The room was bright when I awoke. I hadn’t expected to sleep for long or deeply. It must have been the Bex. After the accumulated exhaustion, the strain of the previous days, the waiting, the apprehension I’d felt listening to drug dealer Dan through the wall, those powders sure hit the mark coupled with all the brandy I’d knocked back in the bar, waiting for Cassie and Frankie to reappear with news of the goings on upstairs. They were up there a fair while. Alone in the bar I was suddenly famished, and I nipped up for my chicken dinner to find, as I glanced in Dan’s room, Frankie had matters in hand.
Later, when I heard a commotion in the stairwell—I didn’t dare look to see who was coming down the stairs, never mind how—I anticipated a bit of a scene, but it was only Cassie who returned
