His haircut was recent, the usual: clipped short at sides and back, long and shaggy on top, sideburns down to the earlobes. Country yokels had looked that way back in the fifties. Melrose Avenue hipsters were doing it nowadays. I doubted Milo was aware of either fact. The black forelock that shadowed his forehead showed a few more gray streaks. His green eyes were clear. Some of the weight he'd lost had come back; he looked to be carrying at least two hundred and forty pounds on his seventy-five inches.

He stared at the dog and said, “What?”

“Gee, Dad, he followed me home. Can I keep him?”

The dog gazed up at him and yawned.

“Yeah, I'm bored, too,” Milo told him. “What the hell is it, Alex?”

“French bulldog,” I said. “Rare and pricey, according to a vet. And this one's a damned good specimen.”

“Specimen.” He shook his head. “Is it civilized?”

“Compared to what you're used to, very.”

He frowned, patted the dog gingerly, and got slurped.

“Charming,” he said, wiping his hand on his slacks. Then he looked at me. “Why, Marlin Perkins?”

“I'm serious—he just showed up this morning. I'm trying to locate the owner, have an ad running in the paper. The vet said he's been well cared for. It's just a matter of time before somebody claims him.”

“For a moment I thought this tape stuff had gotten to you and you'd gone out and bought yourself some protection.”

“This?” I laughed, remembering Dr. Uno's amusement. “I don't think so.”

“Hey,” he said, “sometimes bad things come in small packages—for all I know it's trained to go for the gonads.”

The dog stood on his hind legs and touched Milo's trousers with his forepaws.

“Down, Rover,” he said.

“What's the matter, you don't like animals?”

“Cooked, I do. Didja name it yet?”

I shook my head.

“Then “Rover' will have to do.” He took his jacket off and tossed it onto a chair. “Here's what I've got so far on Wallace. He keeps a low profile in slam and has some associations with the Aryan Brotherhood, but he's not a full member. As for what kind of hardware he's got in his cell, I don't know yet. Now where's the alleged tape?”

“In the alleged tapedeck.”

He went over and turned on the stereo. The dog stayed with me.

I said, “You know where the meatloaf comes from, don't you?”

He cocked his head and licked my hand.

Then the screams came on and the hairs rose on the back of his neck.

Hearing it the third time was worse.

Milo's face registered revulsion, but after the sound died, he said nothing. Taking his briefcase over to the deck, he switched it off, ejected the tape, and removed it by inserting a pencil in one of the reel holes.

“Black surface,” he muttered. “Ye olde white powder.”