"He's the current leader?"

"Yeah. Not a total scumbag, as far as these things go. But I had him in not too long ago on suspicion of a warehouse fire. These punks get thrown a bone sometimes for torching places in insurance scams." He punched some keys. "This is him." He swiveled his monitor for Stake to see. An interrogation room vid played on its screen.

The camera showed Moudry standing, sipping a coffee, while a young man sat behind a table with a water bottle in front of him. The camera zoomed in close on Javier Dias: wiry, tightly wound, with a pompadour of curly black hair, and wearing a white leather jacket. When he spoke, he talked out of one side of his mouth and through gritted teeth in an effect that seemed as much like partial paralysis as it did toughness.

"You're wasting your time bringing me in here about this dung, Moudry," Dias said to the detective with familiarity. "Why you got to be harassing me all the time? You still hurting from that slug in your neck? That wasn't me, remember?"

"I remember. And I remember putting a slug of my own through Banshee's skull for it."

"Yeah, yeah, all in the past, right?"

"Exactly. I'm talking about now. I'm talking about the fire in the old Magog Industries warehouse."

Moudry stopped the vid and started to say something, but Stake asked, "Would it be okay if I saw a little more of that?"

The plainclothesman shrugged, and continued playing back the recording.

Earlier, while pretending to adjust his shirt collar, Stake had covertly captured some still shots of Detective Moudry on his wrist comp, thinking that his face-familiar to the Folger Street Snarlers and perhaps their kin-might come in handy. But now, he started taking a new series of shots, from the screen in front of him.

Brat Gentile didn't have an address of his own listed in any current directory, but when going on the net for his brother's phone number Stake had found that Theo Gentile and his wife lived on Folger Street themselves.

On the front steps of Gentile's tenement building, Stake depressed the key for his apartment number until a familiar face appeared on the monitor screen, warier than ever. "What?" it barked.

On his own monitor screen right now, Theo Gentile would be seeing the attractive face of a young man with high cheekbones, who talked out of one side of his mouth and through gritted teeth in an effect that seemed as much like partial paralysis as it did toughness. "Hey man, let me in, quick. It's Javier."

But both the picture and sound would be shot with distorting static. It was not a malfunction, much as Stake hoped that would appear to be the case. He owned a cheap multipurpose scanning device that he had brought with him from his car's glove compartment. He was holding this instrument just below the security system's lens. He had used it numerous times before so he knew its field, as presently adjusted, would disrupt the image with snow and distort the audio as well. Gentile would be able to see his transfigured face-but not too clearly. In addition, he wore a ski hat over his hair and stood close to the lens so it wouldn't be noticed that he did not possess the trademark white leather jacket of the Folger Street Snarlers.

"Wh… Javier?"

"Javier Dias, you stupid fuck!"

Gentile's wariness didn't seem to be assuaged much. "Javier, man, what's the blast? Where's my brother?"

"That's what I want to tell you. Hurry up before somebody sees me out here. There's this creepy guy going around who says he's a private detective, asking about me."

"Yeah, yeah, that wanker called me, too!"

An indicator light went from red to green and with a click the door came unlocked.

Gentile had opened the door to apartment 12 on the second floor and Stake had stepped inside before the young man could take in that, in addition to being without his leather jacket, this Javier was several inches taller than he should be. Stake saw the pistol in Gentile's other hand and went for it immediately, seizing his wrist and spinning him around in a move he'd learned in combat training, then slamming Gentile's front against the closed door. Gentile cried out, tried to pull the trigger in an attempt to at least shoot Stake in the leg, but Stake bent his wrist back almost to the point of breaking and the pistol clattered to the floor. Stake drew his own weapon, the Darwin .55 that Mr. Jones and his men had considerately returned to him before leaving his apartment, and let Gentile feel its touch behind his ear.

"Wanker, huh?" Stake said.

"Javier, please, man, please," Gentile blurted.

"Calm down," Stake told him, no longer imitating Javier Dias's voice as he recalled it from the police vid. "I'm not here to hurt you. I only want to ask some questions, then I'll leave."

"You're not Javier."

"And you're not your brother, but you'll do. Where's your wife?" "At work!"

"Good. I'm going to let you go, and you're going to sit. You sit nice and I won't have to be impolite anymore. Got it?"

Stake kicked the dropped pistol away, then stepped back to retrieve it and to let go of Theo Gentile. He turned around, furious and frightened and confused. He repeated, "You aren't Javier."

"I'm that private detective who called you earlier. If you'd talked to me then I wouldn't have to be visiting you now."

"I'll call the forcers on you, dung-licker!"

"Go ahead, I just came from there. Talked to an old friend of yours named Moudry. Anyway, it's in your best interest to cooperate, Gentile. We both want the same thing: to find your brother Brat."

"And what do you want him for?"

Stake motioned with his gun. "Come on, sit down."

Gentile hesitated. "How is it you look like my friend Javier now?"

"A little genetic trickery of mine. If it starts to slip, don't get spooked."

In the next room, Gentile complied and lowered himself into a chair. "You work for Adrian Tableau," he said, "don't you?"

"Hands on the armrests," Stake ordered, afraid another weapon might be tucked in the cushions. "No, I don't, but I am looking for his daughter, Krimson. So you admit now that you know she's involved with your brother."

"I don't know anything about that girl; I only met her a couple times."

"Why are you so scared, Mr. Genitalia? Who are you hiding from?"

"Hey, like I told you on the phone, my wife and I just came home from visiting with her family in Miniosis. I get back here and my brother is gone. Not only that, but his whole gang is gone. I don't know if another gang did something to them, or if it has to do with that girl's father, or what. So I been watching my ass until I found out more. I didn't want my wife to return to work but she thinks I'm overreacting. I don't think she's taking this seriously enough!"

"So Brat told you Krimson's father is a dangerous man."

"Yeah. He said her dad would highly disapprove of him going with her. You sure you don't work for him?"

"No," Stake assured him, "I wasn't hired by him. I was hired by the father of a schoolmate of Krimson's. I believe Krimson stole this girl's kawaii-doll, and I'm trying to get it back."

"What? That's all you're really looking for?"

"Yes. It's an expensive doll. To tell you the truth, I don't care about Tableau's daughter, except that I feel she's the one who stole this doll."

"Yeah, she took it," Gentile said, not looking ready to believe that the bio-engineered toy was Stake's only concern.

Just like that-confirmed at last. "Did she tell you that herself, or was it your brother?"

"Brat told me. He called me when I was in Miniosis, because he was upset. She ran out on him or something and he said it was strange."

"Ran out on him? Tell me what he said. About the doll. everything."

"Then I have to show you his room to explain. Can I get up?"