When Siggy awoke, Wilson was still sleeping. He wanted to speak to the young artist before meeting Fisk for a late breakfast, but thought it best to let him rest as much as possible.

The previous night had been sad and disappointing for Siggy and he felt a deep remorse at being responsible for the tragic events which had transpired. He hoped Wilson would find the strength to move on with his life and not surrender to the crushing guilt which he was surely feeling. Siggy felt that guilt should be a tool for growth, not a fatal disease.

He arrived at the Cafe Sang Froid and quickly found Fisk, who was already enjoying an Eggs Benedict. He sat down and ordered some blinis with caviar. Fisk looked at him with surprise.

"Caviar? What kind of a good communist are you?" Fisk asked.

"I am not a communist, I'm a humanist, and I like caviar." Siggy responded.

"Let's get to the business at hand," Fisk continued, "I received all your specifications for the party tonight and I must say you were spot on. Good old school stuff. It's all been set up and it's ready to go."

"I'm glad to hear that, what time would you like me there?" Siggy asked.

"About ten I should think. Don't forget your sketchpad."

Siggy looked up at Fisk, "There is one thing. I'll be wearing that silly hippie outfit and I really don't think it would be good for my image if I'm seen in it. Is there a rear entrance I could use? I know you have a service elevator that goes up to your floor."

"There won't be very many people to see you," Fisk replied. "at that time the only really staff we have are the concierge and a couple of bellhops. My personal staff is off for the night. But we do have a service entrance if you insist. The door code is 2141929, it's the date of the Saint Valentines Day Massacre," Fisk said proudly.

Siggy's meal arrived and he ate quietly while Fisk described his ideas for the commissioned artwork. Siggy would nod occasionally, even though he wasn't really listening.

"One last thing," Fisk said very seriously, "I really didn't want to tell you this, but I'm afraid if I don't, you'll refuse to complete your commission."

Siggy was curious, "What thing?"

"I've had an issue with some of my friends and I found it necessary to teach them a lesson. I'm going to be proposing a toast shortly after you arrive. All the champagne will be dosed with about two thousand mg of LSD and I highly recommend you avoid drinking any if you plan to do anything but slobber."

"Two thousand mg?" Siggy asked in disbelief, "that's enough to knock a bull elephant on its ass. You must be pretty pissed at them. Personally, I rather like the idea of watching your friends squirming around on the carpet like amoebas. What about your wife?"

Fisk laughed cruelly, "I am very peeved at them, and as far as my wife is concerned, if I tell her, she'll tell some of her friends and pretty soon everyone will know. She's been getting a little uppity lately anyway, this will do her good."

"You are a real romantic Fisk, it should make for some interesting sketches."

"You sketch, I'll be videotaping, just so I can play it back for them every once in a while when they're feeling too big for their britches."
Fisk got up and threw a hundred dollar bill on the table, "I'll see you tonight, don't be late."

Siggy couldn't help smiling as he finished his breakfast. This is almost too easy.

When Siggy arrived back at the loft, he was pleased to find Wilson sitting at his easel, painting furiously.

"It's good to see you working."

"I didn't know what else to do, I feel so lost," his voice began to quiver, "Devon is in the hospital."

"What happened? Is he all right?" Siggy asked with concern.

"He was mugged last night," Wilson said in a cracked voice as tears began to flow down his cheek, "he has a fractured skull... brain swelling, they put him in a medically induced coma. It's only fifty-fifty that he'll make it."

"That's horrible. I'm sure he'll be alright, he has to be," Siggy answered earnestly, "there's been too much bad luck, it needs to balance out."

Wilson looked up at Siggy, "How do you do it? How do you go on without having the guilt drive you crazy? How do you live with yourself?"

"It takes work, Willy," Siggy replied gently, "you have to own your guilt, you need to use it... like you're using it now, creating. It will never go away, but you can learn to live with it."

Wilson stared at Siggy, then sighed, "You know that you're insane, don't you?"

Siggy smiled, "That doesn't mean I'm wrong though."

"I don't know anything anymore."

"Listen, Willy, you have loads of people who love you and care for you... myself and Adrianna included. You're not me... nobody is. Don't use me as a reference point. Be yourself, learn to forgive yourself. It was just a tragic accident. Use that tragedy to produce something useful, something beautiful. Keep painting, love your friends, be kind. You can do it, but you need to try."

"What about you Siggy," Wilson asked, "are you going to keep doing what you do?"

"I am what I am. I know my path, but that doesn't mean it might not change in the future. For now I have to see my work through to the end... tomorrow, who knows? I'll be leaving tonight and I'll probably be gone for quite a while. I'm going to send you my final piece, I can't leave it undone. Like I said, I am who I am, Willy, and you are who you are. We are both unique."

Wilson didn't answer. Siggy went to his room to prepare for the party. After staring at his canvas for a long while, Wilson began to paint again, losing himself in rhythm of his brushstrokes and the allure of the swirling colors dancing before his eyes.

Siggy arrived at The Charlton House shortly before ten. He pulled up to the rear of the hotel and backed up to the service dock. There were no other vehicles visible. Siggy picked up the large carpet bag and exited his van. He made his way to the rear entrance and keyed in the security code Fisk had given him. He was calm as he entered and started walking along the hall towards the service elevator.

He paused at the laundry room and looked inside. Several large canvas hampers, used to transport dirty linens to the laundry service trucks, stood empty near the laundry chute. Siggy proceeded down the hall past the boiler room and paused at a door near the elevator. He opened it and entered. The room was filled with fresh linens, washcloths, glasses, soaps, and all the small amenities that a hotel guest would expect during their stay. In the corner were three large brass luggage carts. He put his carpet bag on the closest and rolled it to the open elevator.

Siggy pressed the button for the penthouse floor. The doors closed and he could not help chuckling as he saw his reflection in the mirrored walls. The bell bottoms and tie dyed shirt he wore, combined with his headband and ankh necklace made him look like a refugee from a love-in.

The elevator opened and he wheeled his cart to Fisk's residence. Siggy picked up his bag and knocked on the door. As he waited for someone to answer he noticed fog or smoke creeping out past the gap at the bottom of the entrance.

The door was opened by Fisk who smiled and escorted him inside.

It was a truly bizarre makeover. The polished ebony floor, previously decorated with intricately woven antique carpets was now a cottony layer of fog, a foot deep thanks to the three smoke machines pumping out their low hanging chemical clouds. A strobe light flickered in rhythm to Joe Cocker's rendition of  With A Little Help From My Friends and four projectors pointed at large screens covering the walls casting images of psychedelic patterns and colors that seemed to dance to the music. A fifth screen near the balcony window reflected the images of old cartoons like Betty Boop and Felix the Cat.

There were at least a dozen lava lamps of different sizes on every horizontal surface. Much of the furniture had been mysteriously moved to make room for bean bag chairs and futons upon which the two dozen guests wearing hippie paraphernalia, wigs, and flower necklaces lounged lazily.

Siggy seated himself at a table away from the guests, placing the carpet bag at his feet. He noticed that the table supported two dozen pre-poured glasses of champagne, which Siggy suspected of being quite more than they seemed. He had no intention of partaking of that particular beverage.

Fisk raised his voice and addressed his friends, "Now that we're all here, I'd like to make a toast," he motioned towards Siggy's table, "everyone grab yourself a glass of champagne!"

One by one the guests took a glass until only one remained which Fisk reached for clumsily, knocking it over. He retrieved two empty champagne flutes and ask Siggy to open a fresh bottle, which he did. He poured Siggy and himself fresh glasses. Fisk raised his and declared, "Here's to loyal friends!"

Everyone drained their glasses. The music switched to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young singing Sea of Madness. Siggy sat back down and fixed his gaze on the party-goers.

It didn't take long before the mega-doses of LSD began to take effect. The guests began to drop to their knees onto the futons and floor, each in their own delusional reality. Some laughed, some cried, and others, like Charlie Howe, began swatting at invisible fairies circling their heads. Fisk was delighted. He began to film his friends while cackling in self satisfaction at the hilarity of their helplessness.

Siggy sat back, steeling himself for the next phase of his plan. He noticed the movie screen behind Fisk running a Felix the Cat cartoon and saw it as some kind of a cosmic guide as he remembered the musical theme of that cartoon from his childhood.

Felix the cat
The wonderful, wonderful cat
Whenever he gets in a fix
He reaches into his bag of tricks...

Siggy picked up his carpet bag and placed it on the table. He reached in and retrieved one of his syringes. He walked up to Fisk, who was still reveling in the throes of his humiliation of his colleagues, and jabbed him in the shoulder, injecting the curare. Fisk turned and looked at him in confusion before collapsing onto a beanbag chair directly behind him.

Siggy retrieved the three smoke machines and emptied the smoke producing liquid from their reservoirs before turning them off and placing them on top of the table next to his bag. He removed the three bottles, the ziplock bags containing the three cheesecloth wrapped balls of chemicals, and the full-face respirator gas mask he had purchased, and placed them on the table.

Siggy donned a pair of gloves and relocated his bag outside the apartment into the hall. He returned to the table. Before proceeding, he sat down and looked at the tripping patricians squirming about in hallucinatory revelry. It was time.

He filled the empty smoke machine reservoirs with the three bottles of sulphuric acid and then donned his gas mask. He carefully deposited one of the cheesecloth bound batches of sodium cyanide into each of the machines. Siggy closed the plates above the reservoirs and turned the machines on. Almost immediately a dull white smoke was emitted that began to crawl across the floor towards the partygoers. He exited the room and stuffed a towel from his bag into the crack under the door. The Woodstock soundtrack was still blaring. It was Country Joe and the Fish singing their I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag.

...And it's five, six, seven,
open up the pearly gates
Ain't no time to wonder why,
whoopee, we're all gonna die...

He reached into the bag again, retrieving a book of short stories to pass the time until he was certain the cyanide gas had done it's work. It was Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe. Siggy checked the table of contents for a story of the appropriate length.

Masque of the Red Death..., perfect, he thought and began reading.

Siggy finished the short story and re-entered the room, still wearing his mask. There was no movement from any of his subjects. He turned off the smoke machines and carried them to the street side balcony, closing the balcony doors so that the last of the cyanide gas still being generated would dissipate harmlessly into the night air. He opened the sliding glass doors on the opposite side of the residence leading to the rooftop garden to air out the apartment.

After retrieving the baggage cart from the hall, he loaded the nearest of the bodies onto it and pushed it to the laundry chute in the hall. The chute was fairly large, two feet by eighteen inches and was positioned slightly above waist height. He had no difficulty in inserting the body into the chute and listened in satisfaction as it plummeted twelve stories to the laundry room in the basement.

One by one, he transported the remaining bodies to the chute and sent them on their way. It was a tiring chore, but he managed it with stoic determination. He saved Fisk for last, stuffing him into the opening and listening to him bounce off the walls on his way to join his fellow partygoers.

"Farewell, Prince Prospero," Siggy said solemnly, feeling a need to mark the occasion.

As a final task on the twelfth floor, he changed his clothing to an outfit he had in his bag and made sure to gather up the bottles and ziplocks, lest they somehow be traced back to him.

Siggy put his carpet bag on the luggage cart and rode the service elevator down to the ground floor.

By the time Siggy arrived at the laundry room he was arm sore and weary. He knew there was quite a bit of exertion to come and silently thanked himself for all the fitness routines he had practiced for the past several weeks.

The laundry room was a chaotic mess. Twenty-four bodies lay in a pile beneath the laundry chute terminus, crushing the large canvas hamper underneath it. It would be an exhausting workout moving them to the step van.

He opened the large door to the loading dock and looked around. The dock and loading area were hidden from the street and there seemed to be no nearby activity. Siggy swung open the rear van doors and returned to the laundry room. He began moving the corpses, two at a time, on the baggage cart to the rear of his vehicle where he carefully loaded and positioned them. Luckily, the step van cargo area was over seventeen feet long, and only a few of the bodies needed to be stacked, despite this, by the time he reached the last few corpses, his arms and legs burned and he was breathing like a man who had just run a marathon.

It seemed to take forever and by the time it was completed and the van closed, Siggy could barely move his arms. He collapsed on the ground and leaned back against the step van, taking a well-earned rest before closing up the building and beginning his long ride home.

The drive back to North Carolina was uneventful. It was late in the evening and the traffic was sparse out of Manhattan and past the more densely populated areas around the city.

When the sun rose, it was a glorious sight. Siggy crossed the border into Virginia, with only a few hours left until he would be home. His arms still hurt and he was feeling slightly groggy and in need of some coffee and a meal to soothe his rumbling stomach.

He pulled into a Waffle House restaurant near a highway exit. There was a police car parked in front of it and he pulled up next to it. He smiled... the police always knew the best places to eat.

After a tasty meal and spirited conversation with the officers about the messed up state of government, he resumed his journey, revived and refreshed.

He arrived at his property early in the morning and pulled the van up to his workshop. It was time to sleep, unloading could wait. He would need to be fully focused for what was to come. The easy part was over, now it was time to create art.