By three thirty I’m bumping my tyres down the Cloisters off ramp and swinging a wide arc into the bus station car park. I have to look hard to find a young hood selling pot. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think this sleepy town had no hostess-killing lawyers living in it. I cut across empty spaces in the car park and pull in behind the dumpsters, beside a certain white Lexus that I had hoped never to see again.

No doubt Faber’s computer will pick up this unscheduled stop, but he’s not going to risk shocking me now with all this junk in the trunk. If he calls, I’ll tell him I’m filling up at the twenty-four-hour pumps.

It could be true. Long Island is a long way from New Jersey, and the pumps are fifty feet away.

The engine is still ticking when Faber calls.

‘I got my finger on the button here, McEvoy.’

‘Come on, boss. I need gas,’ I tell him. ‘Five minutes’ delay. Maybe seven if I grab a coffee. Check your doodad, there’s a Texaco here.’

I imagine Faber pointing at the phone. ‘Gas? You couldn’t drive another four miles?’

‘You pointing at the phone, Jaryd?’ This pointing thing is a great needle and I am going to work it to death. ‘I thought I heard a rush of air. Like a ninja thing. You a ninja pointer, Faber?’

I hear a crackling noise, like Faber’s snorting into the phone. ‘That little remark just cost your detective friend two degrees of heat. That raincoat won’t keep her warm in the freezer, especially since I got it here in my hand. What the hell were you two doing before you came over here? She’s only wearing purple panties and a raincoat. Tell me why you really pulled over, Daniel.’

‘I’ve been running on fumes for the past half-hour. The goddamn on-board computer is telling me I have a radius of two miles. So I am filling the hell up, unless you want the real cops to get hold of your steroids.’

‘And?’

‘What do you mean, and?’

‘I am sensing an and here, McEvoy. Do you want to tell me what it is, or, should I just go ahead and turn the thermostat down as low as it can go? See if we can’t freeze Deacon’s lingerie right off.’

So I give him an and, but not the real and. ‘Okay. All right. Take it easy. I picked up a few weapons from my locker in the bus station on the way out, and now I’m dropping them off. I bring ’em over to your place and they get confiscated, right?’

The secret to a good lie is to bury it in truth.

‘What’ve you got there?’ asks Faber, playing it cool like he could tell the difference between a Gatling gun and a Colt .45.