"Where're you going?" Sherrill asked.

"To see some guys about some games," Lucas said.

Nancy Wolfe met him in the hallway as he was going out. "My attorney is on the way. He said for you to leave the files alone until he gets here."

"Yeah, well, as soon as your attorney is elevated to the district court, I'll follow his instructions," Lucas said. Then he let some air into his voice: "Look, we're not gonna persecute your patients-we won't even look at most of them. But we've got to move fast. We've got to."

"You'll set us back years with some of these people. You'll destroy the trust they've built up with us-the only people they can trust, for most of them. And the people who need treatment for sexual deviation, or other possibly criminal behavior, they won't be back at all. Not after they hear what you've done."

"Why do they have to hear?" Lucas asked. "If you don't make a big deal out of it, nobody'll know except the few people we actually talk to. And with them, we can make it seem like we got the information from someplace else-not deal with the records."

She was shaking her head. "If you go through those records, I'll feel it incumbent upon me to inform the patients."

Lucas tightened up and his voice dropped, got a little gravel. "You don't tell them before we look at them. If you do, by God, and one of them turns out to be the kidnapper, I'll charge you as an accomplice to the kidnapping."

Wolfe's hand went to the Hermes scarf at her throat: "That's ludicrous."

"Is it true that you'll get a half-million dollars if Andi Manette is dead?"

Wolfe's mouth tightened in a line that might have indicated disgust. "Get away from me," she said. She brushed at him with one hand and started down the hall toward Manette's office, "Just get away."

But as he was going out the door, she shouted down the hall, "Who told you that? George? Did George tell you that?"

Lucas hit a game store in Dinkytown, near the campus of the University of Minnesota, another on Snelling Avenue in St. Paul, then dropped down to South Minneapolis.

Erewhon was run by Marcus Paloma, a refugee from the days of LSD and peyote tea. The shop was just off Chicago, a few blocks below Lake, surrounded by small stucco houses painted in postwar pastels, all crumbling into their crab-grass lawns.

Lucas parked and ambled toward the shop. The cool, rain-washed air felt alive around him, the streets clear of their usual dust, the leaves of the trees burning like neon.

The shop was exactly the opposite: dim, musty, a little dusty. Bins of comics in plastic sleeves pressed against boxes of used role-playing and war games. Lucite racks of metallic miniatures-drolls, wizards, thieves, fighters, clerics, and goblins-guarded the cash register counter.

Marcus Paloma was gaunt, with a goatee and heavy glasses, His thinning gray hair was worn bouffant; he was dressed in a gray sweatsuit with Nike cross-training shoes. He'd once finished eighth in the St. Paul Marathon. "I got a concept," he shouted down the store, past the bins of comics, when he saw Lucas. "I'm gonna make a million bucks."

John Mail was sitting in a folding chair, looking through a cardboard box of used D amp;D modules. He glanced down the store at Lucas, and then looked back into the box. Two other gamers, one of each sex, looked up when Paloma shouted at Lucas.

"A feminist role-playing game, modelled on Dungeons and Dragons," Paloma said, gradually moderating his voice as he walked toward Lucas. "Set in prehistoric times, but dealing with problems like heterosexual mating and child birth in an essentially lesbian-oriented setting. I'm calling it The Nest."

Lucas laughed. "Marcus, everything you know about feminism, you could write on the back of a fuckin' postage stamp with a laundry pen," he said.

The female gamer said, "Profanity is a sign of ignorance," and faced him, waiting to be challenged.

Marcus, coming up the store, said, "That was an obscenity, sweetheart, not a profanity. Get your shit straight. That's a vulgarity, by the way-shit is." To Lucas, he said, "How you been? Shoot anybody lately?"

"Not for several days," Lucas said. They shook, and Lucas added, "You're looking good."

"Thanks." Marcus's face was its usual dusty gray. "I'm watching my diet. I've eliminated all fats except a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, on salad, at noon."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Could you sign some stock since you're here?"

"Sure."

"Hey, are you Davenport?" the female gamer asked. She was a dark-haired high school senior, quivering with caffeine.

"Yes."

"I've got Blades at home, I'd love you to sign it."

"You still got the book on that?" Marcus asked the girl.

"Sure," the girl said.

"I'll get him to sign a book on a used one, and you bring yours in, and well trade," Marcus said.

"Dude," said the girl.

"Marcus, we gotta go in the back," Lucas said. "I need to talk for a minute."

"All right, let me get those games." He stepped over to the cash register stand, took a half-dozen boxes off a rack, walked to the used bin and picked up two more, and led Lucas down the length of the store into the back. Just before ducking through a gray curtain into his office, he called back to the girl, "Keep an eye on the desk, will you, Carol?"

The office was filled with cardboard shipping boxes. A roll-top desk was shoved into a corner, buried under ten pounds of unopened junk mail. There were three chairs, one overstuffed and comfortable, two folding, covered with green vinyl. The room smelled of old newsprint and slightly stale cat food. A fat red tabby was lying on the back ledge of the rolltop. The cat looked at Lucas, and Lucas's gray silk suit, and seemed to think about it.

"Sit down," Paloma said, waving one hand expansively. "Damn cat is sitting on my orders. Get off of there, Bennie."

They talked the games business for a minute or two-who was winning, who was losing, the sales wars. "Listen, Marcus, something's up," Lucas said. He leaned forward and tapped Paloma on the knee.

"Sure. Cop business?" Paloma had done a little snitching for Lucas.

"Yeah. You heard about that shrink getting snatched? And her kids? Big news in the Strib this morning?"

"Yeah, I saw that," Paloma said, amazed. "Took her right out of the parking lot."

"The guy who did it might be a gamer," Lucas said.

"A gamer?" Paloma asked doubtfully. Another cat came out of the back, a gray one, a solemn female. Marcus picked her up and scratched her ears, and she stared at Lucas with her yellow eyes.

"Yeah. Big guy, wearing a GenCon t-shirt, middle twenties. Probably strong, like a body builder. Has a violent streak. Blond, shoulder-length hair."

"Nice Dexie," Paloma said to the cat. Then he shook his head, slowly, thinking. "Not really. Big and tough, huh? That doesn't sound like too many gamers." He scratched his nose, thinking. "Except…"

"Who?"

"The guy out there now-he's a big guy." Paloma nodded toward the door to the front. "Pretty tough-looking. And I think I've seen him in a GenCon shirt."

"Where? Sitting down? He was kinda short." Lucas looked toward the curtain that separated the office from the sales floor.

"He was sitting in an old folding chair. He's probably six-four, maybe two-twenty. Strong as a bull," Paloma said.

Lucas stepped toward the door. "What's his name?"

"I don't know. I've seen him two or three times before. Never said much to me."

"Have you ever seen his car?"

"No. Not that I know of," Paloma said.

"Huh," Lucas said. He went back through the door in a hurry, but the dark-haired man was no longer sitting in the chair. To the girl he said, "Where did that guy go? The guy who was sitting over there…"

She shook her head. "He left. You gonna sign a book for me?"