"I know you will, but I'm talking about Dan. I want to tell him all this stuff."

He sucked in his upper lip and raised his eyes to the ceiling, and I knew I'd put him on the spot. Frankly, I didn't care. "I have to tell him I have a source, John. I won't tell him it's you, but I need his help, and if I don't tell him I'll never be able to explain where all this information is coming from. And I want to tell him about these threats. Please, John."

He switched to staring at the knit cap, which he was working with both hands. "You trust him?"

"I do trust him, and if you don't, I wish you'd tell me why."

His answer was a shrug. "All right. If you think you have to. But it's under the condition that you never use my name."

"Thank you. I've leaving and I know you don't want to walk with me, but will you keep an eye on me from a distance until I get onto the train? Better yet, I think I'll take a cab."

"Sure, and I'll tell Terry what you tried to do for him."

I started to walk, then remembered something else I'd meant to ask before I'd become terrorized. "Was Angelo involved in this vote fixing? Is that why Ellen would have wanted to talk to him?"

"Whatever Big Pete's into, Angelo knows about it."

"They're friends?"

"For years."

"Do you have any influence with Angelo?"

"Nobody influences him except his wife, Theresa."

"Okay." I wasn't sure how that helped me. "Thanks."

I turned one way in the tunnel, and he went the other over to the inbound platform. As I reached the top of the stairs, I turned and looked for him. He'd been watching me from behind a post, and as I headed out of the station and to the street, he stepped onto a train and didn't look back.

I had once felt safe with John. Now I didn't feel safe with anyone.

By the time I slid the plastic card key into the slit in my hotel room door, it was almost ten o'clock. My clothes felt damp and heavy, and I couldn't wait to peel them off.

The orange message light on my phone was on, its reflection blinking in the dark room like some kind of a coastal beacon signaling a warning in the night.

I flicked on the light, took one step in, stopped short. I took another halting half step and my mind went blank, short-circuited by the scene right in front of me. All the dresser drawers were open. My clothes were on the floor. My briefcase was on its side, its guts spilled out on the table. I stood in the silent room with both hands pressed against my heart, trying not to panic. Only, it wasn't silent. A noise-a sweeping sound, back and forth. It was… Jesus, it was coming from behind me and it sounded like… I made myself turn around, and when I saw it, my heart turned to ice and all the blood pumping through it turned cold.

It was a noose, a big, stiff noose with a big knot, and someone had looped it over the thing-that metal door thing, the pneumatic arm. I'd set it in motion when I'd walked in, and it was still swinging like a pendulum, scratching lightly against the paint. I tried to make my brain work, but it wouldn't. I tried to make my body respond, but it wouldn't. I couldn't take my eyes from the noose. It felt like a living thing, like a bird that could fly off the hook where it was perched and ensnare me, wrap itself around my neck, and squeeze the eyeballs out of my head. The sick drawing of Ellen emerged from some feverish corner of my memory. I stumbled back, then a thought, a horrible thought as my gaze flew around the room- he could still be in here. I blew straight out the door and down to the lobby, where I had the front desk call security.

An hour later, I was checked into the Airport Ramada, the seedier of the two airport hotels. I walked into my new room, went straight to the phone, and dialed the number from my address book, the one I had never really forgotten no matter how hard I'd tried. This time when his voice came on I closed my eyes and counted to myself and after the beep I left my number and my message, "I need to talk to you. Please call."

"So the only thing missing was this tape?" Dan was trying to be somber and concerned as we stood in the window at Gate Forty-two, but he couldn't completely hide his excitement. A hotel room invasion was exactly the kind of thing that got his blood flowing. Too bad it had happened to me and not him.

"A tape is missing, but it's definitely not the one he was looking for. The East Boston Video Vault is not going to be pleased with me. It was their only copy of The Wild Bunch, the anniversary edition."

"What's that?"

"It's an old western. A classic."

He stared.

"Sam Peckinpah? William Holden? Ernest Borgnine?"

"I never would have pegged you for westerns, Shanahan."

"I love westerns, but this is not just a western. It's a-"

A crashing noise rattled through the silent concourse. I flinched, then realized it was the wire-mesh gate at the throat of the concourse. Someone at the security checkpoint had rolled it up into its nest in the ceiling, probably Facilities Maintenance doing their daily calibration of the metal detectors. It was four-thirty in the morning, and the Logan operation of Majestic Airlines was open for business.

"Take it easy, boss."

"I'm edgy."

"Do you think it was Little Pete who was in your room?"

"Yes, I do. He touched all my things. My clothes were all out of the drawers. In the bathroom my toothbrush and my razor, all my makeup, it was all there but moved, everything moved so that I would know that it had been touched. It felt personal. I felt him there. It made my skin crawl."

Dan leaned back against the window, hands in his pockets, and crossed one foot over the other at the ankle. He looked as if he'd gotten dressed in the dark this morning. His shirttail was out, his tie was draped around his neck, and one button was missing from his shirt. I probably didn't look much better, although I had fewer parts to deal with. I had on a simple dark brown and slate blue turtleneck sweater, a long, heavy one that came down almost to my thighs. I wore it over a brown suede, shin-length skirt and leather boots, and is it any wonder I had every inch of my body covered up this morning? Our coats were in a pile on one of the chairs in the row behind us.

"We know he knows where you were staying," Dan said. "He's got plenty of free time on his hands since he's not working, and he hates your guts." He threw me a sideways glance and grinned.

"This is not funny to me."

"I'm sorry, boss. I'm teasing you. I'm getting you back for not telling me that you found Ellen's snitch."

"I did what I thought was right. He's paranoid about someone finding out what he's doing, and I can't blame him. Everyone knows everything that goes on in this place."

He tapped his knuckles and then his St. Christopher's ring on the vertical metal strut that separated the large windowpanes. It was the only noise in a quiet concourse that felt cavernous at that time of the morning. "Well, fuck him," he said finally, almost to himself.

"Excuse me?"

"Fuck him if he doesn't trust me."

"It's good that you're not taking this personally. Let's focus on his information and not him."

"Okay. Why would Little Pete take your copy of- what the hell is it? The Wild Bunch?"

"Obviously, he thought it might be something else. Now I have a box with no video. Sound familiar?"

"The porno box in Ellen's gym locker."

"Exactly. I had plenty of time to think about this when I was lying awake all last night staring at the ceiling. I think that Dickie Flynn sent Ellen a video-cassette. That's what was in the mystery package."

"Why would they think you have it, especially when you don't?"