Vincent McQueen is a name you may know, a few steps above the dime magazines. He writes what Dorothy Parker dismissed as “horror for the little man”: a typical McQueen novel has the protagonist experiencing a small unexplained dislocation that somehow, with the logic of dreams, grows into the most important thing in the word.
The money means nothing to him, of course, but his editor’s been pressing him for more words, and he can’t get that recurrent dream about the tunnel and the rats out of his head. And you can really only use that in one story, maybe two if you use a pseudonym.
He’s packed a suitcase with good quality clothes, and a knapsack with cigarette-papers and tins of best Latakia. The night before he motors up to Albany, he goes out with friends, drinking and socialising and seeing how well he can do with no sleep at all (perhaps helped along by some of Scotty’s Bolivian marching powder) – can’t have that during the study! He’s apparently not taking it all terribly seriously, but he accepts that he has a problem and really does want to try to fix it.