My ring was answered by a girl, maybe seven or eight years old. She fixed me with large brown eyes and did not say a word.

I would like to speak with Mister Burns, I said. She turned and retreated around a comer. A heavyset man, slacked and undershirted, bald about halfway back and very pink, padded into the hall moments later and peered at me. He bore a folded newssheet in his left hand.

What do you want? he asked.

It's about your brother, I answered.

Yeah?

Well, I wonder if I could come in? It's kind of complicated.

He opened the door. But instead of letting me in, he came out.

Tell me about it out here, he said.

Okay, I'll be quick. I just wanted to find out whether he ever spoke with you about a piece of equipment he once worked with called the Hangman.

Are you a cop?

No.

Then what's your interest?

I am working for a private investigation agency trying to track down some equipment once associated with the project. It has apparently turned up ia this area and it could be rather dangerous.

Let's see some identification.

I don't carry any.

What's your name?

John Donne.

And you think my brother had some stolen equipment when he died? Let me tell you something ...

No. Not stolen, I said, and I don't think he had it.

What then?

It was, well, robotic in nature. Because of some special training Manny once received, he might have had a way of detecting it. He might even have attracted it. I just want to find out whether he had said anything about it. We are trying to locate it.

My brother was a respectable businessman, and I don't like accusations. Especially right after his funeral, I don't. I think I'm going to call the cops and let them ask you a few questions.

Just a minute. Supposing I told you we had some reason to believe it might have been this piece of equipment that killed your brother?

His pink turned to bright red and his jaw muscles formed sudden ridges. I was not prepared for the stream of profanities that followed. For a moment, I thought he was going to take a swing at me.

Wait a second, I said when he paused for breath. What did I say?

You're either making fun of the dead or you're stupider than you look!

Say I'm stupid. Then tell me why.

He tore at the paper he carried, folded it back, found an item, thrust it at me.

Because they've got the guy who did it! That's why, he said.

I read it. Simple, concise, to the point. Today's latest. A suspect had confessed. New evidence had corroborated it. The man was in custody. A surprised robber who had lost his head and hit too hard, hit too many times. I read it over again.

I nodded as I passed it back.

Look, I'm sorry, I said. I really didn't know about this.

Get out of here, he said. Go on.

Sure.

Wait a minute.

What?

That's his little girl who answered the door, he said.

I'm very sorry.

So am I. But I know her Daddy didn't take your damned equipment.

I nodded and turned away.

I heard the door slam behind me.

After dinner, I checked into a small hotel, called for a drink, and stepped into the shower.

Things were suddenly a lot less urgent than they had been earlier. Senator Brockden would doubtless be pleased to learn that his initial estimation of events had been incorrect. Leila Thackery would give me an I-told-you-so smile when I called her to pass along the news, a thing I now felt obliged to do. Don might or might not want me to keep looking for the device now that the threat had been lessened. It would depend on the Senator's feelings on the matter, I supposed. If urgency no longer counted for as much, Don might want to switch back to one of his own, fiscally less burdensome operatives. Toweling down, I caught myself whistling. I felt almost off the hook.

Later, drink beside me, I paused before punching out the number he had given me and hit the sequence for my motel in St. Louis instead. Merely a matter of efficiency, in case there was a message worth adding to my report.

A woman's face appeared on the screen and a smile appeared on her face. I wondered whether she would always smile whenever she heard a bell ring, or if the reflex was eventually extinguished in advanced retirement. It must be rough, being afraid to chew gum, yawn, or pick your nose.

Airport Accommodations, she said. May I help you?

This is Donne. I'm checked into Room 106, I said. I'm away right now and I wondered whether there had been any messages for me.

Just a moment, she said, checking something off to her left. Then, Yes, she continued, consulting a piece of paper she now held. You have one on tape. But it is a little peculiar. It is for someone else, in care of you.

Oh? Who is that?

She told me and I exercised self-control.

I see, I said. I'll bring him around later and play it for him. Thank you.

She smiled again and made a good-bye noise, and I did the same and broke the connection.

So Dave had seen through me after all ... Who else could have that number and my real name?

I might have given her some line or other and had her transmit the thing. Only I was not certain but that she might be a silent party to the transmission, should life be more than usually boring for her at that moment. I had to get up there myself, as soon as possible, and personally see that the thing was erased.

I took a big swallow of my drink, than fetched the folder on Dave. I checked out his number, there were two, actually, and spent fifteen minutes trying to get hold of him. No luck.

Okay. Good-bye New Orleans, good-bye peace of mind. This time I called the airport and made a reservation. Then I chugged the drink, put myself in order, gathered up my few possessions, and went to check out again. Hello Central ...

During my earlier flights that day, I had spent time thinking about Teilhard de Chardin's ideas on the continuation of evolution within the realm of artifacts, matching them against Godel on mechanical undecidability, playing epistemological games with the Hangman as a counter, wondering, speculating, even hoping, hoping that truth lay with the nobler part: (hat the Hangman, sentient, had made it back, sane, that the Burns killing had actually been something of the sort that now seemed to be the case, that the washed-out experiment had really been a success of a different sort, a triumph, a new link or fob for the chain of being ... And Leila had not been wholly discouraging with respect to the neuristor-type brain's capacity for this ... Now, though, now I had troubles of my own, and even the most heartening of philosophical vistas is no match for, say, a toothache, if it happens to be your own.

Accordingly, the Hangman was shunted aside and the stuff of my thoughts involved, mainly, myself. There was, of course, the possibility that the Hangman had indeed showed up and Dave had stopped it and then called to report it as he had promised. However, he had used my name.

There was not too much planning that I could do until I received the substance of. his communication. It did not seem that as professedly religious a man as Dave would suddenly be contemplating the blackmail business. On the other hand, he was a creature of sudden enthusiasms and had already undergone one unanticipated conversion. It was difficult to say ... His technical background plus his knowledge of the data bank program did put him in an unusually powerful position, should he decide to mess me up.

I did not like to think of some of the things I have done to protect my nonperson status; I especially did not like to think of them in connection with Dave, whom I not only still respected but still liked. Since self-interest dominated while actual planning was precluded, my thoughts tooled their way into a more general groove.