Speechless, Jane fell back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. He was tired, so exhausted that he saw her as just another drug addict. A great disappointment to Hiram Worchester. At the thought of Hiram the craving burst upon her with an intensity that brought her up out of the bed and sent her charging for the doorway.
Just at the threshold she collided with the nurse. "Whoa, wait a minute," the nurse said, thrusting a piece of paper at her. "Dr. Tachyon told me to give you the name of this clinic-"
Jane snatched the paper from her and stared at it, trying to drown it in a gout of water that would turn it to mush, but the terrible need blocked her again. She looked up at the nurse.
"No drug?" she said belligerently.
The nurse's eyes were hard. "Not here, lady."
She could still call a little water, albeit in a rather conventional way. She spat on the paper and flung it in the nurse's face. Then she turned and ran down the hall to the exit.
On the fourth number she dialed, the answering machine message cut off and a low voice said, "It better be good." Jane's voice suddenly deserted her. She hung on the pay phone in the telephone booth, her mouth opening and closing impotently.
"Okay, kid. We had Prince Albert in a can but we let him out last week. Now go call your mommy," She heard him start to hang up.
"Croyd!" she wailed.
She could actually sense him shifting gears at the sound of a female voice. "Go ahead, I'm listening."
"It's-it's me, Jane. Jane Dow," she added, trying to force herself to sound calm.
"Jane. Well." His pleasure-filled laugh grated on her painfully. "So you didn't throw away the numbers I gave you. You sound a little breathless. Everything okay?"
"No. Yes. I mean-" She slumped against the wall of the phone booth, gripping the receiver with both hands. "Jane? You still there?"
"Yes. Of course." Slowly she straightened up and tried to compose herself into the Aces High hostess who flirted so easily with the man with the faceted eyes. The overwhelming emptiness inside of her made that woman a stranger to her now. "I'm still here and you're there. I think that means one of us is definitely in the wrong place." Her voice broke on the last word, and she jammed her knuckles into her mouth to smother the sound of her crying.
"If you're saying you'd like to rectify that situation, that's the best thing I've heard today." He paused. "Are you sure everything's okay?"
Something in the back of her mind was trying to tell her Croyd sounded as though he were on the thin edge himself, but she ignored it. If there was anyone who could get her a drug, it was Croyd. Whatever she had to do for him in return was not too much to ask.
"Everything will be okay when you give me your address," she said shakily. When he didn't answer, she added, "I really want to see you. Please?"
"I never could resist a woman who said please. Tell me where you are and I'll tell you the best way to get to where I am…"
The door opened a wide crack to reveal the mirrorshades, gleaming at her with an insectile coldness. Croyd licked his lips and opened the door wider. "Come into my parlor, Bright Eyes. If you'll pardon the expression. I'm afraid parlor is all there is." The voice was different; the man was taller and his skin was white all over, but the words were pure Croyd.
She stepped into a shabby one-room apartment lit only with a few small lamps scattered in odd spots. The furniture was negligible-a bureau that might have come from the same flea market as the lamps, an old wooden table and a couple of chairs, a broken-down sofa near the windows. It was not the most reassuring place she had ever come to, but, she reminded herself, she had not come for reassurance.
"This is not the place I usually choose to entertain in," Croyd was saying as he shut the door and ran down a line of four locks. He turned to her, raisipg a hand to his mirrorshades, and licked his lips again. "So. I'm afraid I don't have a lot to offer you in the way of refreshment, but I can make any kind of gin and tonic you like."
She laughed nervously, hugging herself. "How many kinds are there?"
"Well, there's gin and tonic, of course. Tonic and gin," he said, moving closer to her. She made a countermove farther into the room, hugging herself tighter. "Gin and not much tonic. Gin and no tonic at all. Gin and an ice cube. Which sounds great to me. You think it over." He licked his lips for the third time in as many minutes and went to the kitchenette.
Jane turned away, trying to get the shudder building inside of her under control. In the company of this man who wanted her, the void was eating away at her like acid. It would make no difference if Croyd's latest persona were the god of eros. Just being in the same room with him was an excruciating reminder that pleasure could only be Ti Malice; anything else was a pale, crude substitution to force time to pass.
"Decided?"
She jumped as he touched her shoulder and moved away from him, rubbing the spot as if it were bruised. "No, Inothing for me, I guess." She gave another nervous laugh and winced. He tilted his head curiously and she saw two Janes in the mirrorshades. The distortion made her look as if she were trying to disappear into herself.
"You sure?" Croyd upended the glass and took a couple of ice cubes into his mouth, crunching them noisily. There were only ice cubes in his glass, she saw. "Nothing at all?"
"Well, not nothing…" She made a face, giving a long sigh. "God, I'm no good at this."
"At what?" Croyd had another ice cube. "What is it you're not good at, Bright Eyes?" He came a little closer and she backed away. "And why is it so important to be good at it?"
Something caught her abruptly behind the knees, and she plumped down hard on the couch. Croyd moved in quickly beside her, rolling another ice cube around in his mouth. His left arm slid along the back of the sofa and she shrank away from him. His knee touched hers just as his hand went from the couch to her shoulder, moving very lightly. He reached over and set the glass on the windowsill behind the couch, disturbing the drawn shade; his hand, she saw, was trembling slightly. Jane looked from the glass to Croyd. His tongue flicked out and ran along his lips every few seconds now. It was more like a tic than an expression of desire.
"Talk to me, Jane," he said gently as she reached the corner of the couch. He put his other hand on her arm. She flinched at the contact; there was another sensation under the displeasure of a touch that was not Ti Malice's, a tremor, as if he were running a long distance and going as fast as he could instead of sitting here on the couch trying to take her in his arms. "Come on, talk to me. Tell me."
The words came to her unbidden. "`Sleeper speeding, people bleeding."'
He froze. Jane looked into the mirrorshades, seeing only her twin reflections. Impulsively she reached for the glasses and he pulled back. "Don't." He twisted around, looking for the ice cubes, and Jane nodded at the windowsill. "Thanks. Speed dries you out."
"Where do you get it?" she asked.
"What, the speed? Why?" He crunched a couple of ice cubes. "You planning to stay up all night?"
"I was just wondering if whoever you got it from might… well, stock other things." She took a deep breath. "Other kinds of drugs."
He looked at her sharply for a moment and then suddenly lunged at her, grabbing her upper arm to pull her close. "Stop, you're hurting me!" Jane flinched from the mirrorshades thrusting themselves into her face and tried to pry his fingers off her arm.
"Are you strung out? Is that why you came here?" He was almost laughing. She twisted away from him, started to get up, and stumbled, landing on the floor in a heap.
"Get up." He pulled her back onto the couch roughly. "Talk to me, and this time, tell me something I don't know. Are you strung out."