Lucy considered what Peter said, and then nodded. "That makes some sense. Francis, can you handle that by yourself, and then get back to me?"

Francis said, "Yes," but he was unsure of himself, despite what Lucy had said about his confidence. He couldn't remember actually ever questioning someone to try to elicit information.

Newsman wandered past them at that moment, stopping a few feet distant, doing a little ballet like pirouette on the polished floor, his shoes squeaking as he spun, then saying, " Union-News: Market plunges in bad economic news." Then, with a flourish, he spun about again, and tacked down the hallway, a newspaper held out in front of him like a sail.

"If I go talk to Cleo again," Francis asked, "what will you do, Peter?"

"What will I do? It's a little more like "What would I like?" What I would like, C-Bird, is for Miss Jones to be more forthcoming with the files she has brought with her."

Lucy didn't reply at first, and Peter turned to face her.

"It would help us to have a little better idea of the details that brought you here, if we are to help you while you stay."

Again, she seemed to hesitate. "Why do you think," she started, only to have Peter interrupt her. He was smiling, in that offhand way he had, which meant, at least to Francis, that he had found something amusing and slightly unusual, all at once.

"You brought the files with you, for the same reasons that I would have. Or anyone else who was investigating a case that is barely better than a supposition would have. Because you will need to reassure yourself of similarities, at virtually every stage. And, because somewhere, Miss Jones, you have a boss, as well, who is going to want to see some progress quickly. Probably a boss, like all bosses, with a short fuse on his temper, and a highly exaggerated political sense of how his young assistants should be spending their time profitably. So, our first real order of business is to determine common threads, between what went before, in those other killings, and what happened here. So, I think I should see those files."

Lucy took a deep breath. "Interestingly enough, Mister Evans asked me for the same thing, this morning, using more or less the same rationale."

"Great minds must think alike," Peter said. This was spoken with unconcealed sarcasm.

"I refused his request."

Peter hesitated, then said, "That's because you are as yet uncertain whether he is trustworthy." This, too, was amusing, and he seemed to laugh on the tail end of the sentence.

Lucy smiled. "More or less precisely what I just told the lady you call Cleo."

"But C-Bird and I, well, we are in a different category, are we not?"

"Yes. A pair of innocents. But if I show you these…"

"You will anger Mister Evans. Tough."

Again, Lucy paused, before replying, this time with a hesitancy born of curiosity in her voice. "Peter," she said slowly, "do you care so little about who it is that you piss off? Especially someone whose opinion as to your current mental state could be so critical for your own future…"

Peter seemed about to laugh out loud, and ran a hand through his hair, shrugging and then shaking his head with the same off-balance smile. "The short answer to your questions is Yes. I care very little who I piss off. Evans hates me. And whatever I do or say, he's still going to hate me, and it is not because of who I am as much as because of what I did. So I don't really hold out any hope for him to change. Probably not fair for me to ask him to change, either. And, he's probably not alone in the We Hate Peter Club around here, he's just the most obvious, and, I might add, the most obnoxious. Nothing I do is ever going to change that. So, why should I concern myself with him?"

Lucy, too, smiled slightly. It made the scar on her face curve, and Francis thought suddenly that the most curious thing about a blemish as profound as hers was that it made the rest of her beauty all that more substantial.

"I protest too much?" Peter asked, still grinning.

"What is it they say about the Irish?"

"They say a lot. But mainly that we like to hear ourselves speak. This is the most dramatically trite cliche. But, alas, one based on centuries of truth."

"All right," Lucy said. "Francis, why don't you go and see Miss Cleo, while Peter accompanies me to my little office."

Francis hesitated, and Lucy asked again, "If that's all right with you?"

He bent his head in agreement. It was a strange sensation, he thought. He indeed wanted to help her, because every time he looked at her, he thought she was more beautiful than before. But he was a little jealous of Peter getting to accompany her, while he had to launch himself after Cleo. His voices, still muted, rumbled within him. But he ignored the noise and after a momentary hesitation, hurried down the corridor toward the dayroom, where he suspected Cleo would be behind the Ping-Pong table, in her customary spot, trying to enlist victims in a game.

Francis was correct. Cleo was roosted in the back of the dayroom, by the Ping-Pong table. She had arranged three other patients on the side opposite her, equipping each with a paddle, and showing them a designated area, where they were to respond if her shot landed there. She also demonstrated to each patient how they should crouch down, and grip the paddle, and shift their weight to the balls of their feet in anticipation of action. It was, Francis saw, a mini clinic in how to play the game. And, he guessed, destined for failure. They were all older men, with stringy gray hair and flaccid skin marked by brown age spots. He could see each of them unhappily trying to focus on what they were being told, and struggling with their responsibilities. These simple tasks were magnified in the moment before the game was to begin, and he could also see that the more urgent the need to reply to Cleo's opening Ping-Pong salvo was, the less capable they were of meeting it, no matter how well she had instructed them.

Cleo said "Ready?" three times, looking each in the eyes, as she prepared to serve the ball.

Each of the opponents reluctantly nodded.

With a flick of the wrist, Cleo launched the ball vertically. Then her paddle came forward with snakelike speed, and knocked it across the table, where it landed once on her side of the table, clicking loudly, then jumping the net, striking the other side, spinning and passing directly between two of the opponents, neither of whom budged in the slightest.

Francis thought Cleo would explode. She reddened, and her upper lip seemed to curl back in anger. But then, just as swiftly the whirlwind of fury dissipated. One of the opponents retrieved the little white ball and tossed it across the table to her. She set it down on the green surface, beneath her own paddle.

"Thanks for the game." She sighed, replacing all the anger on her face with resignation. "We'll work on our footwork a little more later."

The three opponents all looked significantly relieved, and wandered off to distant corners of the room.

The dayroom was crowded as usual, with a bizarre mixture of activities. It was an open, well-lit room, with a bank of steel barred windows on one wall that let in the sunshine, and an occasional mild breeze. The glistening white painted walls seemed to reflect the light and energy in the space. Patients in various forms of dress, ranging from the ubiquitous loose-fitting robes and slippers to jeans and overcoats, milled about the room. There were cheap red and green leather couches and well-worn armchairs spread about the space, and these were occupied by men or women who sat quietly reading, despite the hum of noise that filled the room. At least, they appeared to be reading, but pages turned only infrequently. There were out-of-date magazines and tattered paperback novels on sturdy wooden coffee tables. In two of the corners there were television sets, which each had a passel of regulars gathered around, absorbing the soap operas. The pair of television sets were in dialogue conflict, tuned to different stations, as if the characters on each show were squaring off against the other network. This was a concession to the near daily fights that had sprung up between devotees of one show, versus those favoring a competing show.