Grip woke in the night, something disturbing him, bringing him to consciousness. His eyes were hazy from sleep, the room dark. He registered the familiar silhouettes of his apartment: table, chairs, wardrobe, the brighter squares of shaded windows. He registered the silence, none of the normal street noise. In his semiconsciousness he found it vaguely strange, but not particularly troubling. And there was something else, a presence in the room. Another person? He thought he might have seen a silhouette, but he wasn’t sure, and anyway, he was overwhelmed by fatigue, unable to stay awake.
His dream came intensely. A woman, as there often was, but a Negro—beautiful, tall, dark. It didn’t make sense, this dream; no coherence; no logic; but there was lust and there was fear.
He woke when the sun came through his window, the dream still with him in its essence, its impressions; the details lost. His head throbbed from dehydration and last night’s whiskey. He wondered if this might be causing the dread that seemed to wrap itself around his chest, constricting him. He drank a couple of cups of tepid tap water that pooled, stagnant, at the bottom of his stomach.
He showered and shaved, nicked himself below his chin. He put on a lightweight suit and knotted his tie loosely. The day was already hot. He shut his windows in case of rain, shrugged on his shoulder holster, and slipped in his Colt. He looked around the apartment before leaving, decided not to make his disheveled bed.
Out in the hall, he pulled the door shut behind him, turned to lock it, and saw that someone had painted the same skull-in-top-hat on his door that he’d seen at the bar two days before. His mouth went dry, the tepid water and whiskey bile churned in his stomach.
“Oh, fuck,” he said. His sweat ran cold.