Gately, the wraith, and the figurants (pp. 828–829)
A recurring bad dream Gately’s had ever since he gave up and Came In and got straight consists simply of a tiny acne-scarred Oriental woman looking down at him. Nothing else happens; she’s just looking down at Gately. Her acne scars aren’t even all that bad. The thing is that she’s tiny. […] Involved in the dream also in a menacing way somehow is a dog standing rigidly in the distance past the Oriental woman, motionless and rigid, in profile, standing there still and straight as a toy. The Oriental woman has no particular expression and never says anything, though her face’s scars have a certain elusive pattern to them that seems like it wants to mean something.
Context
A sobriety-dated recurring dream, dropped in between Geoffrey Day's bedside confession and the wraith's arrival — and later nested inside the wraith dream itself (p. 830, below). Nothing happens; the menace is all scale and pattern-that-almost-means. Our digest leaves it explicitly unexplained; Carlisle's reading (recorded, not adopted) keys the tiny shopping-bag women to the two Chinese women Lenz robs and the rigid dog to dog-killer Lenz.