Virtue extended her hand, let the computer lock scan her thumbprint, and jumped back as the door slid into the wall. The panhandler, shaking his head and looking as if he truly believed he had fallen into the company of a madman, sighed and stepped into the room.

Nothing happened.

The Angel walked to the doorway.

“Go over to the window,” he commanded.

The panhandler did as he was told.

“Now sit on each chair and then on the bed.”

The Angel waited while the panhandler followed his orders, then nodded to Virtue. She entered the room, and then the Angel stepped inside the doorway.

“You must have been wrong,” commented Virtue.

“Close the door and be quiet,” said the Angel, scrutinizing the room.

“Hey!” said the panhandler irately. “You promised to let me go!”

“I promised that we’d talk,” said the Angel, walking carefully around the perimeter of the room, his gaze darting from one piece of furniture to another. “Are you ready to tell me where it is?”

“Where what is?” demanded the man.

“My closet!” exclaimed Virtue suddenly.

“Open it,” the Angel ordered the panhandler.

“It’s already open,” said Virtue, starting to back away from it. “This is just a holographic projection.”

“How do you turn it off?”

“I don’t know.”

“Call down to the desk and tell them to disconnect it,” said the Angel.

She did as he ordered, and a moment later the closet flickered out of existence, leaving a single metal rod stretched along a four-foot length of wall.

“That’s a relief!” she breathed. “You had me believing you for a minute there.”

The panhandler walked up to the Angel. “I’ve got a wife and three kids depending on me,” he said plaintively. “Can’t I go now?”

The Angel pushed him down into a chair. “You’re dead meat, Simon,” he said. “The only question is whether I kill you now or later.”

“But my name isn’t Simon!” shouted the man desperately. “I’m Robert Brubaker!”

“Shut up,” said the Angel quietly. He continued his methodical inspection of the room. When he came to the bathroom door he stopped and turned to the panhandler with a smile on his face.

“Smart,” he said admiringly. “Very smart, Simon.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The way you rigged it.”

“I didn’t rig anything!”

“You couldn’t be sure a maid wouldn’t enter the room before Virtue did, so you couldn’t rig it to kill the first person to walk through the door or reach into the closet.”

“Look,” said the panhandler. “If I walk into the bathroom, then will you let me go?”

“Yes,” assented the Angel. “But you look hot and uncomfortable. I think maybe you’d better treat yourself to a dryshower, first.”

“I don’t need a dryshower. I just want to leave.”

“But I insist.”