“What is it?” he said.

“What you asked for. Open it.”

I realized belatedly that I hadn’t needed to make the tape look like an original. If I was right, he would have settled for a dub, and it would have been reasonable for me to claim that a dub was all I could find. But he pulled the box (cardboard, this time) open, and I watched his hands, his face, for any sign that I’d failed.

In the mellow light of the desk lamp, I thought it was still convincing: the block lettering for the title, the running time, the distributor’s name; the scuffing and fading of the print where fingers would have worn it. The label glue didn’t even smell. I’d missed my calling; I should have been a forger. When Albrecht played the tape, he’d see a title sequence that gave surprisingly little evidence of its low-tech origins, and five minutes of non-specific establishing scenes assemble-edited from six different B-horror flicks. By minute seven, I calculated, he’d know this wasn’t the movie he’d paid for. But by then, I’d be gone.

He closed the box. His hands didn’t have the acquisitive curl I was used to seeing in them. But again, if I was right, it wasn’t simple acquisitiveness that had driven him to seek this out.

Frances, have you found your damned monster yet? I would have to leave her there. If I left without her, before she found Worecski, they’d let me go unhindered, unconnected to the thing about to happen. As it was, the business reputation that was making this possible would evaporate; I’d never sell another tape to Albrecht; I’d have to leave town for a while; but I could survive that. Now Albrecht would open his desk drawer and pull out the leather bag.

He stood up. “Come with me.”

My tongue froze to the roof of my mouth. “Why?” I asked. His expression was neutral, as any good bargainer’s would be. “You don’t think I keep that much in here, do you? Come along.”

So much for maintaining our routine. There was nothing I could do, except follow him and stay alert. He worked a latch on a door set into the paneling behind the desk, and light shot out all around it. I squinted and stepped through.

“Sugar?” said a voice I knew, a woman’s. “You all through — Sparrow!”

She wore a narrow dress of midnight-blue silk that draped like water running over her skin. Her lips were bright coral-red, and her eyelids were smoky. Her shining white-blond hair fell unbound all around her lightly tanned shoulders and decolletage.

“Hello, Dana,” I said, and was surprised that my mouth worked. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Her gaze snapped to Albrecht. “Sugar, what’s — Is this — What’s going on?”

“Just a little business, sweetie,” he said, his attention on the cabinet he was opening. “Don’t you worry.” But she’d used a name for me he’d never heard. Or had he? Myra and Dusty had known it.