"Don't scream," I told her, my voice calm, showing her the pistol.

She opened her mouth wide, gulped in a ton of air instead, her eyes bulging. "Oh my god!" she said, like she'd been expecting this.

"Just keep quiet and you won't get hurt," I said, still calm and quiet, gently reaching out toward her.

"What is this?" she asked, her voice shaking.

"It's about a picture, bitch," I told her, grabbing the front of her robe with one gloved hand, my voice filtered through the nylon mask. "I want a picture you have. Understand?"

She tried to pull away from me, plucking at my arm in a feeble gesture. I slapped her lightly across the face with the pistol. I put my face as close to hers as I could. "I got my orders-I bring the picture or your fucking head!"

The woman's eyes rolled up and she slumped against me-I jerked her face up again-she was breathing in gasps but she wasn't going to faint.

I grabbed her by the back of the neck, holding the pistol in front of her face with the other hand, pulling her off the stool, dragging her toward a chair near a butcher-block desk in the corner. A gooseneck lamp was shining on some papers. I shoved the woman into an oxblood leather chair and stepped back.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm a man with a job, understand? I don't have a lot of time."

I tossed the picture Strega gave me on the table in front of her. Her eyes flicked over to it but she didn't make a move.

"That's the kid," I told her. "You got a picture of him somewhere in this house. I want it."

"Why would I have a picture…?"

I stepped forward and backhanded her across the face, not too hard-just enough to make her focus on what she had to do.

I started pulling things out of my pocket-a small coil of piano wire, a little glass bottle of clear fluid, a strip of leather. And a straight razor. The woman's eyes were huge.

I stepped to her again-she cowered, covering her face with her hands. No rings on her fingers-no polish on her nails. I slipped the leather strip past her clawing fingers, fastening the gag in her mouth. She jumped forward-I jammed the heel of my hand into her chest-she let out a burst of air and fell forward from the waist. It only took me another minute to lash her wrists to the arms of the chair with the piano wire.

Her mouth was silent but her eyes were screaming. "You got two choices," I told her. "You see this bottle? It's ether. To knock you out. If I have to do that, I'm going to chop off the fingers on your hand. One by one. And I'm going to wait for you to wake up, bitch. You'll wake up screaming, understand?"

Her face was coming apart behind the gag.

"You understand!" I snarled at her.

She nodded her head hard enough to make it fall off her neck.

"I'm going to take the gag out now-you don't tell me what I want to know, you bleed to death right in that chair. Through the fucking stumps."

I pulled the gag from her mouth-she struggled for a breath, panting as if she'd run a mile.

I watched her face. "Don't even think about screaming," I told her.

She was more under control now. "I'm not alone in the house," she gasped.

"Yeah, you are," I said. "It's me that's not alone here."

Her eyes were on me, trying to figure out what I meant. Hard, flat doll's eyes-nobody home behind them. A thin, ugly smell came off her. Her breathing was under control. "I have no money here," she said, as if that settled everything.

I leaned close again, letting her look into my eyes. "I want the picture," I told her. "Last chance."

"Just the one picture?"

"Don't bargain with me, you fucking slime. I got my orders."

She was watching me, thinking. No good. I picked up the leather gag.

"In the safe!" she said. "Please, don t"

"Where's the safe?"

"In the floor-under the work table."

I took a look-the floor under the table was all parquet squares. Four of them came away when I pulled. The combination lock was set so it was facing the ceiling.

"Give it to me," I said.

She knew what I meant. "Six left, twenty-four right, twelve left."

The safe was a deep one, maybe three feet into the floor. Video cassettes to the right 35mm cartridges in plastic containers. And Polaroids-hundreds of them, each one in a separate plastic jacket.

"You got an index?" I asked her.

"No," she said, lifeless. She was probably lying, but I didn't have the time to find out. I knew what I was looking for. It only took a couple of minutes-a couple of minutes of looking through the worst thing on this slop basin of a planet-a little baby peacefully sleeping, a man's erect penis in his mouth as a pacifier-kids from a few days old to maybe ten or eleven, penetrated with every blunt object freakish minds could think of-smiling kids, playing with each other-a little boy, maybe six years old, his screaming face adjusted by the camera so you could see him being sodomized from behind, two strands of barbed wire drawn across his little chest to make a bloody "X." All the pictures had the tiny blue image of a man and a boy in one corner-her mark.

The picture of Scotty was just what he told Immaculata-wearing his little striped T-shirt and nude from the waist down. Sucking on a man wearing a clown suit. I put it in my pocket.

I went back to the woman. "You got what you wanted?" she asked. Her voice hard and confident now, back to something she understood.

"Yeah. I got it. And I'm going to give you something for it too." I held the razor to her throat, whispering in her ear. "You're dead, bitch. You took a picture of the wrong kid this time. I were you, I'd call the D.A. and surrender-cooperate with the Man. You know how it's done. Find yourself a nice, safe cell for a few years. But get someone to taste your food for you."

I poured the whole bottle of ether over the white cloth-the smell made me dizzy.

"You promised not to hurt me!" she screamed.

"You promised those kids a day in the country," I told her, slapping the sopping wet cloth over her mouth and nose, holding it there while she struggled, making sure she could get enough air to mix with the ether and take her down. The Mole had warned me I could kill her if I used too much. Accidents happen.

Her head lolled forward, unconscious. I unwrapped her wrists, slapping them to bring the color back. I dragged her out of the chair by the front of her robe to one of the bedrooms. Tossed her on the bed. Moved her around until she was lying face up. She looked asleep-I wasn't going to put my face close enough to her to find out.

Max and the Mole were somewhere in the house. I'd told them to give me fifteen minutes and then make tracks, but I knew they weren't going anywhere until they knew I was safe. Just like I knew the Prof would sit outside the front door with the motor running even if a SWAT team was coming up the street. I hit the stairs running. Every second in the house was a big risk now. The first floor was empty-even the kitchen looked like nobody ever ate a meal there. It was all for the neighbors, like a window display of a typical American home. The neighbors would never look in the basement.

I opened the door to the cellar stairs off the foyer and stepped through. Found myself in another small room, set up to resemble a cloakroom-coats hanging on hooks, umbrella stand in one corner. It took another minute to find the door behind the coats. Locked from the inside. I took out a credit card and slipped it between the door and the frame, working it gently, telling myself if there was a deadbolt on the other side I'd have to try another way in. But the loid worked, and the door popped open. Another couple of steps and I was at the top of a curving wrought-iron staircase. I tested my weight against the first step and then I heard a man's voice, high and shaky, like he was near the edge of something.