The man reached up and snuffed out the cinder by pinching it with two fingers. He didn’t say thanks, and he didn’t flinch. “Yeah?”

“I’m Greg Sanders, Las Vegas Crime Lab. Doozer, right? I’d like to talk to you about Hal Kanamu-Kahuna Man. ”

Doozer snorted. “Let me guess. He ODed.”

“Not a surprise, huh?”

“No. He was headed there in a hurry-only a matter of time.”

“You don’t seem real upset by that.”

Doozer glared at him. “Hey, it pisses me off, okay? Every time some sponge brain with no sense of judgment and a death wish kills himself through sheer stupidity, it makes everyone else look bad. And by everyone else, I mean anyone who might like to indulge in a little chemical recreation now and then.”

“Okay, I get it. He was irresponsible. But if so, why let him be part of your camp?”

Doozer studied him for a second before responding. “That’s just it-we didn’t. Turfed him a few weeks ago. He’d show up to planning meetings so wired you could have hook ed him up to a klieg light. Rambling on and on about all this Hawaiian stuff he was into. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good rolling tiki bar as much as the next guy, but he was trying to convince us to change our plans for next year. We’re already halfway done-no way we’re gonna suddenly shift to some half-baked tweaker idea.”

Greg had to admit the vehicle Doozer had been working on was impressive: a gigantic metal scorpion on wheels, the articulated tail ending in a flamethrower. It looked skeletal at the moment, the metal segments that would make up its armor leaning against the wall like a knight’s inventory of shields.

“So this is it, huh? Pretty damn cool.”

“Thanks. Gonna outline the whole thing in electroluminescent wire-either blue or red, not sure. Thing’ll kick some serious ass after nightfall.”

“So what did Kanamu want to build instead?”

“Ah, he kept changing it. Some kind of giant volcano goddess one week, then a fire-breathing shark the next. He was all over the place.”

“You hear about his gambling win?”

“Yeah, everybody knew about it. Only reason we didn’t tell him to take a hike sooner-kept saying he’d finance the whole trip, you know? But there was just no way. Black Rock’s not about money, anyway-it’s about self-suffiency. Find yourself relying on a junkie, that’s a recipe for disaster.”

“ Anyone try to get him to straighten out?”

Doozer shook his head. “Yeah, a couple people talked to him. But he was just as high on the money as the meth, you know? Didn’t want to come down.”

“When was the last time you talked to him?”

“Couple weeks ago. Heard he hooked up with another artist, was gonna pay him to build something and take it to the playa himself.”

“You have the artist’s name?”

“Sorry, no. And Kahuna Man kind of dropped off the radar after that.”

“Okay, thanks.” Greg took one final, admiring glance at the scorpionmobile. “Have fun.”

“Always do.”

“Slow down, David,” said Grissom. “Take a deep breath. Now let it out.”

They were in the hall outside the autopsy room. Grissom had rushed over after a panicked, nearly incoherent phone call from David. “Good. Now tell me again what happened.”

David swallowed. “I was just outside. I heard Doc yell-not like he’d dropped something and was angry, more like something had scared him. I ran in there.”

“What did you see?”

“I saw… I saw the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“It was as big as my hand. Tan colored. It was sitting on the thigh of the body and waving i ts front legs in the air. Doctor Robbins was on the ground, not moving. I didn’t know what to do, so I grabbed a chair and sort of waved it at the spider. It jumped off the table and ran away, I think under one of the shelves. I grabbed Doctor Robbins and pulled him outside, then called the paramedics. He was in a lot of pain-”

“Were its fangs red?”

David frowned. “I-yes. Yes, I think so.”

“All right. Call the hospital and tell them he’s likely been bitten by a Brazilian wandering spider. Its venom is neurotoxic, not necrotic. Got it?”

“I-yes, yes, I’ve got it. Is he going to be all right?”

Grissom hesitated. “Less than one percent of those bitten by this spider die. I’m sure he’ll be fine-just make the call.”

Grissom left David guarding the door while he made a quick trip to the supply closet, returning with a pair of heavy gloves and a large plastic jar.

“I told them,” said David. “They said they had the antivenin.”

“Hopefully they won’t need it. Don’t let anyone else in, all right? This species is highly aggressive-it’s one of the few spiders in the world that will pursue and attack animals much larger than itself.”

“You’re-you’re going in there?”

Grissom slipped on the gloves. They were made of industrial rubber, more suited to chemical spills than inch-long fangs, but they should provide some protection. “I’ll be fine.”

He opened the door cautiously, slippe d inside, and closed it behind him.

The body of Paul Fairwick lay on the autopsy table. Robbins must have grabbed at the overhead light as he fell, because it was tilted up at a crazy angle, throwing odd shadows across the room.

What Grissom hadn’t told David was that the Brazilian wandering spider was listed in the Guinness World Records Book as the most venomous spider on the planet. Its venom contained a neurotoxin known as Tx2-9, an ion-channel inhibitor that caused profuse sweating, vomiting, and tachycardia. The venom also contained a high amount of serotonin, producing intense pain that could range from local to radiating throughout the body. The spider itself didn’t weave a web and wait for its prey to come to it; it was a nocturnal hunter, moving through the jungle night in search of something to kill and eat. It was incredibly fast and agile and wouldn’t hesitate to attack if it felt threatened.

Grissom scanned the base of the room first. The spider would most likely have found refuge under something low, but it would be attracted to anyplace warm. He got down on his hands and knees, putting the jar down beside him, and peered under the row of shelves along one wall.

He hoped Robbins would be all right. While most victims of the genus Phoneutria survived, two types were most at risk: children and the elderly. Whil e Al Robbins was only fifty-seven, he had a pacemaker-and when the spider’s venom did kill, it was through pulmonary edema. More worrisome was the fact that Doc Robbins had two prosthetic legs, meaning a much lower body mass for the venom to be distributed through; that was thought to be the factor that killed children who had been bitten.

He took a flashlight out of his pocket and shone it under the shelf. The Brazilian wandering spider had eight eyes, two of them quite large; Grissom knew they would reflect light well.

No spider. He stood up and turned in a slow circle, looking for movement. Nothing.

It would look for a heat source, but the autopsy room was kept cold. Perhaps he should just wait and let the chill slow it down?

No. Better to trap it now, before it hid itself away in some unreachable nook or cranny.

And then he saw Doc Robbins’s laptop sitting on the stainless steel counter. It would be radiating heat, but the spider would have no way to get up there; the stainless steel legs would be too smooth for it to climb, as would the tiled wall it was attached to. The laptop, though, had a power cord trailing down the side… and the transformer in the power adapter would be just as warm and a lot more accessible.

He put the flashlight in his mouth, held the open jar in one hand and the lid in the other. He crouched down, peering around the edge of the counter at the plug near the floor. There was no spider… but a thin line of web glinted in the beam of the light. A strand that led upward, paralleling the power cord itself.