The smell of death still lingered; it clung upon the walls, as if its sickly dew had now possessed the building's soul in hopes of gaining title to some ecto-plasmic squatter's right. The mattress lay still unmolested, since the coroner's “ghouls” heaved Anton Zarkov's rotting, week-old corpse away. The impression, dark and moist, created cratered halo settings for a parasitic feast, so it appeared at least to me. The look upon my helper Johnny's face would transform to a chartreuse hue, as his attempted efforts aimed to lift the mattress were recurrently rebuked. The gagging, Johnny's constant gagging, and the flies, the damn incessant flies, evoking visions of some ancient dogfights, with the Luftwaffe's anti-aircraft spraying tracers through the sky; seeking out the sputtered untuned song of desperate Rolls Royce engines overhead. My concert, only then, was rudely interrupted by the voices from the hallway. I hence instinctively looked up. I found the mirror at the bureau's top to cast reflections of a man, whose face while still familiar was not mine. And as I pillaged through the drawers, that eeriness remained until my fingers, fumbling through their contents, sensed something with their touch more coarse than simple linen. At least this Zarkov chap was not a fool, for he had hid his money wisely. The voice from out the door foretold that Annie from the bar was on her way to work. I decided rather quickly then, that now was time for lunch. The aroma emanating from the hallway, faintly sweet, and so familiar, as the simple seasoned recollections of my childhood is once again renewed.... Batons de poissons!?