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fun. For the five dollars you got strobe lights and dark corners, mirrors to hate yourself in and noise. The beat of the music coming over the amplifiers was regular to the point of monotony and about as loud as the guns at Passchendaele. It was early for the action at this sort of joint; a girl was dancing with another girl and three men were dancing together on the polished floor. A few people sat drinking in plump-cushioned booths and my foursome sat up at a long bar. There were mirrors behind the bar which had the prices of the drinks written on them in white paint—a scotch cost two dollars and fifty cents, a Bloody Mary cost three dollars. I sat at the far end of the bar and ordered a beer. It wasn't an ideal place for a surveillance; alone and over thirty I stood out like a carthorse at the Melbourne Cup. Also I didn't know what to make of it: Annie was out with some friends consuming alcohol, the fact that she had a bad case of the shakes and that three of the party looked as if they didn't have fifty cents while the other was wearing five hundred dollars on her back was interesting, but nothing more.
    We all had another drink or two and I was thinking about calling it a night when he came in. His platform soles lifted him up high enough for you to call him short; he had on a dark three-piece suit with a dark shirt and a white tie. His body was plump but his head was abnormally small, it looked as if it was trying to duck down out of sight. He had a thin pasty face and stringy blonde hair, wispy on top and worn long. He looked as if he'd been made up out of leftover parts. He walked straight up to my party and the blonde bought him a green drink. They had a few giggles and then got down to what looked like serious talk, argument even. Annie shook her head a couple of times and Shorty downed his drink and made as if he was going to take the high dive off his stool. Then they all calmed down and the head shaking turned to nodding. Shorty got down and walked off towards a door with a sign over it that read ‘Powder your nose till it glows’. Annie and leather jacket followed him, and thirty seconds later I followed them.
    After the door there was a short, dark corridor and then a set of narrow, carpeted stairs. I went up the first flight, made a turn and then something like the Queen Mary hit me behind the ear. My face hit the carpet hard and a front end loader scooped me up and threw me down the stairs. I flipped over, hit my head more than once and never reached the bottom. I went down into the blackness and then down some more.
    When I came out of it a cat was walking across my face and talking. I told it to be quiet and tried to brush it away but it stayed there and talked louder. At least it wasn't scratching, but I thought it might, so I opened my eyes. It wasn't dark at the bottom of the stairs anymore, there was a bright light burning about a hundred miles away and it was getting closer. I closed my eyes again.
    â€˜He's alive’, a woman's voice said.
    Another woman giggled. ‘How alive?’
    I decided to kill the cat so I opened my eyes again. The light was closer this time, but not as bright, and the cat was a fur coat. Its owner also wore a pink leotard and spike heels. ‘What happened to you?’ She had the same voice as the cat.
    â€˜I fell down the stairs.’
    The giggler giggled again. ‘Break anything?’ She was small and dark with a big bright smile. She'd have been just the girl to take to an execution.
    I located my arms and legs and flapped them. I didn't fly but I did manage to crawl up the wall and stand there with my head throbbing. Two versions of the big figure in the fur coat stood in front of me, I tried to fuse them into one.
    â€˜I'm okay’, I said.
    â€˜Oh’, said the small one, and I thought I detected a note of disappointment.
    â€˜You need a drink.’ Fur coat, leotard, spike heels and practical, too—my dream girl. I mumbled