She caught his reflection in the mirror. He gave her a sour glance.

"You think it's funny, don't you?" he said.

"Think what's funny?"

"What happened. Me getting shot. You getting the chair. It gives you some perverse satisfaction."

She thought about this for a few moments. It was the first time Buck had shown any real desire to talk seriously. She wanted to answer with the truth.

"Yes," she said, when she was certain that was the answer. "Yes, I suppose it did please me, in an odd sort of way."

"1 knew it," said Buck.

"Keep your voice down," Sadie snapped, "she'll hear us."

"She's gone outside. I heard her. And don't change the subject." He rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed. The wound did look painful, Sadie thought.

"Did it hurt much?" she asked, turning to him.

"Are you kidding?" he said, displaying the hole for her. "What does it fucking look like?"

"I thought it would be quick. l never wanted you to suffer."

"Is that right?" Buck said.

"Of course. I loved you once, Buck. I really did. You know what the headline was the day after?"

"No," Buck replied, "I was otherwise engaged, remember?"

"'MOTEL BECOMES SLAUGHTERHOUSE OF LOVE,' it said. There were pictures of the room, of the blood on the floor, and you being carried out under a sheet."

"My finest hour," he said bitterly. "And I don't even get my face in the press."

"I'll never forget the phrase. 'Slaughterhouse of Love!' I thought it was romantic. Don't you?" Buck grunted in disgust. Sadie went on anyway. "I got three hundred proposals of marriage while I was waiting for the chair, did I ever tell you that?"

"Oh yeah?" Buck said. "Did they come and visit you? Give you a bit of the old jazz to keep your mind off the big day?"

"No," said Sadie frostily.

"You could have had a time of it. I would have."

"I'm sure you would," she replied.

"Just thinking about it's getting me cooking, Sadie. Why don't you come and get it while it's hot?"

"We came here to talk, Buck."

"We talked, for Christ's sake," he said. "I don't want to talk no more. Now come here. You promised." He rubbed his abdomen and gave her a crooked smile. "Sorry about the blood and all, but I ain't responsible for that."

Sadie stood up.

"Now you're being sensible," he said.

As Sadie Durning crossed to the bed, Virginia came in out of the rain. It had cooled her face somewhat, and the tranquilizers she'd taken were finally beginning to soothe her system. In the bathroom, John was still praying, his voice rising and falling. She crossed to the table and glanced at his notes, but the tightly packed words wouldn't come into focus. She picked up the papers to peer more closely at them. As she did so she heard a groan from the next room. She froze. The groan came again, louder. The papers trembled in her hands. She made to put them back on the table but the voice came a third time, and this time the papers slipped from her hand.

"Give a little, damn you..." the voice said. The words, though blurred, were unmistakable; more grunts followed. Virginia moved toward the door between the rooms, the trembling spreading up from her hands to the rest of her body. "Play the game, will you?" the voice came again; there was anger in it. Cautiously, Virginia looked through into Room Eight, holding onto the door lintel for support. There was a shadow on the bed. It writhed distressingly, as if attempting to devour itself. She stood, rooted to the spot, trying to stifle a cry while more sounds rose from the shadow Not one voice this time, but two. The words were jumbled. In her growing panic she could make little sense of them. She couldn't turn her back on the scene, however. She stared on, trying to make some sense of the shifting configuration. Now a smattering of words came clear, and with them, a recognition of the event on the bed. She heard a woman's voice protesting. Now she even began to see the speaker, struggling beneath a partner who was attempting to arrest her flailing arms. Her first instinct about the scene had been correct: it was a devouring, of a kind.

Sadie looked up into Buck's face. That bastard grin of his had returned; it made her trigger finger itch. This is what he'd come for tonight. Not for conversation about failed dreams, but to humiliate her the way he had so often in the past, whispering obscenities into her neck while he pinned her to the sheets. The pleasure he took in her discomfort made her seethe.

"Let go of me!" she shouted, louder than she'd intended.

At the door, Virginia said: "Let her alone."

"We've got an audience," Buck Durning grinned, pleased by the appalled look on Virginia's face. Sadie took advantage of his diverted attention. She slipped her arm from his grasp and pushed him off her. He rolled off the narrow bed with a yell. As she stood up, she looked around at the ashen woman in the doorway. How much could Virginia see or hear? Enough to know who they were?

Buck was climbing over the bed toward his sometime murderer. "Come on," he said. "It's only the crazy lady."

"Keep away from me," Sadie warned.

"You can't harm me now, woman. I'm already dead, remember." His exertions had opened the gunshot wound. There was blood smeared all over him; over her too, now she saw. She backed toward the door. There was nothing to be salvaged here. What little chance of reconciliation there had been had degenerated into a bloody farce. The only solution to the whole sorry mess was to get out and leave poor Virginia to make what sense of it she could. The longer she stayed to fight with Buck, the worse the situation would become for all three of them.

"Where are you going?" Buck demanded.

"Out," she responded. "Away from you. I said I loved you, Buck, didn't I? Well... maybe I did. But I'm cured now.

"Bitch!"

"Goodbye Buck. Have a nice eternity."

"Worthless bitch!"

She didn't reply to his insults. She simply walked through the door and out into the night.

Virginia watched the shadow pass through the closed door and held on to the tattered remains of her sanity with white-knuckled fists. She had to put these apparitions out of her head as quickly as possible or she knew she'd go crazy. She turned her back on Room Eight. What she needed now was pills. She picked up her handbag, only to drop it again as her shaking fingers rooted for the bottles, depositing the contents of the bag onto the floor. One of the bottles, which she had failed to seal properly, spilled. A rainbow assortment of tablets rolled across the stained carpet in every direction. She bent to pick them up. Tears had started to come, blinding her. She felt for the pills as best she could, feeding half a handful into her mouth and trying to swallow them dry. The tattoo of the rain on the roof sounded louder and louder in her head; a roll of thunder gave weight to the percussion.

And then, John's voice.

"What are you doing, Virginia?"

She looked up, tears in her eyes, a pill-laden hand hovering at her lips. She'd forgotten her husband entirely. The shadows and the rain and the voices had driven all thought of him from her head. She let the pills drop back to the carpet. Her limbs were shaking. She didn't have the strength to stand up.

"I... I. .. heard the voices again," she said.

His eyes had come to rest on the spilled contents of bag and bottle. Her crime was spread for him to see quite plainly. It was useless to try and deny anything; it would only enrage him further.

"Woman," he said. "Haven't you learned your lesson?"

She didn't reply. Thunder drowned his next words. He repeated them, more loudly.

"Where did you get the pills, Virginia?"

She shook her head weakly.

"Earl again, I suppose. Who else?"