue eyes gleaming. Pointing at her with one skeletal finger. Whispering:

“You won’t forget now. Will you?”

“Oh!”

A car horn blasted and Nancy woke up. Sat up straight, blinking. Her heart was thumping hard in her chest. She did not know where she was. Then she saw: the city streets whipping by at the windows. The stolid napes of two necks in the seat before her. The backs of two police caps. She tried to shift and felt her hands caught behind her. Oh … Oh, Jesus … Panic crawled in her chest like spiders. Wide-eyed, she turned this way and that. Peered out the window. First Avenue. The cop car was humming uptown amidst a cortege of fast yellow cabs. Anonymous buildings, white stone and glass, whipped past under the wide blue sky. And then, up ahead: a humorless brick temple of a place. Hunched wings, tall, frowning windows. It hoisted its walls out of a red cluster of low-grown maples. A grim fence of black iron surrounded it.

Bellevue! she thought. And the truth dropped down on her like a stone.

She remembered the subway platform. Coming awake facedown, her cheek pressed into the grainy concrete. She remembered the weight of the cops on top of her, a hand on her neck, a knee in her back. The bark of their voices: “Where’s the gun? Where’s the fucking gun?” Hands digging at her waist. Pushing at her thighs as if she were a slab of beef. Someone—a woman—said: “Aw crap, she urinated herself!” She had closed her eyes at this. She had concentrated on the dark, on the cold of the stone against her cheek. She just wanted to lie there and let things happen.

“Do you know where you are?” the woman had shouted in her ear. “Do you know where you are right now?” She had a thick Queens accent: “D’you know wheah you aw right now?”

In deep shit, Nancy thought, lying there. She felt a tear run out from under her eyelid. Snot ran from her nose and pooled on the platform under her mouth. She did not want to move. She did not want to do anything. “Awright. C’mon!” the woman said finally. Nancy was yanked to her feet.

“Ow!” That roused her a little. Big male hands gripped her forearms tight. Pain stabbed her shoulder. “You don’t have to hurt me,” she said as fiercely as she could.

No one bothered to answer. The blue uniforms closed in on her. Beyond them, she could see commuters, their faces, white and brown. Gum-chewing mouths. Eyes—lots of dark eyes with the light dancing in them. The people were up on their toes, straining to see her. Oh, look. A crazy broad getting arrested. Pissed all over herself. Snot all over her face. Nancy couldn’t wipe her nose—her hands were cuffed behind her. She couldn’t even get around to rub herself clean on her shoulder. She wished she could stop crying. She wished her head didn’t feel so heavy and thick.

The woman from Queens—a policewoman—brought Nancy’s attention back by gripping her shoulders, leaning her face in very close. Nancy saw wisps of blonde hair curling out from under her police cap. Big, soft, brown eyes like a deer’s. She was wearing blue eyeliner—a big mistake with her coloring. “Lissen to me, okay?” the policewoman said loudly. “D’you know wheah you aw? D’you know woy this is hehppening to you? Hah? Do you?”

Nancy had tried to steady herself on that big face. Okay, she thought; she had to give the right answer here. She sniffled once, hard. Her voice sounded high and strained to her like a little girl’s voice. “I went to work this morning,” she said slowly. “I went to work, but no one knew who I was. I mean, I knew who I was but they said I wasn’t. But I was! And then all the beggars started winking at me.”

The cops cast long looks at one another.

Good one, Nance, Nancy thought. She hung her heavy head. It all just seemed too hard.

“All right,” one cop said with a sigh. “She must’ve dropped the piece in the tunnel. We’ll go take a look.”

And the woman cop answered, “We’ll take huh ovuh ta Bellevue. Let dem figger it out.”

Nancy had looked up when she heard the name. Bellevue. The mental hospital. For people who had gone crazy. Her lips moved over the word: “Bellevue …”

And now, here it was. Through the patrol car window she saw the hospital’s name etched in its wrought iron gates. Then that was gone, and the car was turning. Gunning down a deserted street. Past another hunkering brick pile. A solemn row of urns on concrete columns.

Nancy licked her dry lips. They must be heading around to the emergency entrance, she thought. And they were going fast. They’d be there any minute now. She tried to swallow but she couldn’t. Christ, what were they going to do to her? Were they going to lock her up? Would she have to be in a cell with crazy people? God, she felt if she couldn’t get out of these handcuffs, if she couldn’t get free, she’d start to scream. The patrol car barreled down the deserted street. It was all happening so fast. And the silence—the way the two cops didn’t even talk to her … She might have been alone in all the world.

She looked up at the backs of the two immobile heads in the front seat. The one on the passenger side was the woman. Her short blonde hair stopped just below the back of her cap. Her neck was slender and smooth.

“Excuse me …” Nancy said. It was a mouse voice. The cops couldn’t hear her over the roar of wind at the windows. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me.”

The policewoman barely turned. She glanced at the driver.

“Are we going to the hospital?” Nancy asked. “Are you taking me to Bellevue now?”

The policewoman shouted over her shoulder. “Yeah. Wuh right heah.”

They had come out of the empty lane. The weight inside Nancy grew heavier as she looked out the window. There was a new building. Flat, broad, white. Columns of windows with strips of white stone between. It looked down deadpanned on a wide parking lot below. The road curved around the lot. The cruiser approached the curve.

“Will I be allowed to call someone?” Nancy had to fight to keep the tears out of her voice. “I’d really like … to call my mother. All right?”

The policewoman cocked her head and shrugged. “Shuah. Just take it easy now, okay? Don’t get yerself all upset.”

“I’m not upset,” Nancy said firmly. “I’m fine now. I just wasn’t feeling very well before. I got confused but … I’m really fine.”

The policewoman didn’t answer.

“I would just like to call my mother when we get there,” said Nancy with some dignity.

“Shuah,” the policewoman repeated. “Everything’ll be fine.”

Nancy could only nod. I do have the right to a phone call, she wanted to say. But she didn’t have the courage. She looked out the window.

The police car rounded the bend. It headed toward the white building. Nancy watched the building growing larger, coming toward her. Suddenly, she heard herself give a nervous laugh, and she blurted out: “Boy, I am just really scared here. I guess it’s silly, huh? But I’ve just never been in a hospital like this.” She fought down her tears. “I am just really, really frightened, I don’t know why …”

The policewoman glanced at her partner again, but she didn’t say anything else. By now, anyway, they had arrived. The car was slipping into a low-ceilinged bay that ran along the building’s side, pulling to a stop at the hospital curb. Nancy pressed her forehead to the window. All she could see was a glass door. Then the policewoman was out of the car. Out on the sidewalk, opening Nancy’s door. She reached in and took Nancy by the elbow. Drew her out onto the sidewalk.

“Let’s just take it easy now,” the policewoman was saying. “Everything’s gonna be awright.”

Nancy pressed her lips together. The policewoman wasn’t even talking to her. She was talking to someone else, to some crazy woman she didn’t know. Nancy felt alone.

Another cop—a squat black woman—pushed open the glass door from inside. The blonde policewoman gripped Nancy’s arm tightly and walked her quickly through the open door. Nancy heard the door swing shut behind her. The sound made her look up. What she saw made her gasp. She cried aloud: “Oh no! Oh God!”

There was a white corridor before her. A corridor of closed doors. Behind the doors, there were whispers. She could hear them.

“Nancy. Oh, Nancy.”

She could hear the singsong whispers calling to her.

Her mouth went wide, but she could not scream. She was being pulled along the corridor and there, at the end, was a figure on a throne. A slim figure in black robes, holding a scepter in a bony hand and …

Nancy dug in her heels. She would not go. “NO!” She started screaming. Twisting to get free. Struggling to pull her arms free from the cuffs. “Please! Please! No!”

She could hear her own high-pitched shrieks. It was odd. She could hear her wild cries and she could see herself as if from a distance. She could see herself twisting and struggling frantically in the policewoman’s grip. Her eyes rolling, white. White froth bubbling over her lips onto her chin. She could see her feet kicking and skidding on the slick linoleum floor as she fought against going. Her head thrown back, her neck taut. Every muscle of her slim body strained backward as if she were a child being dragged to the woodshed.

And it was odd—it was really bizarre—because she could also see now that she was not in the nightmare corridor at all. She was just in the hospital. In a hallway. With a policewoman struggling to hold on to her arm. And two more officers were charging toward her from the far end of the hall. And two women in white uniforms were running at her too, shouting over her crazy screams.

She felt as if she were putting on a performance. In front of them, in front of herself. As if she were just pretending to be insane so she wouldn’t be held responsible for everything. She could even hear her real self thinking: Okay now, this is a bad idea. We are not making a good first impression here at all. So let’s stop this right now. All right? Right this minute.

And yet she couldn’t. She couldn’t make the performance stop. She went on screaming, kicking. Lashing her head from side to side, snapping with her teeth. And now came a man in a white coat—a slender young doctor with a pointed beard. He strode through a doorway, walking at her quickly, holding up a syringe. A syringe! She could see him squeezing a spurt of juice through the needle, clearing the air bubble. Two nurses waddled out of another door, holding a terrifying contraption of pads and straps.

That’s a straitjacket, Nancy! she thought. They are not kidding, all right? Let’s knock this off right now.

But the performance would not end. The doctor, the straitjacket—these only seemed to crank her hoarse shouts louder. She hurled herself to the floor, her body whipping and bucking even harder in her efforts to get free. Her real self watched helplessly as policemen, orderlies, nurses, and the doctor converged quickly on the shrieking performer. Only once, at the very end—only for a second, with an insinuating little chill of nausea—did it occur to her that this was not a performance at all.

And then they swarmed over her.

Perkins managed to vomit on the floor. He flung himself away from the toilet. Away from the glassy eyes, the severed, blood-drenched head. He fell to his hands and knees as his stomach disgorged Avis’s scrambled eggs and toast. The loose yellow mess splattered on the white tiles. Perkins could not lose the image of the woman’s slack and ghastly face beneath him, and he vomited again. He groaned, his eyes closed. Then, still spitting bits of undigested toast, he started crawling to the door. He wiped his mouth with his hand. He kept crawling. He had to get away from it. He had to get out of there.

The second he was in the hallway, he climbed to his feet. He braced his hand on the phone table and got his wobbly legs under him. He was gasping, out of breath. But he had to get out of the mews, get away from it. He stumbled to the top of the stairs, grabbed the newel post. He could see light below, gray light in the living room. He realized he had left the front door open.

That was the project: Get out that door. Get out of here and back into the sweet, bright, busy city. Get to a telephone. Call the police. Get out of …

He was about to start down the stairs when he heard something that made his breath stop. It was the creak of a floorboard. Somewhere in the house: a footstep.

His first crazy thought was to look down the hall. At the gray door, the door to his old bedroom. What if the sound had come from in there? What if the headless thing on the bed was moving? Rising … coming into the doorway … A silhouette in the rectangle of dim light.

Look, Oliver. Look what they did to me. Let me show you what they did to my head.

Then he heard it again. Another step. He stood absolutely still. He listened. It was coming from downstairs. Someone was moving around down there. Moving stealthily, slowly. Crossing the kitchen. Just out of his view. Coming toward the stairway. He heard a deep murmur, a few low syllables.

Shit, they’re still here.

He backed away from the head of the stairs, back into the shadows. Another floorboard creaked. They’re still in the house, he thought. Whoever they were, whoever had done this. They were still in the mews. The woman’s face seemed to appear before him again, her dead stare up from the toilet. They had carried her head from the bedroom down the hall … She had been alive just before. She had been a woman. She had had blue eyes. A woman’s voice. She must have thought thoughts—lived—even as they put the knife against her throat…

And they were still here. The people who had done this. They were in the mews. In the kitchen. Creeping quietly toward the stairs.

Perkins dragged his hand across his damp mouth. He looked right, down the dark hall, toward his old bedroom. He looked left. It was the only way to go. The way to Nana’s room. The outline of the door was dark. The room was dark, darker than the hall.

With a last glance down the stairs, Perkins moved. He took long strides along the passage. Going quickly, trying to stay quiet. If he could get to the room, get a window open … It was only a one-story drop, and even a broken ankle was a lot better than meeting up with these guys.

He reached the doorway and paused. Listened. A stair creaked—one of the bottom stairs. They had started up.

He entered the small room cautiously. The air was musty here, but the smell of butchery was not as thick. He could see the wooden shutters on the windows to his right. Lines of white light between the slats. Then he pulled up short as a movement caught his eye. But it was only a dresser mirror against the far wall. He could make out the dim shape of it. And the queen-sized bed against the wall beside him. A rocking chair … He scanned the room slowly. No other shapes. No human silhouettes …

Look, Oliver. Look what they’ve done.

He heard another step on the stairs. Closer to the top now. He moved swiftly around the end of the bed. Crossed the room to the shuttered window.

Come on, come on.

His fingers fumbled with the metal hook that held the shutters closed. He couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore. He didn’t know where the hell they were. The hook swung up with a little rattle. He folded back the shutters.

The light hit him bright and hard. The white-blue sky over a Tudor cottage. A car parked quietly at the alley curb. A woman walking her corgi turning the corner onto MacDougal … Christ, to be out there in the light … Perkins pushed open the double casements. The crisp, autumn air sighed in to him. He glanced over his shoulder once, to check the door …

Something stopped him. He saw something. On the bed. Frightened, he flicked his eyes over it. There was a shape. No. Just an impression. The imprint of a head on the pillow, of a figure on the spread. Someone had been lying there and …

And there was a gleam. He was about to turn away, about to go out through the window when he saw that, that little gleam of light. A thin line of silver. It lay on the pillow where a head had been. A single silver hair.

Perkins hesitated a second, his eyes fixed on it.

Tiffany?

And that was one second too long.

The floor creaked again. At the threshold. Right here. Perkins’s stomach dropped as his eyes flashed up from the bed to the doorway. A shadow stepped through into the room.

My head, Oliver.

But it was a man. Or not a man—a kid. A boy, still in his teens it looked like. He came into the light, blinking. A kid with a thin, pimply face. Blond hair in a crewcut. Frightened eyes—he looked almost as scared as Perkins. The two of them stared at each other. Slowly, the kid lifted his hand. The sunlight glinted blackly off the barrel of his gun. His lips worked silently for a moment before he could get the words out.

Then he said: “All right. P-P-P-Put your hands up. NYPD. You’re under arrest.”

Zachary remembered how Oliver had found him. That time at the mews. It was over a year ago now. Zach had been lying in the bedroom, on the floor next to his old bed. He had been naked and the warm night air had felt like water on his sinewy body. There were images floating in that water. Swirling, drifting, dissolving. Memory become vision. He had been gazing at those images and laughing and crying. He had not even heard Ollie arrive.

Then, all at once, Oliver was there. Zach had thought his brother was just part of the vision at first. But Oliver was loud, solid. He did not swirl or dissolve. Oliver was shouting at him, telling him to get up. Zach tried to explain about the teacup. He was laughing; it was so beautiful. It was the same teacup that had lain beside their mother when she died. And he could see it, floating in the liquid air above him: an inexpensive cream-colored teacup with a brown border at the rim. Only it was changed now. Not in appearance, no—it had been metamorphosed from within. It was filled with meaning that seemed to unite it to all the meaning everywhere. It was as if it had gone from being an individual object to a pattern in the greater pattern of an endless tapestry.

Zach had tried to explain this to his older brother. “Look, Ollie,” he had said, laughing. “Filled with love. Our love. Brothers. Everyone. In the structure, the molecules. See it? Right there.”

“Get up, you stupid prick!” Oliver had shouted. Oliver had not seen it. “Come on! We’ve gotta get you to the hospital.”

Zach remembered this as he pressed against the wall beside his window. He was naked now too. His balls tight with fear, his dick shriveled. He was peeking out at the street, at the detective stationed below him in the street. The detective was a pasty-faced thug in a tartan windbreaker. He leaned against a blue Dodge Dynasty with a long scrape in its front door. He smoked a Camel, glancing up and down the street. Watching for Zach. Waiting to arrest him because of the body in the mews.

This was how the world was without the drug, without Aquarius. Everything grainy with details. The crumpled cigarettes in the gutter at the detective’s feet. The rubble in the empty lot across the street. The lightning bolt shape of the crack in the plaster right beside Zachary’s nose. How was he supposed to think with all this stuff cluttering his mind?

He pulled back from the window, rested his head against the wall. He had to think. He had to get out of here, get to Ollie. The police would be back any minute. They would search the place. Find him. Open the red overnight bag. Somehow, he had to get past that detective downstairs. Haul his ass over to big brother’s.

He slid down the wall, rough plaster scraping his naked back. Down to the floor. On all fours, his bare ass high. Carefully, so he could not be seen from the street, he started crawling. He crawled back through the railroad flat, back to the bedroom. Over the dust balls on the wooden slats. Over the long gray patches where the white paint on the slats had peeled away. Oh Jesus, please, he thought. He was so sorry he had taken the drug again last night. He knew that God was punishing him for breaking his promise. But he could not believe that Jesus meant him to feel so alone, so detached from the tapestry.

He did not stand up until he was at the closet door again. Then he slipped back into the closet. Back among Tiffany’s clothes. The trace of her smell, her delicate musk. She wore jeans a lot of the time, but sometimes, luckily, she liked skirts too. Long skirts with colorful South American designs. He selected one of these now. An ankle-length with swirls of red and blue, cultic stick figures and rude drawings of sheep. It made him flash back on an argument Ollie and Tiff had had in Lancer’s, the café downstairs.

“Ol-i-ver!” Tiffany had said, musically drawing out the syllables as she strained the petals from her chamomile tea. “Are you so invested in your Eurocentric authority that you can’t even accept native art’s validity as art?”

And Ollie, leaning his head so far back that he was gazing at the ceiling, groaned, “I accept, I accept. Native art is art and native medicine is medicine. But give me a Park Avenue surgeon and Picasso any day.”

Zach felt dizzy. He leaned against the wall. Closed his eyes. He remembered the soggy flowers lying on her saucer. The coffee grounds at the bottom of his demitasse. The way the lines of Tiffany’s sweet face turned down at Ollie, as if she were more hurt by him than angry. And the way Ollie waved her off. And himself, seated at the table between them, with that feeble grin on his face. “You know, I really do believe that a mystical reading of the New Testament can help us transcend these categories.” Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be ineffectual.

He sighed. Opened his eyes. There was too much to straighten out. He could never get everything right. The police figured he’d killed the woman in the mews. They were going to put him in jail for it. He might as well give up now.

But he didn’t. Moving heavily, he tugged one of Tiffy’s sweaters off a hanger. It was a bulky Guatemalan knit, gray with blue zigzag patterns. Under the Volcano, the label said. He carried it and the skirt to the dresser in the corner.

The dresser was by the open window. He felt the autumn air on his skin as he stood there. It made him nostalgic and sad. If they put him in prison because of the woman in the mews, he thought, he would kill himself, that’s all. Even if they accused him, if they indicted him, he would kill himself. He couldn’t stand it. He would throw himself in front of a subway or something.

He opened Tiffany’s underwear drawer and then changed his mind. He went for his own briefs and a pair of white socks. Then he moved away from the window. He didn’t want anyone to see him from the buildings surrounding Lancer’s garden.

He went into the bathroom. Shaved first—super-careful not to nick himself. Then, once he had his underwear and socks on, he stepped into Tiffany’s skirt. Pulled on the sweater. He knew he had to hurry but he couldn’t focus his mind. At one point, he just stopped, just stared, stupidly. At the beard hairs in the sink. At the smear of toothpaste on the faucet. All this stuff, he thought. God! He shook himself out of it. Pulled open the mirror that covered the medicine chest.

Tiffany didn’t wear much makeup. She didn’t need much, she had that natural cream complexion. But there was a tube of lipstick and some eyebrow guck in there. Zach took the lipstick. Swung the mirror shut. He leaned into the glass and started to paint his lips bright red.

Do it fast, he thought. But then he was lost in the task. Smearing the stick on carefully. Pressing his lips together the way Tiffy did. He was thinking of Tiff again. Of Tiff and Ollie, arguing. In the churchyard over at St. Mark’s this time. Sipping cider, standing on the implanted memorials. Oliver had just given a reading in the church, and Tiffany’s friends from the bookstore were pissed. Trish and Joyce, radical fems in studded leather. They stood behind Tiff, at either slim shoulder. Glared at Ollie from the night like specters of revenge. Zach had stood at Ollie’s shoulder trying to look husky, just to be fair.

Tiff, though, had only been petulant. She crossed her arms, stamped her foot at him. “I don’t know, Oliver. I think you’re just being shallow on purpose …”

“Right,” Oliver had said wearily. “So if we’re not biologically determined, Oh Enlightened One, what are we determined by? Little messages from our incorporeal souls?”

Trish and Joyce had snarled like pit bulls. Tiffany’s doe eyes had gone wide. For a moment, Zachary thought she was actually near tears. “Damn it, Oliver,” she said. “You just do this to alienate people.”

“Why don’t you two stop?” Zach had said finally, a little desperate. He had put his hand on his big brother’s arm. He had hated the small, plaintive sound of his own voice. “Why don’t you two ever stop?”

He was done. He leaned back from the mirror. He stood on tiptoe to get a look at the length of him. The bulky sweater hiding his shape. The skirt to his ankles, the white socks and clogs covering his feet. The detective was not expecting him to come from inside. It would be enough. It would have to be.

But when he finally stood in the hall outside his apartment, when he stood at the top of the stairs, looking down, the fear almost paralyzed him. It made him feel frantic and sluggish at the same time. He wanted to run. And he wanted to sink down on the top step and burst into tears. Okay, Jesus. Please, he thought. He was so sorry he had taken the drug last night.

He took a breath and started walking slowly down the stairs.

He had a bandanna on now. Tiffany’s cotton scarf with the elk pattern on it. It covered his head, dipping down over his brow, hiding his nearly crew-cut hair. He was carrying the red canvas overnight bag, his long raincoat draped over it. Trying to think how a woman would carry it, how she would hold her arms. He worked it out as he went down. Bending his arms at the elbow. Placing his feet carefully so that his skirt would sway. Please Jesus please.

By the time he got to the ground floor, he was a walking prayer. Please sorry please sorry sorry please please please. He thought he might give himself up out of pure terror. And now too, there was a windy, diarrhetic feeling in his belly. His bowels were starting to move. He knew if he turned back now, if he went back upstairs to the bathroom, he would never get away. That was another aftereffect of the drug: It turned your shit to mud. Even if Mulligan’s men didn’t come back for an hour, they’d still find him in there clutching the crapper rim, straining for dear life. He just had to hold his gut together until he got to Ollie’s.

He pushed open the door. Stepped out onto the stoop. The pasty-faced detective was right there, leaning against the car at the curb. He was in the act of dropping yet another cigarette into the gutter. He looked up. A mean square face. Acne-pocked skin. Beady, marbly eyes. He looked right up at Zach. And Zach, frozen in terror, just stood there like an idiot. Returned the stare.

Slowly, the detective smiled.

He’s got me! Zach thought. Oh Jesus, I’m so sorry, help me please!

And then, with a jaunty little gesture, the detective raised one finger to his brow and saluted him. And Zach understood. The cop was flirting with him! Thinking fast, he dropped his eyes shyly, shyly smiled. The detective’s grin widened. He straightened against the car, shifting his shoulders manfully in his tartan coat.

Zach held his breath. He knew he was going to make it. His fear was turning to excitement. His groin was hot with it.

Holy shit! he thought. If he had an erection, he was dead.

His heart hammered at his chest as he came tripping sweetly down the stairs. The detective’s eyes were glued to him, following every step.

Zach tossed him one last saucy look. Then, the red bag swinging with casual feminine grace, off he went, his skirt switching behind him.

Nancy opened her eyes. She took a long, slow look around her. Then she began to cry.

She couldn’t hold it in anymore. She let loose; she cried as if she were alone. Her mouth was wide open. Her eyes were shut tight. Her head was thrown back against the thin pad. Her body shook as the tears poured out of her.

Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, is this me? Is this who I am?

She gulped the air, sobbing.

She was strapped to a gurney in the middle of a narrow room. A coarse gray blanket lay on top of her legs. Her coat had been taken away and the sleeve of her cream blouse had been rolled up to bare her arm. An IV bag hung on a hook above her head with a clear tube running from it to the crook of her elbow. The needle had been pushed into the vein there. It was taped down to hold it in place.

Nancy moaned. She opened her eyes. She stared through her tears at the white tiles of the ceiling, the hazy fluorescent light. She sobbed and her chest heaved against the strap that held her. She could not stop crying.

The room she was in was long, more of a corridor than a room. Along the walls were molded plastic seats. Hospital issue, blue, all linked together. Most of the men and women in the seats were black. They sat heavily, chins on their chests, mouths hanging open. Collapsed into themselves as if they’d been plopped down there, pats of dough off some big spoon. One old man with a grizzled beard was drooling. One fat woman was talking to herself. She wore a T-shirt that said: “Life-styles of the Poor and Unknown.” Her huge breasts lay on the rolls of her belly flesh. “I understand,” she kept saying. “You don’t understand, I understand perfectly.”

These patients sat on either side of Nancy. She was strapped to the gurney right in the middle of the room, right in front of everyone. The nurses had to turn their bodies when they wanted to get past her. One nurse smiled down at her as she squeezed by. Poor crazy thing. Nancy couldn’t stand it. She turned her face to the side. Her tears spilled across the bridge of her nose.

Is this really me? Is this really who I am?

The nurses slipped past her and past her again, carrying their folders. One was supporting a scrawny black woman by the elbow. The patient was staring at the floor, shuffling slowly along. Nancy tracked them as they went past the entranceway. She saw a policeman sitting there, a little cluster of blue chairs all to himself. His veiled eyes studied a tall wooden frame: a metal detector. Gotta watch those crazies, Nancy thought. Gotta watch those nut cases every second.

That made her remember: how she had screamed. How she had braced her heels against the floor, throwing her body back, shrieking up at the ceiling. Had that been her? The image of it seemed to swim sluggishly through the murk in her head. Was that me? The thought flashed neon out of the murk and vanished. It was all very tiring. That IV—it must have been pumping drugs into her. She was sooo sleepy. Thinking uphill. They must’ve been dripping some kind of secret drugs into her arm as she lay there strapped down, helpless. Made her want to scream some more. Scream plenty. That they could just do that to her. That they could just do anything to her they wanted. Because she was so goony. So goony as to be moony. So loony she was a loony tuney …

She laughed wearily through her tears. Christ, Christ, Christ-ti-Christ, she thought. What if this was what she was like? What if she just forgot sometimes, escaped, wandered out into the world …?

Yes, she likes to go into offices and pretend she works there. She can keep the game up for a while, but she’s completely insane. Hears voices, sees things. Thank you for bringing her back here, officer …

What if what she thought was her life was only a dream of her life, a wish for what her life would be if she weren’t …

The gaga girl from Booga-booga U.

She smiled, dimly now, her eyes half closed. All that weeping—it sure tired a person out. Made you muddy headed. And that sneaky IV—something was in there for certain. She could hardly keep her eyes from fluttering closed …

Then they shot open. Her heart was beating fast. Had she been asleep? She didn’t know. She didn’t know how much time had gone by. Someone’s hand was on her arm. She turned her head. Looked up.

A face hung over her. Round and black. Like a chocolate moon in the white sky above her. A lowering brow of dark, shiny granite. Huge, stern brown eyes.

“Who …?”

“Take it easy,” the black woman said. She patted Nancy’s arm. Nancy felt the calluses of her palm. She glanced down. All right; a nurse. She could understand that. The black woman was a nurse. Dressed in starched white with maroon piping. Squat and bosomy. With thick meaty arms, bare from the elbow.

“Let’s get you out of this,” she said.

“Opie’s,” Nancy said. She was trying to say, “Oh, please.”

There was a ripping noise. The nurse had pulled the tape up. Nancy sucked in a breath as the long IV needle was drawn out of her vein.

“How you feelin’ now?” the nurse said. “You got your mind in gear? I don’t want you biting my head off or anything, I got enough troubles of my own, you understand?”

Nancy tried to nod. Her eyes felt funny—untethered from her head. Her tongue tasted like a can of chili left open overnight.

“I’m Mrs. Anderson,” said the nurse. “I’m gonna take you to see the doctor.” With a few expert movements, she undid the strap around Nancy’s chest. Pulled the blanket off her legs. Undid another strap down there. And more stuff: There were a lot of rattling sounds, gears croaking, metal clanking. God knew what the woman was doing. Nancy didn’t care. Her whole body had sagged into the gurney with relief. She was free!

“Come on,” said Mrs. Anderson.

Nancy felt the callused black hand take hold of her arm. With an effort, she sat up on the gurney. It was like a storm at sea. The narrow white room tilted up until she thought the dreary patients would be tossed from their blue chairs. Nancy swayed.

“I gotcha,” said Mrs. Anderson. One heavy arm went around Nancy’s thin shoulders. Nancy leaned against the papery material of the uniform. Felt the soft, solid body underneath. She loved this woman. She was ready to follow Mrs. Anderson into the sulfury pit.

They went down the hall instead. Just another nurse with another shuffling patient. Nancy’s neck was bent as they went, her head down, just like the scrawny black woman she had seen before. Her feet—still in her flats—did not come off the floor as she scraped along. They crossed the narrow room into an even narrower hallway: a cinderblock corridor with doors on the left-hand wall.

“Right in here,” said Mrs. Anderson. “You sit, and the doctor be right with you.”

They had come into a tiny room. A cramped cubicle packed with furniture. A file cabinet in the corner. A desk topped with imitation wood. A table of the same material. Shelves in the wall stacked high with papers, papers overflowing. Two chairs: a cheap black-and-metal swivel for the desk, blue plastic for guests. Hardly a bare strip of scarred linoleum floor visible under it all.

“You sit,” said Mrs. Anderson again.

Nancy carefully lowered herself into the plastic chair opposite the desk. Her head felt enormous, but she managed to raise it. She nodded at Mrs. Anderson, smiled her nice-girl smile. I’m fine now, see? I’m a very nice girl. You’ll have no more problems with me, no sir, you betcha. If they strapped her to that gurney again, she really would go out of her mind.

Mrs. Anderson nodded her big head gravely. Then she was gone from the open door.

Alone, Nancy sat in her plastic chair and tried to look docile. Shoulders hunched, hands clasped on her lap. Ready for the doctor. She studied the shiny metal leg of die desk in front of her. Excuse me, Doctor, she thought, would it be possible for me to make a phone call? She shook her head, tried again. Excuse me, sir. I don’t want to make any trouble or anything, but later, if there’s time and I can find a phone free … She took a trembling breath. Maybe she wouldn’t even have to ask, she thought. Wouldn’t they just let her call her mother at some point? Sure they would. Maybe they’d already called her. It would probably be best to just wait; don’t start any trouble.

The phone on the desk gave a soft breep. She dared to raise her eyes a little until she saw the phone’s light blinking. Papers stacked on the desktop. A manila folder open, forms fanning out of it. Pencils here and there.

“Ah! The new victim.”

She turned to the door quickly. A man stood there. An older man in a worn black suit, a loosened red tie. Bent-backed, hands in his jacket pockets. He had straight silver hair pouring down one side of his face. A mottled face with white lips that smiled kindly, small eyes that glistened merrily as they took her in.

Nancy composed her expression: friendly, respectful. The way she’d greeted Dr. Bloom since she was thirteen years old. “Hello, Doctor,” she said.

He unpocketed one hand, held it up at her. “No, no. Not a doctor, just a … well, a counselor, I think, is the politest word for me. Why not just call me Billy Joe? Billy Joe Campbell. And you are …”

She managed a party-manners nod. “Nancy Kincaid.”

“Ah,” said the old man again. Briskly, he stepped forward. Sat in the desk chair and swiveled around to face her. The phone was still ringing but he paid it no mind. He rolled his chair forward a little, until his knees were nearly touching hers. He leaned toward her, his merry eyes bright. “You,” he said slowly, “are afraid.”

Nancy pressed her lips together. What was the right answer? “A little, yeah.” She had to speak carefully to make the words clear. “A lot actually.”

He smiled. He reached out and took her hands off her lap, held them in his. “I don’t blame you.” His hands were cool and dry and somehow reassuring. “What’s happening to you is very frightening,” he said. “And the task before you is more frightening still.”

He held her gaze with his, no matter how much the phone breeped. Nancy saw its light blinking from the corner of her eyes. “The task?” she said thickly.

“Oh yes!” He leaned back, still holding her hands. To Nancy’s relief, the phone stopped finally. “It’s a sort of journey really. A journey down into the dark. An adventure—different for every person and yet, for each person, almost exactly the same.”

She licked her lips, shook her head a little. She was held by the jolly light dancing in those eyes. She couldn’t think of what to say.

“For each person,” he went on, “there are … talismans that must be found. Trials to overcome. Riddles to answer. And, at the end, in die darkest place of all: a fearsome creature: the Other; the self whom, above everything, you wish not to be. Only if you have the courage to embrace that self can you learn the magic word.”

Nancy could still only shake her head. “The magic word?”

And he, with a nod, would only answer her, “The magic word, yes.” And then he lowered his chin to his chest. Peered up at her from under bushy brows.

“Well … what do I have to do?” Nancy said after a moment. She felt she had to say something. “I mean, what do we do now? Where do we begin?”

“Ah!” He chuckled amiably. “First of all, we have to kill the Jews.”

“What?”

“And I mean all the Jews. We have to kill them and send their bodies to the moon.”

Nancy was still gazing into those merry eyes as, very slowly, her mouth began to fall open.

“That will be fun, won’t it?” said the man.

Nancy yanked her hands from him. “Why, you’re … you’re crazy.”

“OH, LIKE YOUR SHIT DON’T STINK!” he screamed. He jumped to his feet, his arms flying. “What do you think you’re here for, sister? Shingles?”

“Billy Joe!”

It was Mrs. Anderson. She came steaming back into the little room, her great chest a prow.

“What’re you doin’ in here? You quit screaming at that girl! Right now! You hear?”

The man in the worn black suit hunched his shoulders. He pulled his head in like a turtle. “Yes, Mrs. Anderson,” he said.

“You go on, get back out there where you belong ’fore I lose my temper. Go on. Right now.”

Billy Joe had to make himself the width of a piece of paper to squeeze past the mighty nurse. But he managed it—fast—and slipped out of the room.

“I’m surrounded by goddamned crazy people,” Mrs. Anderson said. She shook her head. Turned her big, stern eyes on Nancy—who was pinned to her chair, welded to it, back straight, features frozen in a silent scream, as if an electric shock had gone through her. “Oh, don’t you let that one bother you,” Mrs. Anderson told her. “He don’t do nothin’. Here come the doctor now.”

Nancy swiveled as stiffly as a mannequin. Turned her electric eyes on the door, thinking: Magic Word? Magic Word? Jesus Christ! Get me out of here!

And then the doctor strolled in, whistling.