"Just look at me. At my eyes. Look into my eyes."

She let out a halfhearted giggle, like a little girl playing a naughty game. The incongruity of it made Garrison smile. "What's your name?" he said. "Your real name."

"Melodie's my real name," she replied. "My mother says it's because I was singing to myself even before I was baptized."

"Your mother's still alive?"

"Oh sure. She moved to Kentucky. I'm going to move there too, as soon as I get enough money. I want to get out of New York. I hate it."

With his newly sharpened sight Garrison seemed to be able to see right into her as she spoke. She was bruised to the marrow, poor bitch; whatever hopes she'd ever had for herself gone to hell.

"What would you do in Kentucky?" he said.

"Oh… I'd like to have a little hairdressing place. I'm good at fixing people's hair."

"Really?"

"But… I don't…" The words slid away.

"Listen to me," Garrison said, his hand going up to her face. "If you want something you have to have faith. And patience. Things come when you least expect them."

"That's what I used to think. But it's not true. It's a waste of time hoping for things."

Garrison suddenly stood up, his motion so abrupt Melodic flinched. He gave her reason: a blow across the face so hard she fell back onto the bed. A sob escaped her, but she didn't try to move out of his range.

"I shoulda known," she said. She raised her head off the bed. Tears of shock ran from the corners of her eyes, but she didn't otherwise seem concerned. She'd been struck before, many times. It had its price, like everything. "You leave marks, and it'll cost you," she said. She sat up again, presenting her face to him. "It'll cost you big time," she said.

"Then I'd better make sure I get my money's worth, hadn't I?" he said, and struck her again so hard spatters of blood hit the wall.

He got her to beg him to stop eventually, but it took time. She let him strike her over and over-mainly her face, but on occasion her breasts and thighs. Only when she was so sick from his assault that she fell, and found that she was too weak to get up again, did she tell him she'd had enough. He didn't listen, of course. The more he hurt her, the more he felt that bright, strange self rising up in him; and the more it rose the more he wanted to hurt her. Only once did he pause, catching his reflection in the mirror, his face shiny with sweat and exhilaration. He'd never been a narcissist, unlike Mitchell; never enjoyed the sight of himself. But now he liked the way he looked, more than a little. There was a magnificence about him, no question. He began to beat the woman with renewed vigor, deaf to her protests, her sobs, her pathetic attempts at negotiation. She would do this, she would do that, if only he would leave her alone. He ignored her, and beat on, blow after blow after blow, driving her into that corner where she attempted to rise, and finding that she couldn't, began to panic.

She was afraid for her life, he saw; afraid that in his new state he would casually dispatch her. As soon as he saw that look, he stopped striking her, and without another word returned to the bathroom to piss and wash his hands. There had been nothing faintly arousing about what he'd just done. He suspected he was beyond arousal now (it was too human: a thing of the past). With his hands clean and his bladder emptied he went back into the bedroom.

"I need your full name," he said to the woman, who had made an attempt to crawl to the door (which he had locked anyway, pocketing the key).

The woman mumbled something he didn't comprehend. He pulled the chair out from the table, and sat down.

"Try again," he said. "It's very important." He reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet and his checkbook. "I'm going to give you some money," he said. "Enough money for you to go to join your mother in Kentucky and buy yourself a little business, and start over."

Even in her confused and semiconscious state Melodic understood what she was being told. "This is a filthy, perverted city," Garrison went on, "and I want you to promise me that if I give you this money-" he was writing the check now "-let's say a million dollars-that you will never come back. Never. Your full name."

The woman had begun to sob quietly. "Melodic Lara Hubbard," she said.

"I'm not paying you this for what I just did to you," Garrison said as he wrote, "I did that because I wanted to, not because you were offering me a service. And I'm not paying you to stop you going to some supermarket gossip rag. I couldn't give a fuck who you tell. Do you understand? I couldn't care less. I'm giving you this because I want you to have some faith." He signed the check, then took a card from his wallet and scrawled a short sentence on the back of it. "You take this to my lawyer, Cecil Curry, tomorrow, and he'll make sure the funds get transferred." He got up from the table and put the check and the card on the bed, among the crushed flowers. Melodic squinted at the row of noughts Garrison had set down. Yes, there were six, preceded by a dollar sign and a one.

"I'll leave you to clean up then," Garrison said, fishing the key from his pocket. "Be clever with what you've been given. People like me don't come along very often." He inserted the key, turned it, and opened the door. "In fact, they never come along twice. So you count yourself lucky." He smiled at her. "And you name one of your kids after me, huh? The one you love the most."

Garrison didn't sleep for most of the rest of the night. He went back to the apartment in the Trump Tower, and took a long ice-cold shower, which left him feeling pleasantly tender. Then he sat in the big armchair where he'd sat talking with Mitchell about Margie's death. He'd felt inviolate that night, but the feeling was nothing beside the sense of power that suffused him now.

He sat through the rest of the night, thinking what his next move should be. Plainly he had first to make good on his promise to Mitchell, which prospect pleased him. The Pallenberg woman posed no threat to him whatsoever, but if she was such a thorn in his brother's side, then it was better for all concerned that she be summarily dealt with, as Margie had been dealt with. Once that was done he'd have Mitchell's full attention, and they could begin their real work. He didn't doubt that whatever the nature of the other self he'd discovered rising in him, it was also in Mitchell. Dormant, but there to be awoken, and called out into glory. What a revelation they'd make together!

At dawn, with a pleasant weariness finally coming over him, he retired to bed. He slept for no more than two hours, and dreamed a species of dream his head had never before entertained.

He dreamed he was floating through a great forest. The canopy was thick overhead, but not so thick that sunlight didn't pierce it, falling warm on his upturned face. Somebody was taking to him-a woman, her voice light and happy. He couldn't understand anything that she was saying, but he knew there was love in the words, and that the love was for him.

He wanted to see her face; he wanted to know what kind of beauty he had accompanying him. But though he tried to make his dream-gaze obey his will, and shift in the direction of her voice, he was not sufficiently master of himself. All he could do was float, and listen, and feel the sweetness in the woman's voice bathing him, caressing him.

Finally, his motion slowed, and then stopped. For a moment he hovered there, and then he was slowly lowered to the ground. Only now, when he was laid in grass that was tall enough to partially obscure his view, did he realize that he had not been traveling independently, as he'd thought, but been carried: that in this dream he was a babe in arms. And now, majestically, the woman who'd carried him walked into view. Her back was turned to him, her focus fixed upon a house, a magnificent house, which was situated some distance from them.