‘That’s right. Carl and Vee Snowman, and the people who were staying with them. A woman and a little girl.’ Pearson coughed, and wiped black-speckled sputum from his lips with the back of his mitten. ‘You carrying any food?’ he asked.

‘Maybe. Do you know where the Snowmans are?’

‘Sure I know. But it wouldn’t be right to tell you for nothing. You got any canned meat? The safe variety, mind. I’m not giving out information just to get a dose of that botulism.’

‘How do I know you’re going to ell me the truth?’ asked Ed.

Pearson coughed, and cackled. ‘A can of meat in this town, mister, is worth its weight in any kind of currency you care to mention. You can get yourself a woman for a can of meat. Or a whole heap of narcotics. Down on Santa Monica Boulevard, you can fix yourself up with a bag of good quality heroin for just one can of Campbell’s condensed oxtail, provided it’s carrying the right date of manufacture, and no pinholes. I even hear tell they’ve set up places for changing the dates on suspect cans, just to resell ’em.’

Pearson came closer. He carried a smell with him, of sweat and ash and poverty. ‘With a can of meat being worth as much as that, mister, I wouldn’t care to double-cross nobody for it. Folks are getting killed for cans of meat. Don’t you think I don’t know you wouldn’t come hunting me out, ifn I gave you wrong information, and don’t you think I don’t know you wouldn’t kill me?’

‘You’re right,’ said Ed, with exaggerated ferocity. ‘I would kill you. Della – will you go get me a can of that Moms Kitchen Corned Beef?’

Della hesitated, and then walked back to the wagon. She came back a few moments later carrying the red-and-yellow can with the smiling woman’s face on the label.

‘Okay, where are they?’ asked Ed. ‘And you make sure you tell me straight!’

Pearson stared at the corned beef as if it were the Holy Grail. His stomach rumbled in audible peristalsis, and saliva ran from the corners of his mouth.

‘I haven’t eaten nothing since Wednesday,’ he said. ‘Only a pack of taco chips I found in one of the burned-out houses.’

‘Where are they?’ insisted Ed.

‘I’ll tell you where they are. They’re holed up at the Hughes Supermarket on Franklin and Highland. Them and maybe a hundred more from one of those nutty churches. You can’t get in there if you try. They’ve got the whole place barricaded. The rumour is that they’ve got themselves a whole stockroom of food, enough to last them for nearly a year; and that’s why the place is surrounded.’ Ed looked at Pearson acutely.