I’d stayed on the pavement under the Stevenson until the cops came looking for me—not me specifically, of course, but the driver of the Impala. I’d been too exhausted by then to move, or to care much what happened next. Shivering in the back of the squad car, I tried giving a coherent story about the evening’s events.

The patrolmen gave me a clearer picture of what had happened to Simon. His momentum had been so great that when he rammed the expressway roof it drove the back tires into the ground, exploding them. That explained the cannon shot, which was still ringing in my head. The same force expelled the engine from its blocks, propelling it through the radiator. The cab perched rakishly on its hind wheels while firefighters extricated Simon’s remains from the windshield.

After we’d talked, the patrolmen radioed their base and sent someone over to pick up the Felitti boys and Chamfers. The three of them had been waiting in Chamfers’s office, presumably for word from the Hulk that I’d gone to my lesser reward.

We’d all ridden over to the Fourth Area together, Chamfers insisting that I was a notorious break-in artist whom they’d surprised in the act. “I’m very grieved over Simon Lezak’s death. He was trying to help out, to chase her from the premises when we surprised her—”

“And he got carried away by his zeal and ran over the Impala,” I butted in.

“I don’t think we’ll ever have a clear picture of what happened under the expressway tonight.” Chamfers addressed himself to Detective Angela Willoughby, who seemed to be in charge of the interrogation. “Truckers don’t carry the little black boxes you get on a 747, so we don’t have Simon’s last thoughts.”

“Hatred and glee would sum them up pretty well; I could see the boy’s face in my rearview mirror just before I left the road,” I said. “Did you get a statement from the oncoming trucker? He could probably confirm that Simon was doing his best to run me over.”

Willoughby looked at me with flat gray eyes, but didn’t say anything. The uniformed man taking notes dutifully wrote down my question and poised his pen over his notebook for our next outburst.

I tried one more time. “Were they still loading Paragon Steel materials onto trucks when your officers showed up? The controller at Paragon might have a word or two to say about that. And I doubt if he’d connect me with Diamond Head’s theft ring in any way.”

Chamfers and Peter Felitti joined in a chorus of outrage. Who was I—a sneak thief—to question their business operations? When Dick showed up—he was the Felitti brothers’ counsel, after all—I began to think I was going to be arrested while the upright citizens went home to bed.