"Not grammatical," Lucas said.

"No, he wasn't. I picked it up a couple of times."

Then, a few seconds later, with Ignace reading, Lucas interrupted again, "He said he threw it into a field of 'whatever-it-is'?"

"That's what he said." Ignace nodded. "That's what verbatim means. It's exactly what he said."

One of the junior editors said, "He's gotta push the button on the story…"

White said to Lucas, "Do you have any other suggestions?"

Lucas shook his head: "You're gonna run it, so run it. I notice you shaded over the fact that he went out and bought a razor because of Ruffe's earlier story."

"I don't think that's essential to the thrust of the story," White said. "It confuses the issue."

"Besides, it's embarrassing," said Sloan, stepping up, wiping his nose. To Lucas: "Rochester's working it; and they're bringing in an on-duty Highway Patrol guy and the Sheriff's Department."

IGNACE PUSHED THE BUTTON on the story, sending it on its way, and said to Lucas and Sloan, "You guys owe me big."

"Bullshit. You're about one inch from being busted as a material witness," Sloan said. He sounded defensive.

Ignace smiled, calling the bluff: "So bust me. I might enjoy it."

"You wouldn't enjoy it," Sloan said.

"What, you'd put me in some cell with some big faggot?"

Sloan shook his head. "No, we'd put you in a locked room by yourself with a toilet and a sink and let you sit there. It'd be like taking a Northwest flight from Minneapolis to Duluth for three straight weeks. Except that the food would be better."

"Fuck you," Ignace said, linking his fingers together over his soft gut. "You owe me, and you know it. When you get this guy, I want a phone call. If you get him."

"We'll get him," Lucas said. "Maybe we'll call, maybe we won't."

THEY TALKED FOR ANOTHER ten minutes, going over the story. Ignace gave Lucas a shortened transcript of the conversation, only the material covered in the story. Lucas told Stone that the state would subpoena Ignace's shorthand notes. "Keep them safe."

"We'll probably fight the subpoena," Stone said.

"Probably-but don't lose the notes."

OUT ON THE STREET, Sloan said, "Ruffe is a noxious little motherfucker," and then, "Stand back, I'm gonna sneeze."

Lucas stepped away, Sloan sneezed, and Lucas said, "One good thing-Pope's staying in his home territory. He's not off in some god-damn weird place where nobody's seen the stories about him. He's hiding out. That means somebody has seen him, whether or not they know it, and all we have to do is find the connection."

"So now what?"

Lucas yawned and said, "I'm going over to the office to work the phones. I'll put together a meeting in Rochester, tomorrow morning, Everybody I can find."

Sloan looked at his watch: "It's way late."

"So I jerk a few people out of bed. Big deal. Uh-you personally might want to take some more pills."

"No kiddin'. My face is coming off. What about the baseball bat?"

"We can run down to Mankato early, check on the bat, then over to Rochester. We gotta find this woman he's looking at. That's the thing: if he's telling us the truth, we might not have a lot of time."

"I hope to hell he doesn't have anybody. I couldn't deal with another woman like Larson."

"Just… hold on, man," Lucas said. "You're going through a tough spot."

"It's all been tough," Sloan said. "Now, it's breaking me up."

THE MAN WITH THE throaty whisper felt better after talking with Ignace; more complete. Talking about what he was doing actually helped him to think through it, to appreciate it. Though… what a weird fuckin' name the guy had. Ruffe Ignace. Who'd name their kid something like that? Why not something decent, like Bob, or Roy? With a name like Ruffe, you were bound to grow up queer.

And it was nice to talk about Millie, even if just a little.

ONE THING MILLIE found out early was that sex in the shower sounded good in books but was less fun in real life. First of all, you were standing up, and you had to concentrate on not falling down. The way you did that was, you hung on the water faucet handles, and then just about the time you got a rhythm going, you pushed too hard on the cold handle and Mihovil got a shot of icy water down his back and his dick retracted like a snail in a shell. That wasn't good.

Then there was the drowning issue. Oral sex always seemed like a possibility in a shower, but that meant you had to rely on nose breathing to keep you alive, and with water pouring down on you, that wasn't as easy as it seemed.

They tried it in Mihovil's bathtub, but in a modern bathtub, there just wasn't enough room, and Mihovil cracked his head so hard on the water faucet that he actually bled from the cut.

In either the shower or the tub, soap was a problem in a number of ways…

They tried it standing up in the bedroom, but that was almost as awkward as the shower-something usually went wrong at exactly the wrong time. The pumping action would produce rude noises, or Mihovil would fall out and they'd lose the rhythm, and once he ejaculated on the shag carpet in Millie's bedroom, which had been a mess…

There were issues.

THERE WERE ISSUES, but they also made a lot of progress. She found that she could actually learn to have an orgasm. She could link a little fantasy with a little reality, she could get Mihovil to behave in certain ways to increase the sense of fantasy, get the physical part to match the mental stuff, and Pop! It worked almost every time, after she learned how to do it.

Like this. They were doing it doggie style, had just gotten started, and Mihovil asked, "How often do you masturbate?"

She was embarrassed by the question. That seemed a little private, and if she said something like "Every night," it might even seem to reflect on Mihovil's own sexual efficacy (in her case) so she temporized and said, "Well, I guess, you know…"

"No, tell me," he said. "You must (uh) do it all the time when you have no boyfriend."

"I do it (grunt) sometimes," she said. "I think it's (um) natural… I guess."

"Yes. It's natural. I do it all the time. Sometimes (ah) when I'm watching football. Okay?"

"Okay." But she was a little doubtful. Where was this going?

He cleared up that question right away: "Now. When we do it this way, it would work much better if you would just reach up and rub yourself a little, because I can hardly reach in there with my hands, and I know my cock doesn't rub you the right way… so just reach up there…"

So she did.

THE BEST THING, they discovered, with research, was to start in the shower, and then get toweled off, and then race into the playroom and do all the stuff in the bed that you imagined doing in the shower, but you let the bed hold you up. Since you were squeaky clean, there really were no limitations. The icky factor essentially vanished. And you didn't drown. And they only fell out of bed twice, which was actually, when you thought about it, pretty neat.

Falling out of bed, it felt so good…