"You a prayin man, Mr. Youssef?"

Barclay let the ornament go. Qurban watched it swing like Poe's pendulum for a moment, light from the late-winter sun glimmering off its gold surface.

"Not regularly, no," he admitted. He hadn't been to prayers since Ramadan. His brother had chastened him for breaking his fast by the third day.

The killer nodded. He sat with his elbows on the front chairs, knees near his chest. Taller than Qurban had pictured him. "Good," the killer said. "Never was a God-fearin man, myself. My mother, she had the fear a God somethin fierce. Made her pious. Vengeful. She murdered my daddy, did ya know that? Not that she didn't have reason to, y'understand. He was a real mean sumbitch when he got to drinkin, which I b'lieve he musta liked more'n breathin."

They were on 65^th Street now, cutting across the south end of Central Park through the wooded, stone-walled transverse.

"What do you want from me, Mr. Barclay?"

"Oh, I 'magine you know that already."

"I don't know where Martin is." He wasn't lying. "The policeman said the less I know, the better."

"Well, that may be so but I don't reckon they were 'xactly right. See, I b'lieve you know a lot more about our mutual friend than ya think. An' I reckon if you were to put your mind to it, you might remember thangs you don't even know ya know. Ya know?"

The killer was watching him, his face—his animal stink—uncomfortably close to Qurban's. Qurban kept his eyes on the road, not daring to look back.

Darkness descended upon them as the Porsche passed under a bridge. Light returned a moment later but there was a strange yellow tinge to it, as though they were passing under the eye of a hurricane.

"What kind of things?"

"Details," Barclay said. "The devil's in the details, so I'm told." The faux-leather grumbled as he sat back in the seat, placing his hands leisurely behind his head as if he might settle in for a nap.

"Where are we going?"

"Keep drivin. Take a left once we get to Columbus."

Hell's Kitchen. The office was there, but not much else that might interest Barclay.

They drove there in silence, traffic thickening as they reached Central Park West. Barclay didn't speak again. Qurban was glad not to have to listen to his Southern twang, but he worried about the killer's brooding silence. He suspected the man meant to torture him and might be devising the methods.

"Pull in here," Barclay said finally.

Qurban pulled in to the same alley where he met Martin last week, when he gave him the gun. As the tires crackled over crumbled bits of concrete and trash, his body began to tremble.

"Now now, no need to quiver. I ain't gon' kill ya, Qurban, just gon' rough y'up some."

Qurban nodded. He couldn't seem to catch his breath.

"Those kids a yours. They boys or girls?"

"B-boys." He wanted to cry.