He was in Gentry’s loft. He was watching Cherry do nurse-things to Gentry. Cherry looked over at him from where she sat on the edge of Gentry’s bed. “How y’doin’, Slick?”

“Okay … I’m okay.”

“Remember me asking you before?”

He was looking down at the face of the man Kid Afrika called the Count. Cherry was fiddling with something on the stretcher’s superstructure, a bag of fluid the color of oatmeal.

“How y’feel, Slick?”

“Feel okay.”

“You’re not okay. You keep for—”

He was sitting on the floor of Gentry’s loft. His face was wet. Cherry was kneeling beside him, close, her hands on his shoulders.

“You did time?”

He nodded.

“Chemo-penal unit?”

“Yeah …”

“Induced Korsakov’s?”

He—

“Episodes?” Cherry asked him. He was sitting on the floor in Gentry’s loft. Where was Gentry? “You get episodes like this? Short-term memory goes?”

How did she know? Where was Gentry?

“What’s the trigger?”

“What triggers the syndrome, Slick? What kicks you into jail-time?” He was sitting on the floor in Gentry’s loft and Cherry was practically on top of him.

“Stress,” he said, wondering how she knew about that. “Where’s Gentry?”

“I put him to bed.”

“Why?”

“He collapsed. When he saw that thing …”

“What thing?”

Cherry was pressing a pink derm against his wrist. “Heavy trank,” she said. “Maybe get you out of it …”

“Out of what?”

She sighed. “Never mind.”

He woke up in bed with Cherry Chesterfield. He had all his clothes on, everything but his jacket and his boots. The tip of his erect cock was trapped behind his belt buckle, pressing up against the warm denim over Cherry’s ass.

“Don’t get any ideas.”