"I don't think you were motivated by generosity. I think you're afraid of him. That's why you're sending me to face him."

The words were gone, and she was a fool for uttering them for he was upon her, fingers closing like a vise about her jaw. "Calling me a coward, my sweet pussy killer?" His face was set in a devil's grimace.

"No." She forced out the barely audible whisper.

"Good. I wouldn't want to think that you didn't respect me. Now! Tell me about Howler."

"No, I don't… I can't live it… again." She towered over him so she was gazing down on the top of his balding cranium covered only with a few straggling wisps of hair and patches of scabrous skin.

"Then live this!" And the rush of memory returned. The hideous misshapen thing that had lain between her legs. The net result of so many hours of painful labor. A monster so grotesque that even the nurses had hated to touch it.

"All right, all right! He was in… great pain."

"His face, what of his face? He must have been looking at you."

"He looked sad. Like a bewildered child who couldn't understand why he was being hurt." Sobs lay like jagged glass in the back of her throat.

"And did you enjoy it?" His free hand closed about her left shoulder, and he forced her to her knees before him. She could feel the blood soaking through the hem of her skirt, sticking on the bare skin of her knees.

His eyes were on her again. There was no hope of lying.

"No." The tears spilled over, running in hot lines over her cheeks. "I didn't really know him. Just one night. But he was kind to me. And now he's dead and I'm afraid."

"Of what?"

"Of what I'm becoming. I'm afraid to go on…"

"My dear, you had best be afraid of what will happen if you don't go on. I own you, Roulette, and I will exact a terrible punishment if you fail me."

A shrill scream tore at her throat as she watched his hand go sliding into her chest, and felt the heavy pressure as he cupped her heart in his palm.

"One squeeze, Roulette, and you die." His hand drifted down, massaging her ovaries, sending waves of agony through her belly. "Don't make me kill you, Roulette. It would be such a waste." He removed his hand, and caressed her bruised cheek. "But I don't want to frighten you, my darling. I want to help you. To save and free your soul. You will go mad, Roulette, just as you fear, unless you achieve your final vengeance and purge your soul. Without that cleansing, my memory wipe will do you no good. Now go, find Tachyon, kill him, and you will be free."

"Free," she sighed. The Astronomer suddenly released his hold on her chin, and she fell forward, catching herself on her hands. She whimpered a bit as the now-congealing blood oozed between her fingers. Even free from you, she thought with an emotion that was neither love nor hate, but partook of both.

"Yes, my little love. Even from me." She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the blow or other punishment that had to follow. Moments passed and nothing happened. Cautiously she opened her eyes.

"And when will you…"

"Remove your past? When you report back to me, and tell me in painful detail"-his lips quirked at the little pun"every moment of Tachyon's death."

"Yes… all right… I will."

Roulette pushed herself to her feet. With a jerk of the head the Astronomer indicated to Kafka to leave. The hideous little cockroach joker scurried to the door, and offered Roulette one of the remaining clean towels. She accepted gratefully. "Will I find you here?"

"That depends on the time. My schedule's rather full today." He smirked, then stared consideringly at her. "You have served me well. Oh, why not? I've decided to take my more faithful followers with me when I leave." He wrapped a length of flexible tubing about his upper arm, and rubbed at the bulging vein.

"Leave?"

"Yes, I'm leaving this world which betrayed and cheated me. "

"But how?"

"On Tachyon's ship."

"But you don't know how to fly a spaceship. Do you?" she added, suddenly doubtful. The range of his powers was awesome, maybe he could.

"This ship will fly, for it's an intelligent creature with a mind, and what has a mind I can control. We are set to rendezvous at three-thirty tomorrow morning. Be there and you can come. Provided of course you've killed Tachyon, and if your little recitation pleases me. Now, what do you say to that? I couldn't be any fairer," he added in a thoughtful tone as he considered his own magnanimity.

The little smile that pursed his mouth died, and his face twisted in a hideous grimace. "Now go!" he screamed, and spittle foamed in tiny white specks on his lips, and spattered on her face.

She went, running back down the damp tunnel, towel pressed to her lips. Kafka was still shuffling down the tunnel, and as she passed him, Roulette wondered how much he had overheard, if he constituted one of the "faithful," and what the _ Astronomer would do to him if he weren't and if he learned of Kafka's eavesdropping. For an instant their eyes met, and Roulette saw mirrored in the joker's the same fear and confusion and hopelessness and hate that she knew lay reflected in hers.

She touched him gently on the carapace. "Thank you for the towel, Kafka."

"You're welcome," he said with an odd formality that made his bizarre condition all the more ludicrous and heartbreaking. "Roulette," he added as she walked away. "Be careful. I would like to think that one of us came out of this with some semblance of normalcy and humanity intact."

"Well, it won't be me, but thanks for the concern."

9:00 a.m.

Jennifer picked up the phone on her desk and dialed a number she'd used only half a dozen times in the past year, but had committed to memory. It rang three times before it was picked up and a rich, cultured voice with a Brooklyn accent still lurking in it said, "The Happy Hockey."

"Hello, Gruber."

The voice took on a new tone, deepening and becoming unctuous with unwanted solicitousness. "My dear Wraith." He called her by the nom de guerre Jennifer had adopted. "It's been a while. How have you been?"

"Fine." Jennifer kept her answers to a minimum. She didn't like Leon Gruber, though he continually let her know his all-too-evident feelings toward her. He was a pudgy, pasty faced cokehead with a master's in fine arts from Columbia. He worked out of the pawnshop he'd inherited from his fatherunder, from what Jennifer had heard, rather suspicious circumstances. He was her fence. He never stopped hitting on her, despite the cold politeness with which she carried out all their transactions.

"Do you have something for me?" he asked.

He made the question sound salacious. Jennifer could almost see him licking his pouty lips.

"Postage stamps," she replied briefly.

"How much?" There was something of a sigh in his voice as he resigned himself to talking business.

"Nearly two. million catalog."

There was a long silence, and when Gruber finally spoke his voice had changed again. There was something behind his words that Jennifer had never heard before, something that made him sound even more cold and calculating than usual.

"You do astonish me, my dear. Tell me, are these from a dealer's stock or a private party's collection?"

"None of your business."

"Well, we do like to keep our little secrets, don't we?"

"My secrets are my own," Jennifer said firmly, more than a little irritated. "If you're not interested in the stamps I can always find someone who is."

"Oh, I am interested. I am. I'm interested in everything about you, my dear Wraith." Jennifer grimaced at his words. She could almost imagine the scenes flickering through his coked-up brain. "You are a very, um, intriguing person. You appeared from out of nowhere and in less than a year became the city's finest thief. I feel very fortunate to be, um, associated with you and I'm very, very interested in the stamps. I have something on for this morning, though. I'm expecting some people. Can you come by elevenish? Perhaps we can do lunch after I take a look at the merchandise."