of dolphin-patterned paper. “Very inspirational. Use it and grow. Are you sure you’re gonna be okay?”
Elaine shut the door.
Mr Fix-it promised to come by tomorrow, or the next morning after that, for sure.
Elaine replaced the chain with one from the bathroom door, hammered the torn-out and useless dead-bolts back into place for her own peace of mind, then propped a wooden chair against the doorknob. Feeling better, she pulled on a leotard, and tried a gram or so of this and that.
She was working rather hard, and the air brush was a bit loud, although her stereo would have drowned out most sounds of entry in any event.
“That blue,” said Kane from behind her. “Cerulean, to be sure—but why? It impresses me as antagonistic to the overdone flesh-tones you’ve so laboriously mulled and muddled to confuse the faces of the two lovers.”
Elaine did not scream. There would be no one to hear. She turned very cautiously. A friend had once told her how to react in these situations.
“Are you an art critic?” The chair was still propped beside her door. Perhaps it was a little askew.
“Merely a dilettante,” lied Kane. “An interested patron of the arts for many years. That is not a female escutcheon.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
“Possibly not.”
“I’m expecting my boyfriend at any minute. He’s bringing over some buyers. Are you waiting for them?”
“Blacklight contacted me. He thought you’d like something stronger to help you finish your gallery collection.”
Elaine decided to take a breath. He was big, very big. His belted trenchcoat could have held two of her and an umbrella. A biker friend of Blacklight’s was her first thought. They hadn’t quite decided whether to be hit-men for the Mafia or their replacements in the lucrative drug trade. He was a head shorter than Blacklight, probably weighed more. There was no fat. His movements reminded Elaine of her karate instructor. His face, although unscarred, called to mind an NFL lineman who’d flunked his advertising screentest. His hair and short beard were a shade darker than her hennaed Grace Jones flattop. She did not like his blue eyes—quickly looked away.
“Here,” said Kane.
She took from his spade-like hand a two-gram glass phial—corner headshop stuff, spoon attached by an aluminum chain.
“How much?” There was a can of Mace in the drawer beneath the telephone. She didn’t think it would help.
“New lot,” said Kane, sitting down on the arm of her largest chair. He balanced his weight, but she flinched. “Trying to recreate a lost drug from long ago. Perfectly legal.”
“How long ago?”
“Before you’d remember. It’s a sort of super-speed.”
“Super-speed?”
Kane dropped the rest of the way into the chair. It held his weight. He said: “Can you remember everything that has happened to you, or that you have done, for the past 48 hours?”
“Of course.”
“Tell me about 11:38 this morning.”
“All right.” Elaine was open to a dare. “I was in the shower. I’d been awake all night, working on the paintings for the show. I called my agent’s answering machine, then took a shower. I thought I’d try some TM afterward, before getting back to work.”
“But what were you thinking at 11:38 this morning?”
“About the showing.”
“No.”
Elaine decided it was too risky to jump for the phone. “I forget what I was thinking exactly,” she conceded. “Would you like some coffee?” Scalding coffee in the face might work.
“What was on your mind at 9:42 last night?”
“I was fixing coffee. Would you like some...?”
“At 9:42. Exactly then.”
“All right. I don’t remember. I was flipping around the cable dial, I think. Maybe I was daydreaming.”
“Lacunae,” said Kane.
“Say, what?”
“Gaps. Missing pieces. Missing moments of memory. Time lost from your consciousness, and thus from your life. Where? Why?” He rolled the phial about on his broad palm. “No one really remembers every instant of life. There are always forgotten moments, daydreams, musings—as you like. It’s lost time from your life. Where does it go? You can’t remember. You can’t even remember forgetting that moment. Part of your life is lost in vacant moments, in lapses of total consciousness. Where does your conscious mind go? And why?
“This,” and he tossed the glass phial toward her, “will remove those lost moments. No gaps in your memory—wondering where your car keys are, where you left your sunglasses, who called before lunch, what was foremost in your mind when you woke up. Better than speed or coke. Total awareness of your total consciousness. No more lacunae.”
“I don’t have any cash on hand.”
“There’s no charge. Think of it as a trial sample.”
“I know—the