And his addiction was a direct result of those dreams.

A voice spoke from the darkness.

The addict stopped and squinted into the gloom beneath the canopy of a block entrance, his hands out of his pockets and ready for confrontation.

"I said, you need anything?" the voice said, the words accompanied by a thick waft of smoke pouring out into the street, "Uh-uh," the addict lied. He did not want to detail his problem without first seeing the ident.i.ty of the person asking the question. There were too many dummy-dealers out in the darkened streets. Prowlers looking to pull you in for few hours ... to spend some time in the Prowlhouses. In there, amidst the old tried and tested methods of persuasion, the Prowlers could find out all they wanted to know.

A man stepped out of the entrance, the darkness peeling away from him like a cellophane covering. The man took a deep draw on his pipette and, throwing his head back, blew out more smoke, making a circle of his mouth at the end to cause smoke rings, which shimmered and then dissipated.

"What you need?" the man asked.

The addict took a step back.

"I said I don't need anything."

The man nodded. He removed the pipette from his mouth, wound it up until the bowl was fixed into the center and then placed a shiny clip around the stem He dropped the apparatus into an already bulging pocket in his ankle-length coat and said, "Everybody need something."

"Not me."

The man nodded but carried on.

"You want uppers or downers? You want head games?"

He leaned forward, and the addict shuffled back some more.

"I not hurt you," the man said, "just looking see you been fitted .. .

see if you a TAPper."

The addict subconsciously lifted a hand to the skin of his left temple and then dropped the arm to his side.

"Well, I haven't," he said.

"There's no such thing as Total Audience Partic.i.p.ation. It's a con."

The man nodded, not wanting to get into a conversation.

Maybe not even knowing what this guy was talking about.

"Just looking, too, see you Prowler," he added, although he had clearly decided that such was not the case.

The addict raised his arms in supplication.

"Do I look like a Prowler?" he asked.

The man considered this and then said, '^Everybody look like Prowler."

The addict relaxed.

"Well, I'm not," he said.

"I can see." The man leant back against the wall.

"So, maybe you need smoke, little weed maybe."

"No," said the addict.

"Glue capsules? DNA droppers, wood-burners, shark fins

"Never use 'em," said the addict.

"How's 'bout some dream boats--got new supply in this week, help you sleep for month, sleep so long you wake up starving. Got some LDs, too--keep you going for not her month, never need to sleep, laugh all time."

"Don't need to go Long Distance," the addict said.

"And I get all the sleep I need. Every night. Like a baby."

The man gave out a raucous laugh.

"Ain't n.o.body sleep like baby, man," he said.

"Well, I do."

"Okay," the man said with a carefree shrug.

"You don't need nothing, I might 'swell go."

"Wait." The addict looked back along the path. A limo-car was pa.s.sing overhead, a couple of levels up, its headlight beams splaying the embankment where he had just been. The TAPper from the bridge had gone. Maybe he had fallen or even jumped, his head filled with e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n thoughts, his mind convinced that he would survive the drop ... or maybe hoping that he wouldn't.

"Hey, listen," the man was saying, "I got places--" "Okay," the addict said.

"Show me."

"Show you? Show you what?"

He shrugged.

"Everything. I want to see it all."

Now it was the man's turn to be suspicious.

"You sure you not Prowler?" He drew the word out, emphasizing the two syllables, "prow" and "lurrr."

The addict shook his head and stepped closer to the man. He could smell the man's dirt now, could smell his sweat and the smoke on his clothes, the p.i.s.s stains on his plastic coverall pants, the oil and grime in his matted hair .. . which the addict now saw was gathered into two small pigtails resting on the upturned collar of his coat, each one tethered with a tiny length of tubing. He had stepped so close that he was touching the man, could feel the man's body up against his own, could feel the man's hand trapped against his own stomach.

"I just want to be sure before I make a decision."

"Yeah?"

The addict nodded.

"Call it window-shopping. I don't know what I want until I see it." He looked into the man's face, stared into the hooded squinting eyes.

"You can understand that," he said.

The man waited for a few seconds, watching the addict, and then straightened up. He lifted his right arm, pulling it up between them, and showed a long bladed stiletto tube-knife, a capsule already loaded into the see-through trigger guard. He smiled and nipped the safety. A sheath unfurled along the blade and the guard slid into the handle. The addict's eyes were wide open.

"Had be sure," the man said.