Bullock was almost too easy. He was packing almost before I finished handing him my line of bull. He wanted that Asa bad.

I wondered if he knew something we did not. Or if he'd just worked up an obsession with the mystery of the invaded Catacombs.

Whisper was more of a problem.

She told me: "I want you to send somebody with him." I had had to tell her something, so had told her most of the truth. I figured the chances of anybody tracking Asa and Raven were nil. But. . . . She seemed a little too interested,too. Perhaps she knew more than she pretended. She was, after all, one of the Taken.

Elmo picked three men, put Kingpin in charge, and told him to stick a knife in Bullock if he looked like needing it.

The Captain and Company were, I was told, in the Wolander Mountains a hundred miles from Juniper. They faced a slow passage through tough passes, but I began to anticipate their arrival. Once the Old Man showed, the weight would be off Elmo and me. "Hurry," I muttered, and returned to tangling our skein of deceits.

Chapter Twenty-Five:
JUNIPER: LOVERS

Matron Shed fell in love. In love in the worst possible way-with a woman far younger, who had tastes far beyond his means. He charged into the affair with all the reserve of a bull in rut, disdaining consequences, squandering his cash reserve as though it came from a bottomless box. His boxes dried up. Two weeks after he met Sue, he made a loan with Gilbert, the moneylender. Another loan followed that, then another. Within a month he had gone into debt farther than he had been during the winter.

And he did not care. The woman made him happy, and that was that. Compounding his negative attributes was a tendency toward willful stupidity and an unconscious confidence that money could be no problem ever again.

Wally's wife Sal visited the Lily one morning, grim and slightly ashamed. "Marron," she said, "can we talk?" "What's the matter?"

"You were going to help with rent and stuff." "Sure. So what's the problem?" "Well, I don't want to sound ungrateful or like I have any right to expect you to support us, but our landlord is threatening to throw us out on account of the rent hasn't been paid for two weeks. We can't get work on account of nobody is putting out any sewing right now."

"The rent isn't paid? But I saw him just the other day. . . ." It hadn't been just the other day. He had forgotten. His mother, too. Her servants' salaries would be due in a few days. Not to mention Lisa's. "Oh my," he said. "I'm sorry. I forgot. I'll take care of it."

"Shed, you've been good to us. You didn't have to be. I don't like seeing you get into this kind of mess."

"What kind of mess?"

"With that woman. She's trying to destroy you."