"Or the Secret Masters?"

"What?"

"Just joking. Haven't you ever heard about the secret society that runs the world? Sometimes they're supposed to be immortals."

"Yeah. And sometimes they're Communists, Tibetan monks, Rothschilds and Rockefellers, Jews, Masons, Rosecrucians, combinations thereof, or the gang in this Illuminati book Smith was on about the other day. I don't believe in vast secret conspiracies, John. Not even real ones if I can help it. Wouldn't it be nice if Patty Hearst and the SLA, or the Manson family, were just some cheap writer's gimmick? I'll stick with the time machines, and thank you."

"Whatever you want, Norm. But you got to admit that her being a spry hundred-and-thirty-plus takes some explaining."

Everything about Fiala Groloch took some explaining, Cash reflected. He was beginning to wish that he had let Railsback bury the whole thing. "You find anything about a demolition contract?"

"A who?"

Cash explained about the carriage house and pear tree.

"No. But that's something we should be able to trace at City Hall. I was going down tomorrow to check out the house anyway." He put the notebook away, rose. "But right now I'm getting the hell out of here. Don't want to think about this anymore for a while. Maybe I'll take Carrie to see Jaws. They say that'll blow anything out of your head."

"Yeah, me too. I keep finding myself wishing these were the old days and we could just drag her down into the dungeon and get the answers with the whips and chains. The good old Iron Maiden…"

Just then he spied Railsback backing from his office while arguing vehemently with someone inside. Beth made violent signals indicating they should use the door. "Time to make a break, old buddy. Hank's going to have somebody's ass on toast in a minute."

Harald made it, but by the time Cash had gone down to his personal automobile, discovered he had left his keys in his desk, and had returned for them, Railsback was a thunder-head on a course to intercept him at the door.

"What the hell kind of clown's festival did you and the kid put on today?" he thundered, startling every eye into looking their way. "I thought I told you to keep it quiet."

Cash put on his puzzled-but-curious face and asked, "What's the matter?"

"I got some bozo from the Argus, of all goddamned things, in there bugging me for an old-fashioned scoop, and I don't even know what the hell he's talking about. He's got more imagination than you and the kid combined."

The Argus was a small but highly respected newspaper, the oldest black business in the city. The source of the leak was obvious. The morgue attendant. Equally obvious was the fact that the major dailies and electronic media would be on it by tomorrow.

Cash shrugged. "We just took the old lady in for a look at the stiff. She claimed we were working a frame. Where's the hassle?"

"There was this attendant, see? And he listened to everything, see? Maybe he didn't hear so good, but there was this spooky old lady, this hysterical nun, and these two weird cops claiming the stiff was a guy that got croaked fifty years ago… I got to say more? Can you see it when it hits the Post? They'll go the 'Cops roust little old granny lady over science-fiction theory' route. And that bleeding heart jackoff McCauley could turn it into the biggest show around here since the World's Fair."

Over the past ten years, the Post's editorial stance had become ever more left-radical, and Railsback's opinion of it had declined proportionally. There were times when he mumbled about driving a stake through the heart of Jason McCauley, especially when that worthy did one of his columns bemoaning the plight of some prisoner it had taken city and state years to put inside. Cash suspected that his superior lived in terror of being discovered by the newspaper. It had ruined careers before. Cash had his own differences with the Post, but remained amused by Railsback's pointed fingers and endless cries of "Anti-Christ!"

"They wouldn't go that far."

"The hell they wouldn't. Stay away from them, Norm. Don't give them anything. Let them dig it out without any help from us. Maybe they will come up with a rational explanation. Now get the hell home before I blow a fuse. Best to Annie."

"Yeah. 'Lo to Marylin, too." Cash made himself scarce.

"Honey," he said as he pushed through the door, "you started supper yet?"

"Got some hamburger thawing."

"Put it back in. I'm taking you out. Movie, too."

"What brought this on?" Being taken out to dinner was an event so rare it called for some questioning.

"I just need to get out. Away." He described the encounter with Hank.

"What if Nancy calls? The kids might need something…"

"She should be able to cope for one night. Come on, get your purse. Don't even bother fixing up."

She went with great reluctance, and dinner was no success.

"What's worrying you?" Cash finally demanded, after his second and third choices of movies elicited flat refusals.

"I just think we should be home in case…"

"Christ! How come you're so all-fired sure…"

"I ran into Martha Schnieder at Kroger yesterday. She told me her daughter has been baby-sitting for Nancy."

"Huh? So?"

"So lately it's been three or four nights a week. Nancy has been hanging out at the Red Carpet Lounge in Cahokia. Sometimes she doesn't come home till three or four in the morning…"

It finally sank in. And for a minute his emotions rushed this way and that. Finally, he took her hands in his. "Honey, there's a fact that we've all got to face. Michael's been gone for eight years. And Nancy's still young."

"Norman, that's enough. I know it all by heart. Every damned argument: 'It's time we accepted the fact that Michael's dead'; 'Nancy has the right to a sex life'; 'She has the right to find a new husband.' And on and on. Anything you can think of, I've thought of already. And it's all true. But dammit, Norm, it hurts. She and the kids are all that's left."

He knew she was describing a battle he still had to fight. Not yet engaged, he could observe, "I don't think she'd cut us out. She's still family. The most she'd want is for us to mind our own business. It is her life."

"What if she married somebody who had to move somewhere else?"

"We'd just have to live with it."

"I don't want to live with it!"