“The two of you make a lovely couple. Let’s get out of here. These stiffs got a meeting with the butcher.”

Right on cue, the medical examiner came in with a couple of her assistants following like little bloodthirsty ducklings. I was halfway down the hall when Blout stopped and went back to the door.

“Wilson? Would you mind starting with the head examination first? I need to know what you find.”

“Sure. It’s your show.”

Blout caught up with me as I was heading out the front door. “Hey Cal, want your gun back?”

I stopped outside, bit the inside of my lip, and turned. Blout was grinning. My stomach sank. “You have my gun?”

He nodded slowly.

“You were at the party?”

“After the police were called in.”

I threw my hands up in the air. Fuck it, I had no idea what I’d done. The jig was up. “Okay, you got me! What the hell happened?”

“First,” he said reaching into his coat pocket, “here’s your piece. Try to hang on to it.”

I took the gun and put it into the empty holster. “Go on. I can see you’re enjoying the shit out of this.”

“Well, it seems you took it upon yourself to break some kind of world record for most drinks consumed in an hour—”

“Skip the embellishments.”

“You got blind, piss-drunk, and seemed to forgot it was Halloween and you were at a costume party. Evidently, you spotted this dude in a real convincing alien costume and you . . . went . . . nuts.” He rolled the last word off his tongue by touching it to his teeth, causing an irritating hiss.

“Did I hurt the guy?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I didn’t shoot him or anything, did I?”

Blout shook his head. “No, no. Luckily your buddies disarmed you while you were getting riled up. All you managed to do was smash a forty-gallon punch bowl over his head and beat him with a table leg. It wasn’t pretty.”

I slapped my hand over my eyes. “Is he pressing charges?”

“I’d be expecting a large lawsuit in the not-too-distant future.”

I waved off the whole mess. “Fuck it. I don’t care. I’ll think of something.”

I started down the front steps. The night air was breezy and the first hint of cold tickled the surface of my skin. Fall was in full swing.

“Let me know when you find Cain’s case file, and about the autopsy results.”

Before the door closed I heard Blout laughing, saying “I’m on it,” in his best Mo’Lock impression. It was horrendous.

Walking back to my apartment I snagged a pint of rotgut from the liquor store and swigged. The bottle was empty by the time I reached my building, and I was feeling fine. A little bleary, but better.

I reached for the door handle but it wouldn’t budge. I gave it another tug. Nothing. It was stuck.

“Goddammit.”

After one last yank I leaned in and inspected the door closely. The space between door and frame was clogged with hardened opaque crud. Some punk had super-glued the door shut. I was about to curse everyone under thirty, when I suddenly stopped. There was a sharp noise over my shoulder—a click.