"He's not going anywhere," I said. "We put him in the trunk of the Ford, call the cops, let them take care of him after we're done."

But neither Angel nor Louis appeared to be listening to me. Instead, Angel shook his head and tut-tutted: "A man your age dyeing his hair," he said to Abel. "That's just vanity."

"And you know what they say about vanity," said Louis softly.

Abel looked up at him, his eyes widening.

"Vanity kills," concluded Louis. Then he shot him once, the Colt jumping in his hand. Abel's head bumped against the wall behind him, his eyes closed tightly, and then his chin slumped forward on his chest.

For the first time in my life, I touched Louis in anger. Reaching out, I pushed him hard on the chest. He took a step back, his expression unchanged.

"Why?" I shouted. "Why did you kill him? Jesus, Louis, do we have to kill everybody?"

"No," said Louis. "Just Abel and Stritch."

And then I understood why Louis and Angel had come here, and the realization was like a punch in the stomach.

"It's a contract," I said. "You took on the hit." I knew now why Leo Voss had been killed, why Abel and Stritch had chosen this time to recede into the shadows, and it was only partly to do with the opportunity offered by Billy Purdue and the money he had stolen. Abel and Stritch were running, and they were running from Louis.

He nodded once. Beside him, Angel looked at me with a kind of sorrow, but also determination. I knew whose side he was on.

"How much?" I asked.

"A dollar," said Louis simply. "I'd have taken fifty cents, but the man didn't have no change."

"A dollar?" It was strange, but I almost smiled despite myself. He had taken a dollar, yet their lives were worth even less than that. I looked back at Abel's body and thought of the two agents in the car and the real Eldritch, who had probably never made it as far as Maine.

"They're that bad, Bird," said Angel. "These guys are the fucking worst. Don't let them come between us."

I shook my head. "You should have told me, that's all. You should have trusted me."

Now Louis spoke. "You're right. It was my call. I called wrong."

He stood before me, waiting for me to respond, and I knew why he had kept it from me. After all, I was an ex-cop, with cop friends. Maybe Louis still had doubts. I had saved Angel's life while he was in prison and, in return, they had stood by me when Jennifer and Susan were killed, had put their own lives on the line in the hunt for their killer and the killers of others, and asked nothing in return. I had no reason to doubt them; they, on the other hand, a burglar and an assassin, could be forgiven for having concerns about me.

"I understand," I said at last.

Louis nodded his head once in response, but in that gesture and the look in his eyes he said all that he needed to say.

"Okay," I said. "Time to find Billy Purdue." And as we walked to the vacant building, the rain falling heavily now, I took a last look at Abel's body and shivered slightly. His huddled form, and the remains of Berendt in the railroad museum, were mute testament to the fact that the squat, grotesque figure of Stritch could not be far away.

There were two cars parked farther up on Fore Street, across from a new development of gray wood houses half-clad in red brick. It was too dark to see if anyone remained inside the vehicles. When we reached the main door to the unoccupied building, the lock had already been broken open and the door stood slightly ajar. Staying close to the wall, I peered around the corner to the front of the building. There, the windows on the top floor were boarded up, while a wooden walkway led from the grass border to a locked door on the second story. Because of the gradient of the slope, the ground floor was actually below the grass, its windows masked with more screens.

I came back to where Angel and Louis were waiting by the door, where we agreed that Angel should leave us and return in the Mercury, so that if we came out with Billy Purdue we could leave quickly.

Inside the door was a flight of stairs, dusty and littered with old newspaper. They led up to the second floor, to a kind of storage bay supported by steel columns. Behind the stairs was a series of empty offices and work areas, all quiet and unlit. The warehouse still smelled faintly of wood, although now the pervading odor was one of dampness and decay. Louis had a flashlight but didn't light it for fear of drawing attention to us.

From where we stood, I could see that mounds of rotted timber still lay in one corner near the stairs. Water dripped from the ceiling as the rain fell through the warehouse roof and gradually leaked through to the floors below. We moved behind the stairway and into the first of the series of workshops, empty apart from some wooden benches and a broken plastic chair. Through the sound of the pouring rain and dripping water I could hear a noise from the other side of the wall as we neared a doorway. I motioned Louis to the left and took up a position at the right wall until I could partially see into the room beyond. Then, slowly, I inched my way forward, peering in quickly and then carefully progressing when nobody tried to blow my head off.

I was in one of a pair of what were once adjoining offices. There was a faint smell of smoke from the room, which came from a pile of smoldering wood and trash in the far corner. In the corner opposite, something moved.

I spun quickly and tightened my finger on the trigger.

"Don't shoot," said a raw, cracked voice, and a figure gradually emerged from where it had been crouching in the darkness. It wore plastic bags over its feet, its legs were encased in dirt-encrusted denims and a coat with no elbows was tied around its waist with a length of string. Its hair was long and unkempt, its beard gray but streaked with nicotine yellow. "Please, don't shoot. I didn't mean no harm by starting the fire."

"Move to your right. Quickly." Through a crack in one of the wooden panels on the windows, a weak glow shone from a streetlight. The old man moved until he was caught in its beam. His eyes were small and dull. Even from twelve feet away I could smell the booze, and other things too.

I held him in my sights for a moment longer, then gestured to my right with the gun as Louis appeared in the doorway. "Get out of here," I said. "It's not safe."

"Can I collect my stuff?" He pointed at a heap of meager possessions stacked in a shopping cart.

"Take what you can carry, then go." The old guy nodded his thanks and began to pick up items from the cart: a pair of boots, some soda cans, a pile of copper wire. Some he put back again, others he seemed to want to think about. As he considered a single Reebok sneaker, a deep voice behind me said: "Old man, you got five seconds to get your shit out of here, else the coroner be sorting it for you." Louis's comment seemed to focus the old guy's mind; seconds later he was running past us with a tangled collection of wire, boots and cans in his arms.

"You won't steal anything, will you?" he asked Louis as he prepared to go.

"No," replied Louis. "You done took all the good stuff."

The old guy nodded happily and started to scurry out, Louis shaking his head as he went. The old man paused at the doorway. "Them other fellas went upstairs," he said simply, then left.

We moved quickly but carefully through that level until we reached a pair of parallel staircases at the far end of the building, one at each corner. I heard footsteps above us, moving carefully across the floor. Between the stairs was a set of twin doors to the yard outside. A length of broken chain lay on the ground and a half brick held one of the doors open. Louis took the right-hand stairway, I took the left. As I climbed, I kept to the sides of the stairs to minimize the risk of stepping on a weak or rotted step. I needn't have bothered. The rain was falling with a renewed ferocity and the old building echoed and hummed with its sound.