Manfred was much cannier. And he had the gift, too. I didn’t know the scope and depth of Manfred’s psychic ability, but I had a feeling that as soon as Manfred found his level and honed his gift, he’d be making money. As far as I knew, that hadn’t happened yet.

“First,” I told him, ignoring his innuendo, “I’ve got to go to my hotel and shower and change. Then we’ll go to the other hospital, the one where they took Detective Powers.”

“The Dallas Cowboy? Parker Powers?” Manfred’s face lit up in a wonderful way. “I read an article in Sports Illustrated about him, when he became a cop.”

“I would never have guessed you were a football fan,” I said. Life is a process of reevaluation, isn’t it?

“Are you kidding? I love football. I played in high school.”

I eyed him dubiously.

“Hey, don’t let my size fool you,” Manfred said. “I can run like nobody’s business. And it was a little high school, so they didn’t have much choice,” he added honestly.

“So what position did you play?”

“I was a tight end.” And he said it absolutely straight. Manfred did not joke about football.

“That’s really interesting,” I said, and I meant it. “Manfred, not to change the subject, but why’d you decide to come all this way after I said I could handle it?”

“I got the feeling you were in trouble,” he said. He looked sideways at me, and then straight out the windshield of his car. We’d decided that if I were being followed (an idea that still seemed incredible to me) taking Manfred’s beat-up Camaro might throw my stalker off the trail.

“Really? You saw that?”

“I saw someone shooting at you,” he said. His face was older all of a sudden. “I saw you fall.”

“Did you . . . You didn’t know for sure I was alive when you came into Tolliver’s room, did you?”

“Well, I’d watched the news, and I didn’t see anything indicating you’d been killed. I did hear that a Garland policeman had been shot. They weren’t releasing his name then. I hoped you were okay. But I wanted to see for myself.”

“So you drove all this way.” I shook my head, marveling.

“I wasn’t that far away,” Manfred said.

There was a little silence, while I waited for him to continue.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “Where were you?”

“I was in a motel in Tulsa,” he said. “I had a job there.”

“You’re officially in the business now?”

“Yep. I’ve got a website, the whole nine yards.”

“How does it work?”