Brennan stared out the window for a long moment. "You handle this car very well."

"Come on," she said, frustrated beyond endurance by his reticence. "Cut the stall and answer my questions. You owe me that much."

"Maybe I do," Brennan said reflectively. "All right. Kien and I go a long way back. Back to Vietnam." Jennifer slowed to a reasonable speed so she could keep one eye on Brennan as he spoke. He was looking out the window distractedly, looking, seemingly, far beyond the street outside the window. "He's an evil man. Utterly self-absorbed, utterly ruthless. He was a general in the army of South Vietnam, but he worked for anyone who'd pay him. He caused the deaths of a lot of my men. He tried to kill me." Brennan's face became expressionless. "He killed my wife."

They drove on in silence, Jennifer wondering if she had probed too far, if she even wanted to know the rest of the story. After a while, Brennan spoke again.

"I had evidence implicating him in nearly every dirty scheme that was going on in 'Nam, but I.. lost it. Kien stayed in power. I was almost court-martialed. When Saigon fell I left the army and Kien came to America. I spent a few years in the Orient, finally returning to the States a few years ago. An old comrade of mine spotted Kien a couple of months ago and sent me a letter that brought me to the city."

"I'm convinced that the diary would implicate Kien in countless criminal activities. Maybe it contains enough evidence to put him away for good… like he should have been put away by the evidence I'd gathered twelve years ago…"

"I don't know if this diary would be accepted as evidence in court."

"Perhaps not," Brennan conceded, "but it would contain innumerable clues to his activities, to his associates and underlings." He looked at Jennifer seriously. "Killing Kien would be simple, but, first, it wouldn't necessarily bring down the network of corruption that he's built up here in New York, and, second, it would be too easy on him." Brennan's eyes became shadowed with introspection. "I want him to lie awake at night and worry about the slightest noise, the fleetingest shadow that cuts across his dreams. I want him stripped of everything he has, all his wealth, all his power and riches. In the end I want him to have nothing but time, time weighing heavily on his head with nothing to change the endless succession of his dull and eternal days… And if he doesn't end up in a jail cell, I'll strip him of everything he has and make his life an inescapable hell of grinding poverty and fear. To do it I'll need the diary."

Brennan lapsed into silence again. Jennifer licked her lips. Maybe, she thought, it was time to tell him the truth. He should know. But something froze up inside of her at the thought of telling him. She licked her lips again, forced them open.

"Brennan-"

She was interrupted by the sound of a telephone ringing in the back of the limo. Brennan started and looked toward the back seat as she sighed, feeling like a condemned prisoner granted a reprieve.

The dashboard of the limo had more controls than a space shuttle.

"Which switch lowers the window between the seats?" Brennan asked.

Jennifer darted a glance at the dashboard and shrugged. Brennan slammed down a bunch of toggles, turning on the radio, locking the doors, putting up the television antenna and, finally, lowering the tinted glass barrier between the rear and front seats. He dove into the back. Jennifer heard a muffled curse as he banged his knee on the liquor cabinet and bar that faced the rear seat. He picked up the, phone, switched on the speaker attachment so Jennifer could hear, and grunted into it.

"Wyrm? Wyrm, is that you? This is Latham."

Jennifer, glancing at him in the rear mirror, saw a strange expression fall upon his features. He smiled with pleasure, but no humor, as if he recognized the name, as if he were glad to hear the man's voice.

"Listen carefully. Demise is coming with the book. I repeat. Demise has the book. Call off your search and escort him in. Do you understand?"

Brennan's smile was savage. "I do," he said quietly. "You're not Wyrm."

"No," Brennan said. "Who is this?"

"The past, spook. And I'm coming for you." He hung up the phone.

The din, as they walked crosstown, was deafening. The crowds were virtually tidal in their power to ebb and flow, carrying most unanchored passersby with them.

"I'm trying," Bagabond said to Jack, eyes tightly closed as she leaned up against the brick pillar at an alley entrance off 9th Street. "The creatures of the city have never had to deal with this kind of human commotion before. They're terrified."

"I'm sorry," said Jack. The urgency in his voice belied the apology. "Just try. Please try."

"I am." She continued to concentrate. "Nothing. I'm sorry." She opened her eyes and Jack found himself staring into their apparently infinite black depths. "There are eight million humans in this city. Probably there are ten times as many creatures, not even counting the roaches. Be patient."

Jack impulsively hugged her. "I'm sorry. Do what you can do. Let's keep heading downtown." His voice had turned weary now. Bagabond held the embrace a second more than necessary. Jack didn't object.

Bagabond suddenly cocked her head. "Listen."

"Are you picking up something?" Jack said.

"I'm hearing someone. Aren't you?" She started to walk rapidly down the block.

Jack heard it too. The music was familiar, the voice doubly so.

Blood and bones Take me home People there I owe People there gonna go Down with me to Hell Down with me to Hell

"I'll be damned," said Jack. "It sounds like C.C."

"It is C.C. Ryder," Bagabond said. C.C, had been one of Rosemary's oldest and closest friends in the city. But triggered by acute trauma, her grotesque wild card talent had kept her under close care in Dr. Tachyon's clinic for more than a decade. They stopped with several other onlookers, pressed up against the glass front of a Crazy Eddie's. There were several large video monitors set up in the display window. Overhead speakers piped the music out to the street. On the screens, sharp-edged geometric solids rolled and collided in black and white.

"Is she performing again?" Bagabond said. "Rosemary's said nothing."

"Not in person." Jack squinted through the glass. "Just in performance videos like this. I also heard she's been writing a lot of new stuff lately, songs for Nick Cave, Jim Carroll, people like that. I read in the Voice that Lou Reed's even considering one of her songs for a new album-and he never does covers."

"I wish she was doing concerts again," Bagabond said, voice almost wistful.

Jack shrugged. "Maybe. I guess she can't deal with more than maybe two people at one time. I think she's finally getting better."

"If she's recording now," said Bagabond, "then she's getting better."

"I bet Cordelia'd like to meet her," said Jack.

Bagabond smiled. "Cordelia's sixteen. Maybe C.C. knows Bryan Adams."

"Who?" said Jack.

"Come on." She took his arm and led him away from the display window. The lyrics followed them.

You can sing about pain You can sing about sorrow But nothing will bring a new tomorrow Or take away yesterday

In the neighboring cubicle, screened only by a thin cloth curtain, someone was puking. Noisily, energetically, vigorously, a real tour de force of puking.

"So I sez to him, I sez, I'm gonna smear your ugly nat face all over-"

But where the beery-voiced joker had been going to smear the face was lost in the lonely cry of sirens and a loud aggrieved "Ow!" from Tachyon.

"Stop sniveling," ordered Dr. Victoria Queen, who looked as if thirty-six years of living with her improbable name had permanently soured her disposition. The frowning expression was at odds with her lovely face and lush body. She took another stitch in the alien's forehead.