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 him there this late, or if I'd have to seek him out at the Vince Street Derby, or Barney's Beanery, or even Tail o' The Cock. But I was past caring. If I had to track him all over town I'd catch up with him eventually. And when I did, I knew what I was going to do.

As it turned out, he was in his office, and alone. So I merely had to walk in, close the door behind me, march over to the desk, reach down, and grab him by the throat. I squeezed hard, but not too hard. That was the only difficult part, really—remembering that: I mustn't kill him. Not yet, anyway. And then I stared down into his crumpled face and said, "All right, Clermer, let's have the straight story. Who paid you to bring Roxie to me in the first place? Who paid you, and how much?"

He talked, then.

It was all bluff and bluster at first, and I had to slap him around a bit before he realized that I meant business. Once he made a break for his desk-drawer, but he never got his hand on the gun. In a way that was all to the good, because I took the gun myself. And after that, everything was much easier.

Only it wasn't easy to hear what he had to tell me. It wasn't easy to hear the truth, even though I expected and anticipated most of what he had to say.

Nothing was easy until I came to leave. Until I marched out of there and started walking north, into the canyon, with the gun cocked and ready in my pocket.

Nothing was easy until I came to Wagram's place.

The night was deeper here in the canyon. The private driveway held a private darkness, and there were no lights in the big house beyond.

The screaming people were asleep, and I had no desire to wake them. Let them slumber in their wombs, their tombs, their dooms. Let them rest, let them rot in the lair of the womb-faker, the tomb-breaker, the doom-maker. Dr. Carl Wagram. I read his name etched in bronze. I saw his name, etched in blood, emblazoned on a bleeding brain.

The door was locked. I didn't care. I knew other ways of entry. Case-entry. Window-entry. Breaking and entering.

There was no Voice to guide me here, but I didn't need one now. I knew how to walk in the dark, how to stalk in the dark, how to simulate 34