“Never to be foolish? Of course not. What good would that do? You might as well promise not to blink. Or were you proposing to promise never to go to Walt Felkin’s in search of… clues?” She coughed the word out as if it had stuck in her throat. “I believe you could keep that one, but it’s precious little protection from anything now.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.”

“Did you? Think, I mean. Or did you simply put your nose to the ground and chase along behind it, like a dog after a skunk?”

The Ticker actually stopped, then, looked at me, and waited, as if the question weren’t rhetorical. I said, “Don’t let me interrupt you. You’re barely warmed up.”

That was meant to make her overtly furious; which would have been easier for me to take. It failed. “It seems I was nearly called upon to identify your body.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Three stitches, all right? Three. I had worse falling off a swing when I was five.”

“I spoke at length with Linn, Rico’s partner. From his reconstruction, you must have been about halfway down the length of the concrete wall of the house, which means only about four long strides from the center of either blast. A few strides, and the chance durability of concrete—does that not seem like a near brush to you?”

It would eventually seem worse than that, I knew; but I also knew that the real knowledge of it would have to catch up to me at its own time. “Walt’s dead, I suppose?”

“If you can assure the police that Walt was present at the time of the blasts, I know they’d appreciate it. There was certainly someone present, but dental records are few in Bordertown.”

“Oh.”

“Linn is an excellent source of information, if one has the wit to ask him for it.” She sounded positively pleasant now, but I knew her; there wasn’t anything in that for me. “For instance, did you know that the explosive used in the ceiling of the apartment building was Astrolite?”

“I don’t even know from Astrolite.” She knew I didn’t.

“Ammonium nitrate and hydrazine.”

“Why does that sound familiar? Wait—rocket fuel?” I asked, appalled.