Eventually, I felt the liquor start to warm me. I sat on the bed and checked the clock. It was quarter to five. I needed to go back. I needed sleep. I got under the covers and pulled the book off the bed table. I turned to "The Lake" and read it again. My eyes kept returning to the two lines. Death was in that poisonous wave, And in its gulf a fitting grave Eventually, troubled thoughts gave way to exhaustion. I put the book down and collapsed back into my bed's shell.

I slept the sleep of the dead after that.

Against Gladden's instincts to stay in the city but he couldn't leave just yet. There were things he had to do. The wired-funds transfer would land at the Wells Fargo branch in a few hours and he had to get a replacement camera. That was a priority and that couldn't be done if he was on the road, running to Fresno or someplace.

So he had to stay in L.A.

He looked up at the mirror over the bed and studied his image. He had black hair now. He hadn't shaved since Wednesday and already the whiskers were coming in thick.

He reached to the bed table for the glasses and put them on.

He had dumped the colored contacts in the trash can at the In N Out where he'd eaten dinner the night before. He looked back up at the mirror and smiled at his new image.

He was a new man. He glanced over at the television. A woman was performing fellatio on one man while another was having sex with her in the position instinctively favored by dogs. The sound was turned down but he knew what the sound would be if it wasn't. The TV had been on all night. The porno movies that came with the price of the room did little in the way of arousing him because the performers were all too old and looked worldweary. They were disgusting. But he kept the TV on. It helped him remember that everyone had unholy desires.

He looked back to his book and began to read the poem by Poe again. He knew it by heart after so many years and so many readings. But, still, he liked to see the words on the page and hold the book in his hands. He somehow found it comforting.

In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departedBut a waking dream of life and fight Hath left me broken-hearted Gladden sat up and put the book down when he heard a car pull . to a stop outside His room. He walked to the curtains and peeked through at the parking lot. The sun hurt his eyes. The car was just somebody checking in. A man and a woman, they both looked drunk already and it wasn't yet noon.