V.

He entered the room as Mafia was bent, stripping off a knee sock. College girl attire, he thought. He slapped her hard on the nearest buttock; she straightened, turned, and he slapped her across the face. "Wha," she said.

"Something new," said Winsome. "For variety's sake." One hand at her crotch, one twisted in her hair, he lifted her like the victim she wasn't, half-carried, half-tossed her to the bed where she lay in a sprawl of white skin, black pubic hair and socks, all confused. He unzipped his fly. "Aren't you forgetting something," she said, coy and half-scared, flipping her hair toward the dresser drawer.

"No," said Winsome, "not that I can think of."

III

Profane returned to the Space/Time agency convinced that if nothing else Rachel was luck. Bergomask had given him the job.

"Wonderful," she said. "He's paying the fee, you don't owe us anything."

It was near quitting time. She started straightening things on her desk. "Come home with me," she said quietly. "Wait out by the elevator."

But he remembered, leaning against the wall out in the corridor: with Fina it had been like that, too. She'd taken him home like a rosary found in the street and convinced herself he was magic. Fina had been devoutly R.C., like his father. Rachel was Jewish, he recalled, like his mother. Maybe all she wanted to do was to feed him, be a Jewish mother.

They rode down in the elevator, crowded together and quiet, she wrapped serenely in a gray raincoat. At the turnstile in the subway, she put in two tokens for them.

"Hey," said Profane.

"You're broke," she told him.

"I feel like a gigolo." He did. There'd always be some 15 cents, maybe half a salami in the refrigerator - whatever she'd feed him.

Rachel decided to lodge Profane at Winsome's place and feed him at her own. Winsome's was known to the Crew as the West Side flophouse. There was floor space there for all of them at once, and Winsome didn't mind who slept on it.

The next night Pig Bodine showed up at Rachel's at supper time, drunk and in search of Paola, who was away God knew where.

"Hey," Pig addressed Profane.

"Buddy," Profane said. They opened beer.

Soon Pig had dragged them down to the V-Note, to hear McClintic Sphere. Rachel sat and concentrated on the music, while Pig and Profane remembered sea stories at each other. During one of the breaks, she drifted over to Sphere's table and found out he'd picked up a contract with Winsome to do two LP's for Outlandish.

They talked for a while. Break ended. The quartet drifted back to the stand, fiddled around, started off with a Sphere composition called Fugue Your Buddy. Rachel returned to Pig and Profane. They were discussing Pappy Hod and Paola. Damn, damn, to herself, what have I brought him to? What have I brought him back to?

She woke up the next morning, Sunday, mildly hung over. Winsome was outside, pounding at the door.

"It is a day of rest," she growled. "What the hell."

"Dear father-confessor," he said, looking as if he'd not slept all night, "don't be angry."

"Tell it to Eigenvalue." She stomped to the kitchen, put coffee on. "Now," she said. "What is your problem?"

What else: Mafia. Now, this was all deliberate. He had put on the day before yesterday's shirt and neglected to comb his hair that morning, to put Rachel in the mood. If you wanted a girl to go pimping for her roommate, you didn't come right out and say so. There were subtleties to be gone through. Wanting to talk about Mafia was only an excuse.

Rachel wanted to know, naturally enough, if he'd spoken to the dentist at all and Winsome said no. Eigenvalue had been busy lately, holding bull sessions with Stencil. Roony wanted a woman's point of view. She poured coffee and told him the two roommates were gone. He closed his eyes and jumped in:

"I think she's been sleeping around, Rachel."

"So. Find out and divorce her."

They drained the coffeepot twice. Roony drained himself. At three Paola came in, smiled at them briefly, disappeared into her room. Did he blush a little? His heartbeat had speeded up. Dingy damn, he was acting like a young blood. He rose. "Can we keep talking about this?" he said. "Even small-talk."

"If it helps," she smiled, not believing it for a minute. "And what's this about a contract with McClintic? Don't tell me Outlandish is putting out normal records now. What are you getting, religion?"

"If I am," Roony told her, "it's all I'm getting."

He walked back to his apartment through Riverside Park, wondering if he'd done right. Maybe, it occurred to him, Rachel might think it was herself he wanted, not her roommate.

Back at the apartment he found Profane talking with Mafia. Dear God, he thought, all I want to do is sleep. He went in to the bed, assumed the foetal position and soon, oddly enough, did drift off.