He shook his head. Another drop of sweat flew off and narrowly missed me. We’re keeping a pretty tight lid on this thing. Need-to-know only.

They don’t need to know that somebody wants to convert them to squealing pillows?

No, they don’t, he said, clamping his jaw and looking like he was going to say something tough again; perhaps he would offer to flush them. But he glanced up at me and thought better of it.

Can we at least check and see which one is missing? I asked, without any real hope.

Chutsky started shaking his head before I even finished speaking. Two more drops of sweat flew off, left, right. No. Uh-uh, no way. These guys always have an ear to the ground. Somebody starts asking around about them, they’ll know. And I can’t risk having them run. Like Oscar did.

Then how do we find Dr. Danco?

That’s what you’re going to figure out, he said.

What about the house by Mount Trashmore? I asked hopefully. The one you checked out with the clipboard.

Debbie had a patrol car drive by. Family has moved in. No, he said, we’re putting all our chips on you, buddy. You’ll think of something.

Debs rejoined us before I could think of anything meaningful to say to that, but in truth, I was too surprised at Chutsky’s official attitude toward his former comrades. Wouldn’t it have been the nice thing to do, to give his old friends a running start or at least a heads-up? I certainly don’t pretend to be a paragon of civilized virtue, but if a deranged surgeon was after Vince Masuoka, for instance, I like to think I might find a way to drop a hint into casual conversation by the coffee machine. Pass that sugar, please. By the way—there’s a medical maniac after you who wants to lop off all your limbs. Would you like the creamer?

But apparently that wasn’t the way the game was played by the guys with the big manly chins, or at least not by their representative Kyle Chutsky. No matter; I had a list of names, at least, which was a place to start, although nothing else. I had no idea where to begin turning my starting point into some kind of actual helpful information, and Kyle did not seem to be doing quite as well with creativity as he had done with sharing. Deborah was little help. She was totally wrapped up in fluffing Kyle’s pillow, mopping his fevered brow, and making sure he took his pills, a matronly kind of behavior that I would have thought impossible for her, but there it was.