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sister seemed more alarmed by this news than by anything else Ned might have told her. “Shit,” she said. “Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.”
    Ned addressed the other man. “Was she about to go somewhere?”
    â€œI think she’s feeling a little chilly,” the man said.
    â€œCan you all watch these kids for a little while?”
    â€œGuess so,” the man said.
    â€œYou might even join us for a bit. You might be able to help us,” Ned said. “This is Jamie. And Miranda Sue, hiding behind her mom. And here we have little three-month-old Ellen. Ellen got a middle name, Jamie?” He was holding out to Jamie the flat palm of his hand, on which lay two red capsules.
    There were taking place here one or two more things than Jamie could successfully process at a single time. “What?” she said. “What are those? And who are these people?” The whole situation began flashing with a dry potent unreality.
    â€œI was just asking after Ellen’s middle name, because I was curious. And I was also offering you something to take the edge off. And this is my sister, Jean, and her husband, Randall. And these are two reds. Those white crosses, they always make me feel jumpy a little while after I eat a couple. What about you?”
    â€œYeah. I’m a little jumpy, I guess.” Jamie accepted the two reds. “Just for a second there, I was feeling like the whole room was getting kind of yellow and zig-zaggy.” Ned handed her a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, and she washed the pills down with a swallow. “Know what I mean?”
    â€œDefinitely. Yellow and zigzaggy. That means it’s time to take the edge off, smooth the whole deal out, sort of. How about you, beautiful?” He offered one red pill to Jean while looking at his brother-in-law for permission. The brother-in-law nodded, and the sister swallowed it rapidly and with an air of furious resignation. Jamie could feel a liquid warm front moving in on the raw borders of her own disquiet. The room began to get slow.
    Ned’s apartment was on the next floor below, the hallway of which lacked but one or two functioning electric bulbs. He fiddled with his keys in the door, entertaining her with a string of chatter to which she found it unnecessary to pay any heed. “Hey,” she said suddenly, watching him manipulate his key in the lock, “how about that?” On several of his fingers, Ned sported the garish flaking rings, the secret decoder jewelry of nickel gumball machines.
    He opened the door onto an interior that pulsed with black-light. Dayglo posters shimmered violently on every wall. His suit was now absolutely invisible, and his hands and head seemed to drift in the air. She followed him into this weirdness. “Your name’s Ned, huh?”
    He shut the door behind them. In the ultra-violet his face appeared deeply tanned, the whites of his eyes now tinged with a faint blue life, like shark’s meat. “My name is Higher-and-Higher,” he said.
    â€œDo you know about Linda Lovelace?” was the big question on Ned Higher-and-Higher’s mind. “Can you do like Linda Lovelace?” He wasn’t slapping her hard, it just seemed he was trying to keep her conscious. The brother-in-law Randall was helping. “This is so beautiful I can’t stand it,” Ned Higher-and-Higher said. The brother-in-law was quieter. He just kept doing things to her that were rough and hard, one after another, yanking her up by the handcuffs. She accepted that he was evil and that at the very least, he would break her arms. She let them do everything with a ceaseless nausea that could scarcely scratch its name on the barbiturate serenity she inhabited. “Oh man—oh yeah—oh man—oh yeah,” Ned Higher-and-Higher said. Jamie was drifting along the halls outside, worrying about her children. Now she was worrying about Jamie, who was inside one of