Present Day Venice Tom's been unconscious for so long he has no idea of the length of time he's been held. Certainly twenty-four hours. Maybe longer. Much longer.
He feels as though he's lost the ability to judge things. Doesn't know whether it's day or night.
Whether he's blind or his eyes are still bandaged.
At times, he can't even tell whether he's awake or asleep.
On the grey movie screen in his mind, familiar scenes flicker by: The Monica Vidic Killing. The Disneyland Murders. The Death of Antonio Pavarotti.
The leading actors are always the same: Vito Carvalho, Valentina Morassi and Lars Bale. The minor ones equally familiar: Tina Ricci, Mera Teale, Sylvio Montesano and Alfie Giordano.
But it's all a mess.
In his muddle of drug-induced plots and subplots, Tom has Vito cast as a Satanic high priest, Giordano as the killer of Antonio Pavarotti and Valentina Morassi as the secret owner of the Gates of Destiny. Drugs do that. They expand your mind, make you think differently, but warp everything in the process.
While Tom has no exact idea how long he's been held captive, he knows it's running into days, not hours. He knows it, because he's developing a tolerance to the drug they're feeding him. The gaps between total immersion in his never-ending narcotic netherworld and gradual surfacing back into the air of the real world are becoming shorter and shorter. Whoever is shooting him the stuff is not as smart as they should be.
Smart or not – they're back.
And they're sticking another spike into Tom's dartboard thigh.
He doesn't go under as quickly as normal, but he can feel it coming. A big heavy train full of the black coals of unconsciousness rumbling around the distant bends of his mind.
It'll be here soon.
Flattening him. Dragging him under its wheels. Leaving him in pieces far down the tracks.
The films are starting up again.
Another muddle of plots – Satanists in silver cowls holding the Gates of Destiny. But this time they have nothing to do with Italy.
South America.
For some crazy reason, Tom's imaginary director is setting this one in Venezuela.
The train's here now. Bearing down on him. Only yards away.
Venezuela.
The word sticks.
Venezuela. Little Venice.
The huge black cowcatcher hits him. Slams into his newborn thoughts. Trundles them through the screaming, hissing darkness.