This courtroom had been constructed inside this ancient municipal building in the late seventies, and it was still as bright and shiny and impervious as the first day it opened for business. The churchlike pews were a honey-colored wood, and so were the tables for prosecution and defense, and the jury box, and the judge’s bench. The floor was pale blue linoleum tile, the walls creamy yellow, the dropped ceiling half white sound deadener and half shiny fluorescents. In this clean, well-lighted, and somehow inhuman space, there were, besides Judge Higbee and the court officers, four categories of persons: perps, lawyers, cops, and witnesses. Very rarely, there were also jurors, but that was an exception, the jury system of American law having long ago been replaced by the more efficient and less chancy plea bargain system.

But, the point was, nobody else ever entered this courtroom, nor ever would. So who the hell was the stranger?

And he was strange indeed. Very tall and very thin, he had a long, pale face that seemed to pucker and shrink behind thick-lensed eyeglasses with heavy black rims. He wore a black suit that looked a little too small for him, a white shirt, a thin black necktie. He sat primly, knees together, pale, bony hands crossed on legs, head straight, face expressionless, black eyes glinting in the fluorescent glare as he watched the activity in the courtroom.

Not much activity left, today. Doing his best to ignore that black-clad figure in the back of the room—he was like a knife slash across a painting—doing his best not to distract himself with questions as to who the fellow might be and what trouble he might portend, Judge Higbee dispensed the rest of the day’s justice with dispatch, gaveled the final miscreant on his way to Dannemora, and was about to stand and flee to his chambers, when the stranger rose and moved down the central aisle toward the bench, walking rigidly and holding up one pale finger for attention.

Now what? Judge Higbee wondered, and remained where he was, grasping the gavel as though to ward off attack. As attorneys lugged their briefcases past him on the way out, the spectral man approached the judge and said in a deep but faintly hollow voice, “Good afternoon. I am Max Schreck.”

The name meant nothing. Wary, Judge Higbee said, “Good afternoon.”

Schreck seemed a bit doubtful. The eyes behind the thick glasses flickered, like a lightbulb thinking of burning out. He said, “My secretary spoke to your secretary this morning.”

“Oh my God,” the judge said, and the heart within him sank. “You’re the new lawyer!”

Benny Whitefish could not have been more excited. Intrigue! Danger! Beautiful women! (Well, one beautiful woman anyway.) Responsibility! A really important job at last for Uncle Roger.

“You better not screw up,” he told himself, and gazed at his shining eyes in the rearview mirror. “You’re gonna be fine,” he assured himself, “you’re gonna be great.”

Of course he was. He’d been doing this shadowing job just perfectly, hadn’t he? For three days now, he’d been following the Little Feather Redcorn woman around to see who her accomplices were, following her in and out of supermarkets and drugstores and movie houses, and not once had she even suspected he was there. It must be because I’m an Indian, he told himself; I have a natural genius for tracking.

It was only too bad Little Feather Redcorn didn’t have any accomplices, because Benny was ready with his disposable camera to take their pictures and deliver the prints straight to Uncle Roger, just to show him how on top of the job Benny really was. But he could console himself anyway with the knowledge that he had a real aptitude for this job. He could just see himself moving swiftly and silently through the mighty forest, and never once stepping on a twig.

But what was even better than discovering he did possess some natural skills and talents after all—the evidence had been pretty much solidly the other way up till now—was the fact that Uncle Roger and his almost-uncle Frank had taken him into their confidence and made him a part of their planning committee. Or should he call that their war party? Whatever; he was in it.

Roger and Frank were conferring with their big-time lawyer today about ways to stall the DNA test as long as possible, while they worked out what steps they would take to eliminate the threat of Little Feather Redcorn for good. (Not eliminate her, that would be too dangerous; just the threat of her.) Something drastic, they would have to do—they knew that much—and Benny would be part of it.

He was so excited, he could barely sit still in his little orange Subaru, but he knew he had to be as silent and patient and unmoving as a cat. That was part of the tracking genius. He was working on it.

She was at the drugstore again today. Gee, she did a lot of shopping! Benny supposed women did that, though his mother and his older sisters, the only women he actually knew very well, weren’t into shopping much. They were mostly into TV, and snacks.

Anyway, he’d followed her yet again in yet another taxi, and here he was parked in the drugstore’s lot, near the entrance, watching the door of the place but mostly watching for the next taxi to arrive. That was the way it always worked; she went into the store, whatever store it was, and then sometime later a taxi would arrive and she’d come out again with her bags of purchases and get into it.

The first few times, he’d followed her into the store to trail around after her, making darn sure she never saw him, but when it became obvious she didn’t intend to meet anybody in these stores, he’d decided it would be better to wait outside in the car, so she wouldn’t see him too often and maybe start to recognize him and get suspicious. So here he was, not yet really expecting the taxi, because she’d only been in there a few minutes, when out she came, completely unexpected.

Benny stared at her, startled by this change of pattern, and his heart began to pound, his mouth to get dry. What was going on here?

Nothing at first. She had a sort of helpless, lost look to her as she stood in front of the drugstore, gazing around. Benny forgot to look the other way, because he was so flummoxed by her abrupt appearance like that, and then, all of a sudden, she was staring directly at him.

Oh no! He quickly looked away, at the sale banners taped to the drugstore windows, but it was too late. Here she came, walking toward him, her brown leather coat open over her red fitted western shirt and short white buckskin skirt and high red boots. She didn’t look exactly like a real person at all, but more like one of the pinup posters he had on the walls in his bedroom, the ones that his mother and sisters always ragged him about.

Benny had thought, sometimes, that it might be terrific if someday he could see Little Feather Redcorn in a bikini, his imagination not daring to wish beyond that, but he’d never expected to see her in complete real-life close-up. But that’s what was about to happen. She walked directly toward Benny across the asphalt parking lot, and it was hopeless to pretend he didn’t see her coming, and didn’t see her gesture for him to open his window. There was no way out of it; he rolled the window down.

“Excuse me,” she said. She had a surprisingly light and musical voice, and her smile was really very gentle.

Benny blinked at her. Does she suspect? Then why would she smile? He said, “He—hello.”

“I feel like such a fool,” she confessed. “I came out without my wallet.”

Benny nodded spastically. “You did?”

“I got everything I needed, and I was just about to pay for it, and then I realized, No wallet. I can’t even take a taxi home.”

“Oh,” he said. Was she going to ask him for money?