Salem

I went looking for Hajda among the party hoppers; instead, I found Salem propped up on a pile of cushions. - A candle was making snakes up the wall.

Salem must have seen me in the doorway, but he only had eyes for the pipe that had been passed his way.

Muttering something I could not quite catch, he tapped the pipe against his crown in some strange doper’s ritual. Finally, he seemed to look up and see me. - Felice, he said. You like the show?

Unhinged by the drug, he drawled with enthusiasm:

God knows what she was on when she dreamed it up…The snowboarder? – That was my touch!