"Maybe not," Roger said, forcing himself to let it drop. "I liked the set design, too," he added, hoping the production's technical aspects would be safer ground. "And the music was pretty good. Chopin, I think."

They had reached 101st street, and he was searching for something else positive he could say, when the dim streetlights went completely dark.

Caroline jerked to a halt with a short, involuntary gasp. "Easy," Roger said, looking around as his stomach tightened into a hard knot. The streetlights were gone, but at the same time the various apartment windows above them were still lit, giving off a cheerful glow.

Which was, to Roger's mind, the eeriest part of all. He'd never seen a power outage yet that didn't take out everything in a six-block area, streetlights and buildings alike. What the hell was going on?

"Just keep walking," he murmured.

"No," a deep voice said from their left.

Roger jumped, spinning around to face the vague shape standing on the sidewalk just around the corner from them. "What do you want?" he demanded, cursing the quaver in his voice.

"You have trees?" the man asked.

Roger blinked, the sheer unexpectedness of the question freezing his brain. "Trees?" he repeated stupidly.

"Trees!" the man snarled. "You said—" He broke off, coughing hard. It was the same cough, Roger realized with a shiver, that he'd heard back at the corner.

Except that this man hadn't been there. No one had been there.

Beside him, he felt Caroline loosen her grip on his arm. "Yes," she said, raising her voice to be heard over the man's hacking. "We have two semi-dwarf orange trees."

With an effort, the man brought his lungs under control. "How big?" he rasped.

Now, too late, it occurred to Roger that they might have escaped while the other was incapacitated.

But maybe they would have another chance. Bracing himself, he got ready to grab Caroline's hand and run the instant another fit took him.

"About six feet tall and four across," Caroline said. "They're in pots on our balcony."

The man took another step forward. The light from the apartment windows wasn't good enough for Roger to make out his features, but there was enough to show that he was short and broad, with the build of a compact boxer.

It was also quite adequate to illuminate the shiny pistol clutched in his left hand.

"Small," the man muttered. "But they'll do." He gestured back along 101st Street behind him. The streetlights there were also dark. "Come."

Roger could feel Caroline trembling against his side as he silently steered them past the mugger and down the sidewalk, trying desperately to come up with a plan. The man was obviously weak and sick. If he jumped him and wrestled away the gun...

No. If he jumped him, he would get himself shot. The mugger was a head shorter than he was, but judging by the width of his shoulders he probably outweighed Roger by a good twenty pounds.

Probably outmuscled him by a hell of a lot more, too.

"Here," the mugger said suddenly from behind him. "In here."

Roger swallowed hard, focusing on the iron fence set across an alley between two buildings to their left, its gate standing wide open. The dark concrete beyond the fence sloped downward to a flat area, beyond which he could see a set of concrete steps leading to a higher platform, beyond which was a flat, featureless wall. On the right, between the entrance and the back steps, was a shorter wall leading into a little courtyard-like area; just past that was a fire escape attached to one of the buildings. Inside the fence to the left was a stack of garbage bags.

"In here," the mugger said again.

"Do as he says, Roger," Caroline murmured.

With his heart thudding in his ears, Roger stepped through the gate and started down the slope, Caroline still clutching his arm. They had gone perhaps three steps into the alley when, behind them, the dead streetlights abruptly came back on.

"Stop," the mugger ordered. "There."

Roger frowned. The man, now in silhouette against the light, was pointing at a long bundle of rags lying at the far end of the line of trash bags. "There what?" he asked.

"Oh, my God," Caroline breathed, letting go of Roger's arm and stepping over to kneel beside the bundle.

And then Roger got it. The bundle wasn't rags, but a young girl, fourteen or fifteen years old, dressed in some odd patchwork outfit made of green and gray material. She was curled into a fetal position against the cold night air, her eyes closed.

"Take her," the mugger's voice said in Roger's ear.

Something swung toward Roger's face; reflexively, he flinched back. But the something didn't connect, merely stopping in midair in front of him.

It was the mugger's hand. In it was the mugger's gun.

Its grip pointed toward Roger. "What?" Roger asked cautiously.

"Take her," the other repeated, thrusting the gun insistently toward him. "Protect her."

Carefully, Roger reached up and touched the weapon. Was this some sort of trick? Was the other going to suddenly reverse the gun and shoot him? His fingers closed on the gun, and the weapon's gentle weight came into his hand as the mugger let go. "Protect her," the other said again softly.

Brushing past Roger, he headed silently down the slope farther into the alley.

"Roger, give me your coat," Caroline ordered. "She's freezing."

"Sure," Roger said mechanically, watching the man's broad back retreating. Was he staggering a little? Roger couldn't be sure, but it looked like it. A mugger who'd lingered too long after happy hour might explain why Roger was now the one holding the gun.

But the man hadn't sounded drunk. And there certainly hadn't been any alcohol on his breath when he'd handed over the weapon.

And that cough...

"Roger!"

"Right." Still watching the man's unsteady progress, he stripped off his coat and handed it over. He glanced down long enough to see Caroline sit the girl up and get the coat around her shoulders, then looked back down the alley.

The mugger was gone.

He frowned, peering into the semidarkness. The man was gone, all right. But gone where?

Cautiously, he crossed to the low wall and peered over it.

The man wasn't there. He wasn't on the fire escape, either, or on the stone steps, or the platform across the end, or huddled around the corner against the cul-de-sac around the back. There were no doorways Roger could see, nothing a person could hide behind, and all the first-floor windows were barred. And he certainly hadn't gotten past Roger and escaped out the alley mouth.

He'd simply vanished.

Roger looked down at the pistol in his hand. He'd never held a real handgun before, but he'd always had the impression the things were heavy. This one didn't seem to weigh much more than the toys he'd played with as a boy. Could it be one of those fancy plastic guns the newspapers were always going on about?

But it didn't look plastic. It was definitely metal, and it sure as hell looked like one of those army pistols from World War II movies. He turned it over in his hand, angling it toward the streetlight for a better look.

And for the first time noticed that there was something marring the shiny metal on the right side of the barrel. A streak of something dark that came off as he rubbed his finger across it.

Blood?

"Roger, stop daydreaming and give me a hand," Caroline called.

Taking one last look around, he walked back up the sloping concrete. Caroline had the girl wrapped in his coat and on her feet, propping her up like a rag doll. The girl's eyes were open, but she looked dazed and only half awake.

And there were a set of ugly bruises on her neck.

"Roger, snap out of it," Caroline ordered into his thoughts. "We have to get her home."