The elevator was having one of its rare fits of functionality. I would take it up while Mr. Contreras followed on foot. I gave him the key to the stairwell door with instructions to go hell for leather for the cops if I was under attack, not to leap into the fray.

His jaw set stubbornly. “I ain’t the kind of guy who’s going to run the other way when a lady’s getting beat up. You’d better resign yourself to that.”

To my dismay he pulled a pipe wrench out from under the boilersuits. It was his favorite weapon, one that he used with more gusto than ability. I started to debate the point with him, then decided there wasn’t time. The likelihood of my being jumped didn’t seem that great, anyway.

When the elevator creaked to a halt on the fourth floor, I turned off its light and slid out the door on my knees, propping my left hand on the wall for balance, holding the Smith & Wesson in front of me with my right. The hall seemed clear; I used my pencil flash for a quick survey and didn’t see anyone.

The Pulteney management doesn’t encourage its tenants to use the facilities: night-lights are unheard of in the hallways. I got to my feet and tiptoed down to my own door. After using the building for twelve years, it was easy to move around in it in the dark.

As I’d hoped, no one was lurking—either in the hall, or inside my place. I had the lights on and one of Mr. Contreras’s filched work orders in the Olivetti when he came in—it had taken him a while to figure out how to open the stairwell in the dark.

“So they could have beaten you to a pulp while I was back there fooling around with the darn door. As if I don’t already feel bad enough sending Eddie Mohr to his death.”

I rested my wrists on the keyboard. “It didn’t happen that way. He chose to sign on to some deal with Diamond Head—you didn’t make him do that. Your calling him didn’t make them shoot him, either: it probably only accelerated the timetable. If we’d seen him this afternoon—”

“You might have talked some sense into him and he’d still be alive. You don’t need to be nice to me, doll, just to save my feelings. I can see there’s more to this business of talking to people than I’ve figured out.”