"Hold on," he whispered to it, mounting the steps with as light a tread as he could. His efforts were rewarded on the fourth story. As he guessed, the door had been opened quite recently, and with no small sense of relief he stepped from the dubious safety of the fire escape and into the hotel itself.

It still stank of the conflagration that had defeated it: the bitter smell of burned wood and charred carpeting. Below him he could see-by the meager light through the open fire door-the gutted floors. The walls were scorched, the paint on the banisters diseased with blisters. But just a few steps up from here the fire's progress had been arrested.

Marty started up the stairs to the fifth story. A long corridor presented itself to him, with rooms to right and left. He wandered down the passageway taking a perfunctory look into each of the suites as he passed. The numbered doors let onto empty spaces: all the furniture and fittings that were salvageable had been removed years ago.

Perhaps because of its isolated position, and the difficulty of entering, the building had not been squatted or vandalized. The rooms were almost absurdly clean, their deep-pile beige carpets-too bothersome to remove, apparently-springy as cliff turf beneath his feet. He checked every suite on the fifth floor before retracing his path to the stairs and going up another flight. The scene was the same here, although the suites-which had perhaps once commanded a salable view-were larger and fewer on this floor, the carpets, if anything, lusher. It was bizarre, ascending from the charred depths of the hotel to this pristine, breathless place. People had perhaps died in the blindfold corridors below, asphyxiated or baked to death in their dressing gowns. But up here no trace of the tragedy had intruded.

There was one floor left to investigate. As he climbed the final flight of stairs the illumination suddenly strengthened until it was almost as bright as day. The source was highway light, finding its way through the skylights and ineptly sealed windows. He explored the labyrinthine system of rooms as quickly as possible, pausing only to glance out of the window. Far below, he could see the car parked beyond the fence; the dogs engaged in a mass rape. In the second suite he suddenly caught sight of somebody watching him across the vast reception room only to realize that the haggard face was his own, reflected in a wall-sized mirror.

The door of the third suite, on this final floor, was locked, the first locked suite Marty had encountered. Proof positive, if any were needed, that it had an occupant.

Jubilant, Marty rapped on the door. "Hello? Mr. Whitehead?" There was no answering movement from within. He rapped again, harder, casing the door as he did so to see if a break-in was plausible, but it looked too solid to be easily shouldered down. If necessary, he'd have to go back to the car and get some tools.

"It's Strauss, Mr. Whitehead. It's Marty Strauss. I know you're in there. Answer me." He listened. When there was no reply, he beat on the door a third time, this time with fist instead of knuckles. And suddenly the reply came, shockingly close. The old man was standing just the other side of the door; had been all along probably.

"Go to Hell," the voice said. It was a little slurred, but unmistakably that of Whitehead.

"I have to speak to you," Marty replied. "Let me in."

"How the fuck did you find me?" Whitehead demanded. "You bastard."

"I made some inquiries, that's all. If I can find you, anybody can."

"Not if you keep your wretched mouth shut. You want money, is that it? Come here for money, have you?"

"No."

"You can have it. I'll get it to you, however much you want."

"I don't want money."

"Then you're a damn fool," Whitehead said, and he laughed to himself; a witless, ragged titter. The man was drunk.

"Mamoulian's on to you," Marty said. "He knows you're alive."

The laughing stopped.

"How?"

"Carys."

"You've seen her?"

"Yes. She's safe."

"Well... I underestimated you." He paused; there was a soft sound, as if he was leaning against the door. After a while he spoke again. He sounded exhausted.

"What did you come for, if not for money? She's got some expensive habits, you know."

"No thanks to you."

"I'm sure you'll find it as convenient as I did, given time. She'll bend over backward for a fix."

"You're filth, you know that?"

"But you came to warn me anyway." The old man leaped on the paradox with lightning speed, quick as ever to open a hole in a man's flank. "Poor Marty..." the slurred voice trailed away, smothered by mock pity. Then, razor-sharp: "How did you find me?"

"The strawberries."

What sounded like muffled choking came from within the suite, but it was Whitehead laughing again, this time at himself. It took several moments for him to regain his composure. "Strawberries..." he murmured. "My! You must be persuasive. Did you break his arms?"

"No. He volunteered the information. He didn't want to see you curl up and die."

"I'm not going to die!" the old man -snapped. "Mamoulian's the one who'll die. You'll see. He's running out of time. All I have to do is wait. Here's as good a place as any. I'm very comfortable. Except for Carys. I miss her. Why don't you send her to me, Marty? Now that would be most welcome."

"You'll never see her again."

Whitehead sighed. "Oh, yes," he said, "she'll be back when she's tired of you. When she needs someone who really appreciates her stony heart. You'll see. Well... thank you for calling. Goodnight, Marty."

"Wait."

"I said goodnight."

"... I've got questions..." Marty began.

"Questions, questions..." the voice was already receding. Marty pressed closer to the door to offer his final sliver of bait. "We found out who the European is; what he is!" But there was no reply. He'd lost Whitehead's attention. It was fruitless anyway, he knew. There was no wisdom to be got here; just a drunken old man replaying his old power games. Somewhere deep inside the penthouse suite a door closed. All contact between the two men was summarily severed.

Marty descended the two flights of stairs back to the open fire door, and left the building by the route he'd entered. After the smell of dead fire inside, even the highway-tainted air smelled light and new.

He stood for several minutes on the escape and watched the traffic passing along the highway, his attention pleasantly diverted by the spectacle of lane-hopping commuters. Below, two dogs fought among the refuse, bored with rape. None of them cared, drivers or dogs, about the fall of potentates: why should he? Whitehead, like the hotel, was a lost cause. He'd done his best to salvage the old man and failed. Now he and Carys would slip away into a new life, and let Whitehead make whatever arrangements for cessation he chose. Let him slit his wrists in a stupor of remorse, or choke on vomit in his sleep: Marty was past caring.

He climbed down the escape and scrambled onto the table, then crossed the wasteland to the car, glancing back only once to see if Whitehead was watching. Needless to say, the upper windows were blank.

When they got to Caliban Street the girl was still so high on her delayed fix it was difficult to communicate through her chemically elated senses. The European left the evangelists to do the cleaning up and burning he'd instructed Breer to do, and escorted Carys to the room on the top floor. There he set about persuading her to find her father, and quickly. At first the drug in her just smiled at him. His frustration began to curdle into anger. When she started to laugh at his threats-that slow, rootless laughter that was so like the pilgrim's laugh, as if she knew some joke about him that she wasn't telling-his control snapped and he unleashed a nightmare of such unrestrained viciousness upon her its crudity disgusted him almost as much as it terrorized her.