He didn’t cry out, “You!” and fling out a hand dramatically. So much for old movies, or wherever it was he learned his affable stage persona. That’s all it was; no one would have seen anything paternal in him now. He stood within reaching distance of me, but he didn’t reach. He just looked, his head a little to one side, his eyes narrowed.

“I would have taken an oath,” he said at last, “that you didn’t suspect me.”

I swallowed with a dry mouth. Wolfboy had taken me to every film noir picture that had ever hit town. I proceeded to mine that resource with both hands. “I never would have, except that everyone else seemed to.”

His expression didn’t change. “Indeed?”

“Sunny’s got half a file drawer’s worth of stuff on you. And if you go down to the lobby, you’d better leave the elevator with your hands up, or they might get the wrong idea. The nice lady down on the top floor sold you out.”

He let me think it was going to work, I know he did. Then he smiled. “Pull the other one,” he said. “It’s got bells on.”

I met his large, warm silver eyes and kept my mouth shut.

“I would like to hear how you came to suspect,” he added. “Surely it can do no harm now.”

I drew a long breath and let it out. “The beer bottle,” I told him.

I saw his face change as he worked that out. He shook his head. “The snare of vanity.”

“Where did you learn to blow things up?”

His eyes narrowed a little more, and he smiled. “From Walt Felkin, actually. He rigged the abandoned apartment. And he advised me on the plans for his own house, though of course he had no notion that that was what it was.”

“You blew Walt up with his own explosives?”

“No, just his expertise. The materials were police confiscated property.”

Among Walt’s last words had been “backstabbin’ sonofabitch.” They seemed pretty accurate. “This is—this is the part of the movie where the villain tells the hero everything, because he’s going to kill him anyway. Except that I can’t think of any more questions.”

“You aren’t the hero,” Hawthorn said, rather kindly. “You’re a pawn. And I really tried not to have to kill you. Go sit down on that bench.”

I looked at it and shook my head. He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward him, then twisted my elbow up behind me. The grip strength wasn’t just for beer caps. I didn’t have any choice but to walk to the bench and sit on it. “You might not have wanted to kill me, but you came pretty close a couple of times.”