There was a bang at the end of the hall, the sound of the elevator gate being pushed back with extreme force. The only person this could be was Spencer, but he wasn’t normally home this early, and he wouldn’t normally slam the gate in that manner. He appeared at her open door a moment later. There was some kind of substance slicking down his hair and glossing his face on one side. Whatever it was, it had run down his shoulder and arm in a long pinkish stain on his shirt.

“Ask me about my day,” he said. “Go on. Ask me.”

“How…was your day?”

“My day was fine up until about ten minutes ago. They let me go early, so I thought it was a nice day out. Had a couple errands I wanted to do. Thought I’d walk, you know, get some exercise, save the environment. I had my sunglasses on. I figured no one would recognize me. Guess I was wrong.”

He dropped his bag to the floor. It was also covered in the substance.

“I was just a few blocks away, I was on Park, and some guy came along in a Hummer and stopped at the red light. He opened the window and asked me if I was David Frieze, and before I could even answer, he tossed a milk shake on me. He just reached out and dumped it over my head. Would have been a good day to have my bike, which has still not been stolen. That was my day. How was yours?”

“Lola’s home. She’s getting yelled at. We think.”

This calmed him a little. He leaned backward out the door to have a look. He seemed contented by the fact that Lola was being dealt some justice.

“I guess I should shower,” he said. “But all these flies are following me, and they think I’m their god. I feel responsible.”

“Power corrupts,” Scarlett said.

He was about to leave, but then remembered something and stepped back inside.

“You have to help me learn some pages. Script’s in the bag. Let’s do the jail scene, the one where I’m locked to the chair. It’s in the middle.”

He dropped the bag and went off. Scarlett went over and carefully extracted the script. The next episode was a very confusing one. The writers were clearly struggling to work fast and fill some space until they figured out what to do next. The entire episode was just scenes of the police mourning Sonny in their own ways—excessive drinking, emotional outbursts, making bad decisions and smacking people around—and David Frieze sneaking around the city doing suspicious-looking things until they caught him. There was a scene at Columbia, which took place in a lab. He was stealing chemicals when the police burst in and took him off to the station.

“Why are you stealing this stuff?” Scarlett asked when Spencer returned.