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at the next landing something brown stained the grout between the grimy tiles. I pushed open the door and staggered out into the hallway.
    The shouting was coming from down there, and I did a fast walk down that familiar path. I stopped at the door marked 613 and started knocking on it. I was still knocking on it when it opened suddenly.
    My fist pounded the air and I stumbled forward before catching myself. He was standing there, holding it open, looking like he had opened the door and found dog crap. He was wearing a tank top and jeans, as usual. His hair was greasy, and he always looked kind of sweaty.
    “What the hell do you want?”
    I focused, staring at him until the room seemed to get brighter and the color kind of washed out of everything except the light that came into focus around his head. It glowed, like soft electric light . . . red, kind of like fire, and flaring up in little points and spikes. He was angry, as usual.
    “What the fu—” he said, then fizzled in midsentence as I focused on that light.
    “Calm down,” I said, and the spikes began to settle. The red shifted to violet, then blue. His stupid eyes changed, some of the meanness going out of them. He stood there like an ape until the light settled into a cool blue, like the sky on a sunny day.
    His girlfriend or whoever she was peeked out from behind him, watching me from a few feet inside. She’d been crying, her shirt torn and her hair messed up.
    “You should get some sleep,” I told him.
    He nodded, his eyes dull. I pulled my attention away from him. The light shifted back to normal, and the sharpness surged back into my surroundings. He rubbed at his face, then turned and waddled back inside. The woman met my eye for a second and gave me that look she sometimes did. That relieved, embarrassed, guilty look that was the closest she ever came to thanking me.
    A chill ran up my legs and I realized for the first time that I was standing there in nothing but a nightshirt and underpants. I turned without saying anything, and went back upstairs.
    When I got back inside, I closed the door behind me and locked it. I stood there for a second, leaning my back against it, and hoped she wouldn’t follow me. She wouldn’t, though; she never did. I hated going down there. Why did she stay with him?
    The image of the FBI agent Wachalowski was still on the TV screen, like he was staring me down from across the room. There was something about his eyes, like he could see right through the screen and into my apartment and was wondering what he had just watched.
    He wouldn’t believe it if he knew. The woman downstairs had watched it enough times with her own two eyes and she didn’t even believe it.
    Sitting back down with the bottle, I tried to push the whole thing out of my head. I switched the channel before I had my next drink, because I didn’t want him to watch me do it. Later, when I got closer to the bottom, I wouldn’t care, but right then I didn’t want anyone to see. Tomorrow I’d stay sober. Maybe I’d take it easy for a few nights, to detox myself and kind of clear my head.
    I was too far gone tonight, but tomorrow definitely.
    Using the tuner, I strayed out of the news bands and into the movie area, where the search ’bot scanned hundreds of channels for things that interested me. It stayed quiet downstairs for a while; then they had sex for a few minutes; then it got quiet again. I wondered why the FBI agent Wachalowski ended up in the green room, but not for long before the booze started doing its job.
    All I wanted was to be numb when the needle-head finally did show up again. The rest would work itself out.

Nico Wachalowski—Palm Harbor Shipyard
    As I cruised down the interstate, I could still feel the blood pulsing in my neck. Before I left, I’d signed out a weapon. Having a gun strapped next to my ribs made me breathe a little easier, but I could still feel the cold meat of that dead arm around my neck.
    Where had someone like