"I almost forgot these buggers," Jed said. He dropped two small, weightless objects into Kim's waiting palm.

"What are these?" Kim asked.

"Earplugs," Jed said. 'There's a lot of noise out on the kill floor from the overhead rails and the power skinners and saws."

Kim examined one of the small, cone-shaped, sponge-rubber like earplugs. They too were yellow.

"Listen," Jed said. "Your job is to move around the floor and push the shit on the floor into the grates."

"Shit?" Kim asked.

"Yeah," Jed said. "You have a problem with that?"

"Real shit?"

"Well, a mixture of cow shit, barf, and gore," Jed said.

"Whatever falls down from the line. This isn't a tea party. And, by the way, watch out for the moving carcasses suspended from the rails, and, of course, watch out for the slippery floor. Falling down is no picnic." Jed laughed.

Kim nodded and swallowed. He was really going to have to steel himself for the gruesome aspects of this job.

Jed checked his watch. "It's less than an hour before we stop the line for the lunch break," he said. "But no matter. It'll give you a chance to get acclimated. Any questions?"

Kim shook his head.

"If you do," Jed said, "you know where my office is."

"Right," Kim said. It seemed Jed was waiting for an answer.

"Aren't you going to put in those earplugs?" Jed said.

"Oh yeah," Kim said. "I forgot." Kim pushed the little spongy plugs into his ear and gave a thumbs-up sign to Jed.

Jed threw open the door. Even with the earplugs, Kim was initially bowled over by the cacophony of noise that exploded into the stairwell.

Kim followed Jed out onto the kill floor. It was a far different place than it had been on Saturday night. Kim thought he'd prepared himself for the experience awaiting him, but he hadn't. Instantly he turned green at the sight of the overhead conveyer carrying the suspended, hot, thousand-plus-pound carcasses combined with the whine of all the power machinery, and the horrid smell. The thick, warm air was laden with the stench of raw flesh, blood, and fresh feces.

Kim was equally overwhelmed by the visual impact of the spectacle. The powerful roof air conditioners. vainly struggling to keep the room temperature down, caused the fifty or so skinned dead animals currently in Kim's line of sight to steam. Hundreds of workers in blood-spattered white coats were standing on the raised metal-grate catwalks elbow to elbow, laboring on the carcasses as they streaked by. Power lines draped about the space in a bewildering fashion, like pieces of a huge spider web. It was a surreal, Dante-esque image of the inferno: a hell on earth.

Jed tapped Kim on the shoulder and pointed at the floor. Kim's eyes lowered. The kill floor was a literal sea of blood, pieces of internal organs, vomitus, and watery cow diarrhea. Jed tapped Kim again. Kim looked up. Jed was about to hand him a broom, when he saw the color of Kim's face and that Kim's cheeks were involuntarily billowing outward.

Jed took a cautionary step backward while hastily pointing off to the side.

Kim retched but managed to slap a hand to his face. He followed Jed's pointing finger and saw a door with a crudely painted sign that read: GENTS.

Kim made a beeline for the bathroom. He yanked open the door and dashed to the sink. Leaning forward on the cold porcelain, he convulsively vomited up the breakfast he'd shared with Tracy that morning.

When the retching finally stopped, he rinsed out the sink and raised his head to look at himself in the cracked, dirty mirror. He was paler than he'd ever remembered, emphasized by his reddened, congested eyes. Beads of perspiration rimmed his forehead.

Supporting his torso against the sink, he fumbled with the earphone that he had coiled beneath his shirt. With trembling fingers he plucked out one of the earplugs Jed had given him and pushed in the earphone.

" Tracy, are you there?" Kim questioned with a raspy voice. "I've got my earphone in. You can talk."

"What happened?" Tracy asked. "Was that you coughing?"

"It was more than coughing," Kim admitted. "I just lost my breakfast."

"You sound terrible," Tracy said. "Are you all right?"

"I'm not great," Kim admitted. "I'm embarrassed at my reaction. With all my medical training, I didn't think I'd react quite so viscerally. This place is… well, it's indescribable." He looked around the room, which was the filthiest men's room he'd ever been in. The walls were covered with stains and smutty graffiti, mostly in Spanish. The tiled floor looked like it had never been mopped and was covered with a film of blood and other debris tracked in from the kill floor.

"You want to call it quits?" Tracy asked. "I can't say I'd mind."

"Not yet," Kim said. "But I'll tell you; I was only out on the kill floor for twenty seconds, and I think I've become an instant vegetarian."

The sudden sound of a flushing toilet in one of the two stalls lining the side of the men's room made Kim jump. He'd not bothered to check if either of the toilets was occupied. He yanked out the earphone, tucked it and its wire back under his shirt, and turned to the sink to pretend he was washing. Behind him he heard the stall door bang open.

Kim worried what the stranger had heard, and for the moment he didn't look in the man's direction. In the mirror he saw the man pass slowly behind him, studying him quizzically; and Kim's heart leaped up into his throat. It was the man who'd attacked him, first there at Higgins and Hancock and then again in his own home!

Slowly Kim turned around. The man had proceeded to the door but hadn't opened it. He was still staring at Kim inscrutably.

For an instant, Kim locked eyes with the stranger. Kim tried to smile as he pretended to look for paper towels. There was a dispenser but its front was ripped away and its interior was empty. Kim hazarded another glance at the stranger. His enigmatic expression had not changed. Kim's right hand sought the comfort of the gun in his pocket.

Seconds seemed like minutes to Kim. The man's cold, black impenetrable eyes remained riveted on him. The man was like a statue. It took all of Kim's self-control not to say something to break the uncomfortable silence.

To Kim's utter relief, the man suddenly broke off the confrontation, pushed open the door, and disappeared.

Kim exhaled. He'd not even been aware that he'd been holding his breath. Bending his head down, he whispered into his concealed microphone: "Good Lord, the knife-wielding madman was in one of the toilet stalls. I don't know what he heard. He stared at me but didn't say anything. Let's hope to hell he didn't recognize me."

After splashing some cold water on his face, and replacing the earplug, Kim took a deep breath and pushed out through the bathroom door to return to the kill floor. He tried to breathe shallowly through his mouth to avoid the smell. His legs felt a little rubbery. Just in case the stranger was waiting for him, he had a hand in his pocket, gripping the snub-nosed pistol.

Jed was standing close by, obviously waiting for Kim. Kim looked for the stranger, and he thought he caught sight of him off to the side, just disappearing around the edge of a distant piece of machinery.

"You all right?" Jed shouted over the din.

Kim nodded and tried to smile.

Jed gave him a wry smile in return and handed him the long-handled, stiff-bristled broom. "You must have had more in your stomach than you thought," he said. Then he patted Kim on the back before walking off.

Kim swallowed and shuddered to stave off another wave of nausea. He put his head down to avoid looking at the line of headless, skinless carcasses moving rapidly in front of him on their way to the cooler. Grasping the broom in both hands, he tried to concentrate on pushing the offal that covered the floor toward one of the many grates.