It was some distance downtown, so he took to the street he used to get to work—the one the Busy Bee was on—and bounded down the center of it in giant leaps that took his heels to the height of telephone poles. During one jump, he looked to his left and saw, five or six blocks away, visible even through the downpour, the yellow smudge of a miasma settling upon a rooftop, and reminded himself of all the cautions Melody had schooled him on. He stopped at the Busy Bee and stood outside its lighted window, which had been repaired. It appeared to be operating as it had before the tragedy—open all night—a young man with a ponytail behind the counter. Amazing, he thought, how life and commerce go on even after such a loss. When he left the scene, it was more like he was fleeing, escaping memories that wanted to drag him into depression. With all this on his mind, he was relieved when he finally made it to the center of town and found Margrave Street.

He no longer bounded but walked slowly, peering through the rain and the dark, trying to make out the house with the path to the front door. He recalled it was a larger piece of property than most of the others. In the night world, though, things looked different. There were two houses that could have been the place. He walked up the drive of one, passed through the front door into a darkened house. The first thing that struck him was noise coming from a back room. It sounded as if someone was being strangled. He crept down the hall, cautious, even though no one could hear him. He found the room the commotion was coming from. Passing through the door, he saw, by the glow of a night light, a young woman, naked, straddling a young man, naked, and moving frantically like a kid hyped up on sugar, riding a rocking horse. Owen put his hand in front of his face, a modesty lost to the fact that he could see through his palm.