"Fine," Chris said.
"Several years ago my brother, Rob, was accused of murdering three women. When the police moved in to capture him, he was killed."
"I'm sorry."
"He didn't kill those women. Some-force had taken him over."
"I see." Chris couldn't keep the scepticism from her tone.
Emily smiled. "I'm sure you've heard stories like this many times. An innocent relative and all that."
Chris was just about to respond when she saw Emily Lindstrom's upward glance.
There, right next to their table, stood the two salesmen.
"Hi, gals," the taller of the two said. "I'm Arnie."
"And I'm Cliff."
"You're the TV reporter if I'm not mistaken," Arnie said.
They both wore three-piece suits. They both wore Aqua Velva. And they both wore lounge lizard smiles.
"That would be me, yes," Chris said.
"I'd consider it an honour to buy you a drink," Amie said. He nodded to the two unoccupied chairs gathered at the table. "You know?"
"I know, Arnie, I know. But believe it or not, this is a business meeting for me."
"Really?"
"True facts, Arnie," she said. She always had to remember that she had a public image to worry about. Even while spuming hit artists like these two bozos, she had to maintain a certain decorum. "I'm sorry but I really am busy."
Across the table, Emily Lindstrom kept her head down, her eyes almost closed, as if she were trying to will these two out of existence.
"You may not have noticed," Cliff said, "But they've got a dance floor in the back"
Emily Lindstrom's head shot up suddenly. She glared regally at Cliff. "Then why don't you and Arnie go show us how nice you look dancing together?"
Arnie lost it. "Hey, just because you're sitting here with some TV reporter doesn't give you the right to get shitty."
But Cliff, obviously the more sensible of the two, had his hand on Arnie's elbow and was gently tugging him away. "Come on, Arnie. Screw 'em."
Arnie, still angry, and a little drunker than Chris had realised, said, "Screw 'em? Hey, I wouldn't touch 'em. Either one of 'em. I don't think they're the type who go for guys-if you know what I mean."
Now Cliff's hand was more insistent on Arnie's elbow.
"You think you're some goddamn queen just because you're on the tube," Arnie said. "Well, you're no queen in my book"
Well, Chris thought uncharitably, in my book you’re a queen.
But then the bartender was there and when he took Arnie's elbow, it was in a manner far rougher than Cliff had done.
The half filled bar was alive now with curiosity about the scene in the corner involving the TV lady and the drunk. This was a lot more interesting than most of the conversations running, as they did, to politics and baseball and routine sexual propositions.
Watching some clown making a fool of himself over a TV lady. That was pretty good.
"Sorry," the bartender said, after getting Arnie and Cliff out the front door. "I'd like you to spend the entire evening drinking on the house."
"That's nice of you," Chris said, "but not necessary. You didn't make him a jerk."
The bartender obviously appreciated her kindness. Then he took a small white pad from his back pocket. He handed her a yellow Bic along with it. "Would you mind? For my daughter, I mean. She'd get a kick out of it."
Chris had never been sure exactly why people wanted the autograph of a local TV reporter, but she was modest enough to be flattered and so she was always most agreeable about putting pen to paper.
"What's her name?"
"Eve."
"Pretty name."
So she wrote a nice little inscription to Eve, signed it, and handed the pad back. "Here you go."
"Thanks. And I wasn't kidding about the drinks being on the house. They are."
When they were alone once again, Chris said to the Lindstrom woman, "I'm really sorry."
"Actually, it's sort of fascinating. Do you go through all this very often?"
Chris smiled. "Just enough to keep me off balance."
"I'd be off balance, too."
Chris said, "But we're here to talk about you, not me."
The Lindstrom woman leaned forward. "There's a man I want you to meet."
"Oh!"
"Yes. He's waiting for us at an apartment house."
"Will we leave right away?"
"No," Emily Lindstrom said. "He's going to be there for a while."
"Oh?"
"Yes. He's handcuffed to the bedpost."
And right then, Chris Holland thought: Maybe she isn't a garden variety lunatic.
But she sure is a lunatic of some kind.
So Chris sat there and sipped her drink and learned all about the man handcuffed to the bedpost with the giant serpent iri his belly.
He wasn't sure when it happened. It just happened, too subtie to quantify in any way, some process utterly mysterious.
Handcuffed to the bed, head dangling in an almost sleepy way, an image of his daughter filling his mind (a rowboat on a scummy but not unpretty pond; lily pads the colour of frog bellies parting as the stem of the rowboat gently parted them; and Cindy's laugh; God, Cindy's laugh).
And then his head came up abruptly and he thought no more of his daughter.
He started yanking on the handcuffs.
He thought of freedom and of what he would do with that freedom.
The girclass="underline" Marie Fane.
The snake shifted in his innards now, and he felt that crazy upside down nausea again.
Marie Fane.
He was so singular of purpose now.
He had an erection but he scarcely noticed.
He thought only of working himself free.
He searched frantically for any tool or implement that would help him escape.
The only thing that looked marginally useful was a pink plastic hairbrush on the edge of the bureau.
But what was he going to do with the hairbrush? Pry the cuffs free with it?
He was being silly.
And then he began to growl, no melodramatic transformation to hairy wolf or silken vampire, just a low vibration in his chest and larynx, like a dog at the exact moment it senses danger.
And then he began to tear more ferociously at his metal bonds, up on his feet now, and jerking at them with single-minded viciousness.
In no time at all, he was lifting the bed from the floor. It made a clattering sound as it rose, then fell; rose, then fell.
He tore himself so savagely from the bedpost that the cuff ripped deep into his wrist, hot metallic smelling blood spreading through the matted black hair on his arm.
But he hadn't snapped the cuff. That would take even more strength and he wondered if he'd ever have it.
He bit his lip so he wouldn't cry out.
The bed was already making too much noise. He couldn't afford to attract any attention. Not if he wanted to get out of here.
He knew that he had, at most, one or two chances left. Somebody was bound to call the police if he kept banging away at the bed.
He crouched down, trying to get better leverage on the bedpost.
He closed his eyes, trying to focus all his energy on the handcuffs.
Just the right amount of pressure and-
And then he felt the snake inside him shift again.
Oddly, this time there was no sense of nausea.
Indeed, if anything, he felt stronger, tougher than ever.
He bent forward a few inches, prepared himself mentally for the struggle with the bed, and then started counting backward from ten.
Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five…
(I've got to fucking do it this time.)