Giselle put the remaining plantain chips back on the skate punk’s table and got up. “Hey, we department gals have to look out for each other. Sisterhood of the traveling pants and all that.”

“Right,” said Bayliss, having no idea what the other woman was talking about. She made a mental note to look it up later, but not on a department computer.

“I’ll see you back at the car,” said Giselle.

“But I won’t see you, right?”

“Bingo.” Giselle glanced at Nelson. “The hungry, hungry hippo over there will wake up in a couple of minutes. Be cool when he does.”

“Will do,” said Bayliss. “Nice meeting you.”

“You, too,” said Giselle, and disappeared. One second she was there, then the next second she wasn’t. Bayliss looked around. Everyone just kept grimly chewing their ptomaine tacos. She smiled.

“What were we talking about?” said Nelson absently. He looked at his hands. Then the table.

“Lose something?” said Bayliss.

“I must have spaced out for a minute. I don’t remember finishing breakfast.”

“Maybe you were distracted by my scintillating company.”

“Dream on. I’ve got a ficus at home that’s more fun than you,” said Nelson. He frowned at her. “What are you smiling about? You look like Ronald McDonald on mushrooms.”

“Nothing,” said Bayliss. “I’ll just have to remember this place. I hear the chips are really good.”

TWELVE

STEVE, JORGE, JERRY, TOMMY, AND TOMMY’S BROTHER-IN-LAW, Lloyd, were huddled around a worktable in the construction company’s office on the work site. Before Tommy brought Lloyd over, the others had gone over the place carefully, stowing all signs, sigils, statues, throw pillows, and commemorative plates of Caleximus out of sight. Lloyd might be useful to their cause, but he wasn’t a true believer, and explaining how they wanted him to help speed along their plans to destroy the world might have made negotiations, by Steve’s reckoning, unnecessarily complicated. All Lloyd needed to know was that they wanted to get into the building where he worked. The group stood around the table looking down at Lloyd’s hand-drawn layout of the Blackmoore Building.

Jorge pointed to the side of one drawing. “Why are we meeting by a duck? Whose duck is it?”

“Yeah. A duck is a lousy landmark. They wander off,” said Steve.

“Not ‘duck,’” said Lloyd. “Dock. We’ll meet at the loading dock.”

“It looks like duck to me too,” said Jerry.

“Well, it says dock. D-O-C-K.”

“That makes more sense,” said Steve.

Tommy clapped Lloyd on the back. “You need to work on your penmanship, dude.”

“No, I don’t. I’m a janitor, not a . . . pen teacher guy.”

“You mean an English teacher?” said Jerry.

“Yeah,” said Lloyd quietly. He adjusted his shoulders. “I’m not used to this stuff, and now you’re getting me all agitated.”