I groaned. “Jesus, Sam, that sounds like something you’d say. This sucks.” My problem wasn’t with a potential skirmish; I thought the kid would probably do okay. He’d had some training, and he could shoot pretty well. My problem was what Clarence would do if we all survived the night. “I can’t risk it, Junior, sorry,” I said at last. “Can’t take you along. Can’t risk you learning too much about my personal business.”

“Why? I already know pretty much everything,” he said. “I mean, I know all about your girlfriend from Hell. I’ve known that for a while and didn’t tell anyone, so what’s the problem now?”

“You know?” I turned to Sam. I could feel a vein in my temple throbbing like it was going to pop loose and start spraying high-pressure blood everywhere, like a fire hose. “He knows?”

“Don’t blame me,” said my best friend, absorbing another tiny burger. “Man, these are good. He already knew about Caz. Didn’t have anything to do with me.”

“Come on, Bobby!” the kid said. “What was I supposed to believe? That you left your body behind for three weeks so you could holiday at Sandals in Puerto Vallarta? Or, what did you actually come up with? Seattle? Yo, man—Hendrix museum and the Space Needle!”

I glared at him, and I pretty much meant it. “I liked you better when you were the village idiot. Okay, you can hang around, I guess. And I guess I appreciate it. But you don’t get to do the jokes.”

He didn’t look particularly chastened. “Right, Bobby. Whatever you say.”

It was just turning two o’clock as we walked down Parade toward Pier 40. I told them what I thought might happen and what I wanted them to do, whether things went as expected or not. When we reached the parking structure across from the pier, we found the chain, usually stretched across the entrance ramp at night, had been cut and left in two tangled piles like a pair of really depressed snakes.

It was a cool night, and the wind off the bay made it seem more like February than July, but I had hope to keep me warm. We made our way up to the top floor, talking quietly but making no other effort to disguise our arrival. Two figures were waiting in the far corner, next to Kenneth Vald’s long black car, no doubt an armor job of Orban quality. Hell, the ancient Hungarian bastard might have actually customized Vald’s car, for all I knew.

One of the pair was extremely tall, and the other was Eligor himself. I had to suppress a sudden flood of anger and panic. Where was Caz? Was she in the car? Was she even here?