“You’ll be amazed.”

“I’m already amazed. Let’s get petrified instead.”

We’d passed the thing back and forth twice, in near silence, before I said, “Did you tell Frances I knew my way into Ego?”

Theo looked insulted. “Hell, no.”

“Why not?”

“Because I figured if you wanted her to know, you’d tell her.”

“Are you going back with her?”

He shook his head. “I think she wishes she could ask. But, man, I’ve talked to Kru — Worecski. And I’m staying right here ’til it’s over. I’ve got a good excuse.” He tapped the sling.

“I owe you for that,” I said softly.

He gurgled. “Heck, I didn’t do anything. And now I’ve got this cool dueling scar.”

“But you tried. And you didn’t have to.”

He looked at me owlishly. Finally he grinned. “You’re an asshole,” he said happily.

“In cannabis veritas. Don’t fall asleep with a lit joint.”

“Can’t,” he sighed, leaning back against his pillows. “We finished it.”

“You’re no fun,” I told him. “Guess I’ll just go away.”

I felt relaxed, but not at all absentminded; Theo would have been amazed, if he’d still been awake. I finally found Frances outside, on the broad covered porch that faced the driveway. She was sitting in a wooden chair with her feet on the porch railing and the chair balanced on its back legs. She didn’t move when I came out the front door.

I dragged up another chair, its back to the railing so I could see her face. “Last night, Mick tried to talk me into going with you.”

“I hope he didn’t spend a lot of time on it.” Her gaze moved idly over the distant edge of the garden.

“Why?”

“Because I won’t take you. Or him, or anyone else.”

For several minutes we sat in uncompanionable silence, while I tried to talk myself out of doing the inevitable. Was it inevitable? I thought of Theo, recuperating upstairs from the wound he’d received on my behalf. Even if Frances left the City now, left Worecski undisturbed, he could never go back to Ego. He had stepped between Myra and Dusty — Worecski’s servants — and their quarry, and they would remember. And how long would it be before Theo let slip that he knew who and what Worecski was? But if Frances killed Worecski and left town, Theo would be safe. I would be safe, too. Frances would be gone, Mick would leave, Myra and Dusty would take their orders from someone else, and I could go back to something like the life I was used to.

“If you get Worecski, will you go away?” I asked, to be sure.

For the first time since I’d come onto the porch, Frances looked at me. “If I kill Tom Worecski, you’ll never see me again. My word of honor, for whatever that may mean to you.”

I took a deep breath and sighed it away. “The guard shift at the front door changes at midnight,” I said. “They get sloppy then. The only working security camera is on the front door, and it doesn’t pan anymore, so it covers a pretty small area. The fire stairs are great for getting out, but they won’t do you any good getting in; the doors lock from the stair side on all the floors. So you want to go up in the elevator, which, as long as I’m with you, is no problem.”