I sat up in bed and-it was the oddest of hangovers. My head didn't spin. My sense of balance was quiveringly alert. At the same time my mind was clogged with the things I knew: facts that wouldn't relate, churning in my head. It was like walking the high wire while simultaneously trying to solve an Agatha Christie mystery. Yet I was doing neither. I was just sitting up in bed, blinking. I remembered the Monk, and the pills. How many pills? The bell rang again. Walking to the door was an eerie sensation. Most people pay no attention to their somesthetic senses. Mine were clamoring for attention, begging to be tested-by a backflip, for instance. I resisted. I don't have the muscles for doing backflips. I couldn't remember taking any acrobatics pills. The man outside my door was big and blond and blocky. He was holding an unfamiliar badge up to the lens of my spy-eye, in a wide hand with short, thick fingers. He had candid blue eyes, a square, honest face-a face I recognized. He'd been in the Long Spoon last night, at a single table in a corner.
