His head turned as slowly as the earth on its axis until his dark pebble eyes met mine. He had to look down to do it, too, the shadow of his skeletal head puddling down my face and spreading across my shoulders. And I’m not a short guy.

“Are we acquainted, sir?” His voice sounded as if it were due back at the coffin any moment.

“Sure, we’re acquainted,” I said. “You’re Lurch.” I looked up and down the avenue. “Where’s Cousin It, Lurch?”

“You’re not nearly as amusing as you think you are, sir.”

I held up my coffee cup. “Wait till I’ve had some caffeine, Lurch. I’m a certified bust-out fifteen minutes from now.”

He smiled down at me and the furrows in his cheeks turned to canyons. “You should be less predictable, Mr. Kenzie.”

“How so, Lurch?”

A crane swung a cement post into the small of my back and something with sharp tiny teeth bit into the skin over the right side of my neck and Lurch lurched past my field of vision as the sidewalk lifted off itself and rolled toward my ear.

“Love the sunglasses, Mr. Kenzie,” the Weeble said as his rubbery face floated past me. “They’re a real nice touch.”

“Very high-tech,” Lurch said.

And someone laughed and someone else started a car engine, and I felt very stupid.

Q would have been appalled.

“My head hurts,” Angie said.

She sat beside me on a black leather couch, and her hands were bound behind her back, too.

“How about you, Mr. Kenzie?” a voice asked. “How’s your head?”

“Shaken,” I said. “Not stirred.”

I turned my head in the direction of the voice, and my eyes met only a hard yellow light fringed by a soft brown. I blinked, felt the room slide a bit.

“Sorry about the narcotics,” the voice said. “If there had been any other way…”

“No regrets, sir,” a voice I recognized as Lurch’s said. “There was no other way.”

“Julian, please give Ms. Gennaro and Mr. Kenzie some aspirin.” The voice sighed behind the hard yellow light. “And untie them, please.”

“If they move?” The Weeble’s voice.

“See that they don’t, Mr. Clifton.”

“Yes, sir. I’d be happy to.”

“My name is Trevor Stone,” the man behind the light said. “Does that mean anything to you?”

I rubbed at the red marks on my wrists.

Angie rubbed hers, sucked a few gulps of oxygen from what I assumed was Trevor Stone’s study.

“I asked you a question.”

I looked into the yellow light. “Yes, you did. Very good for you.” I turned to Angie. “How you doing?”

“My wrists hurt and so does my head.”

“Otherwise?”

“I’m generally in a foul mood.”

I looked back into the light. “We’re in a foul mood.”

“I’d assume so.”

“Fuck you,” I said.