More rustling as other envelopes were opened.

That’s what I want to be doing, Jack thought.

He kept glancing at the rearview trying to read the gunman’s expression. His narrowed eyes, his grimace, as if someone had shoved a rotten fish under his nose.

The blare of a horn jerked Jack’s attention to the road and he saw that he’d been drifting toward a Volvo with a very frightened-looking woman behind the wheel.

“I warned you,” said the gunman.

“Sorry,” Jack said, giving the Volvo an apologetic wave. “Not on purpose. It’s just that I was really looking forward to poking through those envelopes myself.”

“Then, these are not yours?”

He checked out the gunman’s expression as he opened more envelopes. The nearest Jack could describe it was… disgust.

What was going on?

“Well, they were for a few minutes. Now they’re yours, I guess.”

“How did you acquire them?”

Should he tell, or play dumb? He had a feeling dumb wouldn’t work with this guy, and what harm in telling him what he’d probably figured out on his own?

“From old man Clayton’s safe deposit box. I found the key in the house last night.”

“Then, these belonged to Ronald Clayton?”

Why do I feel like I’m on trial? “Yes.”

“And this was all you found?”

“Absolutely.”

“And you do not know what is in them?”

“I was hoping to find out.”

“You wish to see them?” the gunman said.

Something strange in his voice. Almost… fatigue.

“Uh… yeah.” Where was this leading?

The envelopes dropped unceremoniously onto the front seat.

“Then you shall. Find a place to stop where no one will see us and you may look all you wish.”

Normally that would have set off a chorus of alarm bells in Jack’s head, but strangely enough, it didn’t.

Something weird going down here.

He turned off Broadway in the Thirties and headed west. He found a deserted stretch of curb past the post office and stopped, but left the engine idling. He glanced into the rear of the car and saw the gunman staring out the window, but he didn’t seem to be focused on anything in particular. His pistol was out of sight. Farther behind them, on the corner, an Oriental woman stood on the sidewalk with her video camera trained on the columned front of the post office building.

Lady, he thought, moving pictures were designed to record things that move. That’s why they call them “movies.”

Jack picked up the top envelope, reached inside the open flap, and pulled out a pile of negatives and three-by-five photos. He let the negatives drop back in and checked out the prints.

His stomach turned.

“Oh, jeez.”

Children… naked children… having sex with each other.

He dropped them onto his lap, then picked them up again for a closer look at the little girl.

“Aw, no.”