"That's why the TV people were all over you," Lucas said. "You sorta stand out in a crowd of techies."

She looked Lucas full in the face. "Is that why you were so happy to have me involved?"

Lucas started to say no, but then nodded and said, "Yeah."

"All right," she said, turning back to the front. He saw her eyes in the rearview mirror. "Is this a good time to ask for a raise?"

Lucas grinned and said, "We can talk about it."

"How come you didn't come in with Del?" Ice asked.

"He knows who I am, that I write games," Lucas said. "And he probably knows me by sight. I think I actually ran into the sonofabitch the day after the kidnapping."

"At least he's sniffing around," Del said.

"Yeah," Lucas nodded, looking out the back windows. Another van was back there-and yet another was waiting at a cross street. "He's out there."

"Good thing I had a gun," Ice said.

Lucas turned back to her and said, "What?"

Ice dug into her waistband and came up with a blued.380 automatic, turned it in the dome light, worked the safety.

"Gimme that," Lucas said, irritated, patting his hand out.

"Fuck you, pal," she said. She pushed it back in her waistband. "I'm keeping it."

"You're asking for trouble," Lucas said. "Tell her, Del."

Del shrugged: "I just bought one for my old lady. Not a piece of shit like that, though." He looked at Ice. "If you're gonna have one, get something bigger."

Ice shook her head: "I like this one. It's cute."

"You gotta shell in the chamber?"

"Nope."

"Good. You don't have to worry about blowing your nuts off, carrying it in your pants like that."

Mail stayed a full two blocks back, following them up St. Anthony to Cretin, across the interstate to University. When they turned left, he let them go.

Davenport's, he thought. She's going back to work.

He wondered who the musician was-a full-time relationship, or just a ride?

He'd like to take a look at Davenport's, but it simply smelled wrong. Of course, maybe he was simply being paranoid. Mail laughed at himself. He was paranoid; everybody said so. Still, if he had to look at Davenport's, it might be a good idea to make a test run. To send in a dummy.

He thought, I wonder where Ricky Brennan is…

Haywood called from the roof. "We got somebody coming in." Lucas had been on the cot for an hour, half-wrapped in an unzipped sleeping bag, his mind moving too restlessly for sleep. He kicked the bag off, groped for the radio. "Coming in? What do you mean?"

"I mean there's this asshole down there along the tracks, coming straight in, kind of dodging in and out like he's in fuckin' Vietnam. But he's coming here. I can see his face, he's looking at the building."

"Stay on him," Lucas said. He stood up, flipped on the storeroom lights, and pulled on his pants. The radio burped again. Sloan asked, "We moving?"

"Maybe." Lucas called Dispatch. "You're up on the flood plan?"

"Yes." A little tension popped into the dispatcher's voice.

"I might call it," Lucas said. "On my address. Put out a preliminary call right now, get people to their staging points, but don't bring anybody in yet."

"Got it."

They'd been sleeping in a conference room, Sloan on an air mattress under the conference table, Lucas next to the door. Sloan fumbled into his pants and shirt, in the dark. "What's going on?"

Lucas had slept in his clothes, except for his jacket. He pulled on his pistol rig and said, "Got somebody coming in. Hay's watching him."

Haywood called. "He's coming up to the back of the building, boys. He's like sneaking up on the place. I think he's heading for that old loading dock… that's padlocked, right?"

"Yeah. He'll probably come around the dark side, going for the windows," Lucas said. "Stay on him, call him for us. We're going to plug in."

"Hate these fuckin' things," Sloan grumbled, pushing the flesh-colored radio plug into his ear. Lucas had trouble with his, finally got it in as they started down the stairs. Lucas said, "You go around the building to the left, I'll go around to the right."

"Take it easy," Sloan said. He had his piece out, pointing down his leg.

"Yeah." Lucas jacked a round into the chamber of the.45, a harsh, ratcheting noise in the tiled hallway.

"He's headed for the windows," Haywood said. His voice seemed to come from the middle of Lucas's skull. "This guy is something else. He's like tiptoeing. He looks like Sylvester the Cat sneaking up on Tweety Bird."

Lucas shook his head: his mental picture of Mail was neither funny nor stupid. "We're out," he muttered into his microphone. "We'll take him."

Sloan ran around to the left, while Lucas moved slowly to the right, the pistol up and ready. At the corner, he waited, listening. Too many cars, and a voice floating down from the doper bar: You see that? Did you see what she did? Do that again…

"He's trying the windows. I'm right over his head." Haywood spoke softly into Lucas's ear. Sloan should be ready.

Lucas stepped around the corner of the building. A man was just breaking out a corner of a window, just swinging a piece of rerod, when Lucas stepped around and shouted, "Freeze."

Sloan, coming from the other side, shouted "Police," a second later, and they both moved out from the building a step, two steps, the guy pinned between them at the point of a widening triangle. The trapped man had blond, shoulder-length hair, and Lucas thought of the first descriptions of the kidnapper. He was muscular, too-but short. His head snapped first at Lucas, and then at Sloan, then back to Lucas.

And then without a word he rushed at Sloan, lifting the rerod.

"Stop, stop…" Sloan and Lucas were both screaming, but the man rushed in. Lucas brought up his weapon, but the man was closing on Sloan too quickly.

Sloan shot him.

There was a quick, flat muzzle flash and the man screamed, staggered, and went down, and Sloan said, "Ah, shit, ah, shit."

Lucas said to Haywood, "Get Dispatch. Tell them we got a guy down. Tell them to get an ambulance over here."

"Calling," Haywood said.

"Got it, Lucas. Ambulance on the way."

The man on the ground was rolling, holding his leg, and Lucas put his pistol away and walked over, knelt on the man's back, cuffed him, patted him, found a cheap chrome.38 and handed it to Sloan, who put it in his pocket. Then Lucas rolled the wounded man: he groaned, swore. He had a fat, round face and pale blue eyes. This was not John Mail. "Can you talk?"

"Fuckin' leg, man." The wounded man's eyes glittered with tears. "My leg's broken. I can feel the fuckin' bone."

"Ah, Jesus," Sloan said. "What a fuckin' day."

Lucas checked in the bad light and saw the spreading wet patch on the man's right thigh. "Where're the Manettes?" he asked.

"Who?" The man was frightened and seemed genuinely confused.

"Who are you? What's your name?" Lucas asked.

"Ricky Brennan."

"Why'd you come here, Ricky? Why'd you pick this place?"

"Well, man…" Ricky's eyes slid away from Lucas, and Lucas thought he might lose him.

"Come on, asshole," Lucas said.

"Well, this dude said I could pick up a little toot from the computer freaks. Said they had a bag of toot in the back room, like a couple ounces to keep them going all night. My fuckin' leg, man, my fuckin' leg is killing me."

"Shit," Sloan said, and he looked like he was going into shock.

Lucas got on the radio: "Janet? Flood it. I'm calling the flood."

"You got it."

Sloan sat down beside the wounded man. "Got an ambulance coming," he said.

"I'm really hurting, man."

Haywood ran up and Lucas said, "You got a flash?"