“How much did you take in before I used the stun gun?” Van Fleet asked.

“So that’s what it was.”

“That’s right. Something like fifty thousand volts, but only for a few milliseconds.”

“That was enough.”

“It was, wasn’t it?”

“To answer your question,” Stone said, “I took in a number of corpses sitting at a dining table.”

“Let’s not refer to them that way, please,” Van Fleet said. “They are my friends, and, if they could hear you, they’d be very upset.”

“As you wish. How did you get, uh, meet these people?”

“Oh, here and there. You might say I picked them up around town. They’re all very interesting people who do interesting work. I find that interesting work makes an interesting person, don’t you?”

Stone realized that he had now solved the disappearance of Dino’s yuppies, not that it mattered much. “Sure, I think that’s true. But, somehow, I don’t think they make very interesting conversationalists at the moment.”

“You’re quite wrong,” Van Fleet said. “I know you think of them as dead, but they’re not, you know. In fact, I’ve given them a whole new kind of life. It’s a technique I’ve developed myself, over the years, one I refined both in my work at the funeral parlor and in my previous job, at the Museum of Natural History. They remain as supple as when they were alive, in the usual sense of the word.”

Stone could think of nothing to do but keep the conversation going. Besides, there was more he wanted to know. “Tell me about Sasha, Herb.”

“Ah, Sasha.” Van Fleet sighed. “She is the centerpiece of my little dinner party, of course. Everybody likes a celebrity at the table. Adds spice to the evening.”

“Was she alive when you brought her here?”

“I told you, they’re all alive,” Van Fleet said emphatically. “Please don’t make it necessary for me to mention that again, or I will terminate this conversation immediately.”

“I’m sorry,” Stone said. “I meant alive in the usual sense of the word. What I meant to ask was, after her fall and the ambulance wreck, what sort of condition was she in?”

“Well, when I took her out of the wreck,” Van Fleet said, “she was in very poor condition, indeed. The fall had broken some bones, but, oddly, not the skin. The traffic accident had done somewhat more damage. It took me quite a long time to bring her back to her present condition.”

“Was she…breathing when you took her?”

“Amazingly enough, yes,” Van Fleet said. “In fact, I believe that, if not for the traffic accident, she might have continued to breathe. As it was, she lasted only a few days, in spite of the very excellent medical care she received from me.”