“The mirror…” Chantai said. “I have to stand in front of the mirror. Otherwise I fuck up.”

Gini heard Rowland move aside. There was silence. Rowland said, “Oh, Jesus Christ…”

Gini swung around. Chantal was facing the mirror, the syringe raised to her face. For an instant she couldn’t understand what was happening, then she realized. Chantai was injecting the heroin solution into her eye. She was holding her lower lid down with one hand while she inserted the needle with the other. The clear liquid in the syringe turned pink. Gini turned away, covering her face, and beginning to tremble. Rowland moved behind her; she felt his arms come around her shoulders. She twisted back to look at his grim, pale face.

“That can happen,” he said in a low voice. “They do that. When their veins are badly shot. Wait. She’ll be all right in a minute. Then she’ll probably sleep.”

“All right?” Gini stared at him. “She won’t be all right. How many hours before she needs another fix?”

“You think we’re going to cure her—here and now? Come on, Gini. If we hadn’t brought her here she’d have managed it some other way. And she’d have been in an even worse state.”

He stopped. Chantal gave a deep sigh. Gini, turning, saw that the trembling had stopped and a very faint color had returned to her face. She began speaking then, fast, in a low voice, addressing Rowland as if they were alone in the room.

“Look. I need to sleep, all right? I’ll be fine. My friend Jeanne will be back. I will kick this—in the end I will. She’s helping me. I’m careful. I’m careful what I buy. I don’t share needles. When Jeanne gets here—I’ll be all right.”

She swayed back against the sink and closed her eyes.

“You were pretty polite to me. I liked that. So—I’ll tell you. Star—I’ve known him half my life. He’s like me—a cross. Too many breeds, too many countries, too many homes, too many beatings and—so I’m fucked up, and he’s fucked up. That’s why. We’re both really fucked around in our heads…”

She dropped the syringe. Neither Rowland nor Gini spoke.

“And I don’t know where he is. I swear to you—somewhere in Paris, but I don’t know where. I saw him last night. He told me he was alone, but he—he lies a lot, and if that girl is with him, he’ll hide her. That’s what he does. You don’t need to worry too much. She’s probably okay. He’ll just give her some grass, talk to her—maybe a few pills. That’s okay—he always has good stuff. He won’t fuck her or rape her, you don’t need to worry about that…” She gave a low laugh, then stopped and opened her eyes. She was focusing now, better than before; she raised her hand to her cheek.

“Only—you’d better know this, because what she said—” She gestured at Gini. “She was right. He can get angry. He gets these bad angers, really bad, like trips. And last night—I got him a gun. He wanted a gun, he’s been wanting one for months, and he had the money and I had the contacts, so I fixed it for him. He collected it last night, just before you came knocking at the door.” She turned her face toward Gini. “It was you, right?”