As soon as the door closed, Archie stepped back into the shower, turned off the water and then stood watching as the last of the water streamed around his feet and circled the silver drain. His pulse throbbed in his fingers. His throat itched. The shower spigot dripped.

Archie coughed, and felt something come up his throat a millimeter. He coughed again. The tickling sensation intensified, scratching at his larynx. He cleared his throat and spat in the shower and coughed again. His head pounded. He gagged and his throat constricted and the itch became a raw sting. He was bent over, a string of saliva dangling from his lips, when he finally managed to dislodge it. He reached into his mouth to the back of his tongue, gagged once, and pulled out a small, light-colored hair.

He held the hair between two fingers. It was thicker than scalp hair, and shorter, coarser, with a slight curl.

Archie felt a vise tightening at the back of his neck.

He left the shower and walked, dripping, to where his grimy tux lay in a heap on the floor. He dug the brass pillbox from his pants pocket, opened it, and gingerly laid the little hair inside, his fingers clumsy and wrinkled from the shower. Then he snapped the pillbox shut, set it on the marble vanity, and backed away.

There were explanations.

The pain in his neck spread forward, up behind his ears.

The hair might have been in something he’d eaten. He might have inhaled it. It could be a facial hair.

Archie rubbed the back of his neck. He was losing his mind. This was ridiculous. It was a hair. It could have come from anywhere. Hadn’t a few of the caterers had beards? It could have come off a beard, fallen into a drink Archie was served, and then lodged in his throat.

He had dreamed about Gretchen, that’s all. She was on his mind, and he was high, and he was being paranoid.

He needed to get dressed and get off the island. Sober, after some sleep, things would start to make sense.

Archie dried off and pulled on Jack Reynolds’s satin boxers and tweed pants. The pants were lined with silk. They looked like they cost more than Archie’s car. As he pulled them to his waist, something knocked against his leg. When he reached into the front pocket he found an amber plastic pill bottle. The pills inside were small and round. Oxycodone. There had to be two hundred. There was no label, no prescription. Consider it a sample.

Archie rolled the bottle in his hand, listening to the music the pills made as they cascaded over each other. He could feel the physical anticipation in his body, his Pavlovian response.

He set the bottle on the vanity while he finished getting dressed.