A nightmare woke me in the middle of the night.  I remembered police radios and a thunderstorm, nothing more.  I lay still in the dusty canopy bed for several seconds, letting the fright wash slowly away.  A cat was sleeping on the bed with me, soft warm weight on my legs.  I reached down and petted it, got a contented "Mau," in reply and wondered which of Lexi's cats it was.  "Who is that?" I asked the darkness softly.  There was no answer of course, but the cat started to purr.  I stroked the long, soft fur and dozed off.

Something woke me again close to dawn.  The cat was long gone.  I came awake suddenly, but without any anxiety; I wasn't waking from a nightmare.  Something had disturbed me.  I waited for more evidence, and then heard it; a low moan, like a suppressed scream.  It was coming from behind my head--Taiisha and Martin's room, through the wall.  I sat up in bed and looked at the wall as if I expected to be able to see through it, and listened.

The cry came again, along with the faint sound of bedclothes rustling.  Someone was holding back a shriek, or screaming into a pillow.  Was it Martin or Taiisha? I had no idea what could make her scream like that, if it was her.

The longer it went on, the more convinced I became that it was Taiisha.  I started to go and see...and then remembered her comment about "distracting" Martin.  The noises suddenly made a lot more sense.  My stomach rolled.  I tried not to think about what they might be doing.  Pulling the covers over my head muffled the sound, but I could still hear the smothered cries.  I thought I could hear the bed squeaking, but it might have been my imagination.

I watched the light change as the sun rose.  The blackness in my room lightened to blue, then to the slate gray of a cloudy winter day.  Some time during the blue, the screaming stopped for the last time.  Not long after that I heard Taiisha or Martin get out of the bed, cross the room, and go down the hall to the bathroom.  After that, there was a second thump from the room, and I heard that screaming sound again.  It hadn't been sex at all.  My curiosity blossomed to life again, but I couldn't bring myself to go and see.

Early as it was, I went to Eddie's room.  I couldn't stand listening to that noise any more, and the squeaking of the bed when I knew only one person was in there was unsettling.  Eddie was already awake and on the phone, talking quietly to someone.  He was still in his pajamas, but motioned for me to come in when I pushed the door open.  I sat at the foot of his bed.

"We're going to need a delivery van," he said to whoever he was talking to.  "Naw, I can find one.  Whose do you want it to look like? Airborne Express? Those trucks are what, black and silver? Red.  Got it." Eddie wrote on a notepad with one hand.  "Terrace Hotel, by Friday.  And it's being picked up by...Nelson, right?" He listened for a moment, then laughed.  "That's for sure.  I'll make sure there's a radio in it.  Now, the meeting room is already in your name.  It's the Atlantic Room.  Stupid name, I know.  It's the small meeting room.  You have four tables, the PA with the podium, and a video screen, if you still need it.  What do you want for lunch? Beef or seafood?" He wrote some more.  With his free hand, he held a cigarette out to me.  I shook my head.  "Dawn at the Terrace tells me that their sirloin tip lunch is far superior to the shellfish.  You got any vegetarians? Excellent.  Okay, let me get these things nailed down.  I'll be in touch, Dell.  Take it easy." Eddie exchanged a few more jovial remarks, then hung up.

"Business good?"

He shrugged.  "Same old same old."

"What were you setting up?"

"An acquaintance is selling some art.  He wants to make it look big, and then once it's over he's going to steal it under the pretense of arranged shipping through a legitimate carrier.  Nothing special.  What's up? Besides you, I mean."

"Why's something have to be up?"

"Morning visitations are unusual," he said.  "Usually I have to come to you to begin the day's abuse."

"Martin's not right," I said.

"How do you know?"

I opened my mouth to explain, and couldn't.  The conversation would lead to the reason I had ended up with Eddie in the first place.  I hadn't thought of a way to gracefully avoid that yet.  "It's just a feeling," I said finally.  Half a warning was better than none.

"What about Gray?"

"What about her?"

"She was tossing funny looks at you all day yesterday." Eddie lit his own cigarette and scratched his hairy belly without a hint of self-consciousness.  He reminded me of a gorilla when he did that.

I looked away from him.  "What kind of looks?" I asked.

"I don't know exactly.  I want to say possessive, almost.  I got the impression she swings both ways and wouldn't mind making a conquest out of you." I narrowed my eyes at him, but he was serious.

I had to change the subject.  "Have you ever been given a job you didn't want to do? That wasn't right, and you knew it?"

Eddie smiled and scratched his belly again.  "Well, Poppet, if you must know," he glanced at me as if expecting me to tell him not to call me Poppet, "I have been given plenty of jobs and troubleshoots that didn't feel right."

"What did you do? How do you deal with that?"

"If I don't refuse it outright, then I just grit my teeth and get it over with.  It's just work.." He frowned at me.  "I know I just said the wrong thing.  I can tell by the look on your face.  Well, that's my wisdom.  Put it in your pipe and smoke it." Eddie got up and went to his suitcase to lay out clothes.  "It's about Lexi, isn't it?"

I didn't say anything.  I wasn't sure if it was about Lexi...or about him.

"Don't let it get personal, Nikki."

I chose to let it be about Lexi, for now.  "It's pretty personal to her."

"She's fine."

"She's a goddamn prisoner, Eddie."

"If you don't know you're a prisoner, is that what you are really? Do you consider goldfish prisoners?"

"Yes."

"I knew you were going to say that." He stood and stripped off his pajama bottoms to put his pants on.  He knew that usually made me go away.

I looked away instead of leaving.  "So, what if she says she wants to stop taking the pills, and wants to go visit this storage facility she keeps talking about?"

"Burn that bridge when I come to it," he said.  I couldn't deal with his indifference, so I ended the discussion by walking out of the room.  I do that a lot.