Eddie only stared at her as if she had gone mad. What in the name of God was she talking about? Then it came to him, and it made a weirdly perfect sense, and the rest of the riddle clicked into his mind as neatly as the last two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He swung toward the speaker again.

“‘It joins our talks, it joins our sport, and plays at every game.’ What is it? That’s our question, Blaine—what is it?”

The red light illuminating the COMMAND and ENTER buttons below the diamond of numbers blinked out. There was an endless moment of silence before Blaine spoke again... but Eddie was aware that the feeling of electricity crawling all over his skin was diminishing.

“A SHADOW, OF COURSE,” the voice of Blaine responded. “AN EASY ONE... BUT NOT BAD. NOT BAD AT ALL.”

The voice coming out of the speaker was animated by a thoughtful quality... and something else, as well. Pleasure? Longing? Eddie couldn’t quite decide, but he did know there was something in that voice that reminded him of Little Blaine. He knew something else, as well: Susannah had saved their bacon, at least for the time being. He bent down and kissed her cold, sweaty brow.

“DO YOU KNOW ANY MORE RIDDLES?” Blaine asked.

“Yes, lots,” Susannah said at once. “Our companion, Jake, has a whole book of them.”

“FROM THE NEW YORK PLACE OF WHERE?” Blaine asked, and now the tone of his voice was perfectly clear, at least to Eddie. Blaine might be a machine, but Eddie had been a heroin junkie for six years, and he knew stone greed when he heard it.

“From New York, right,” he said. “But Jake has been taken prisoner. A man named Gasher took him.”

No answer... and then the buttons glowed that faint, rosy pink again. “Good so far,” the voice of Little Blaine whispered. “But you must be careful... he’s tricky....”

The red lights reappeared at once.

“DID ONE OF YOU SPEAK?” Blaine’s voice was cold and—Eddie could have sworn it was so—suspicious.

He looked at Susannah. Susannah looked back with the wide, frightened eyes of a little girl who has heard something unnameable moving slyly beneath the bed.

“I cleared my throat, Blaine,” Eddie said. He swallowed and armed sweat from his forehead. “I’m... shit, tell the truth and shame the devil. I’m scared to death.”

“THAT IS VERY WISE OF YOU. THESE RIDDLES OF WHICH YOU SPEAK—ARE THEY STUPID? I WON’T HAVE MY PATIENCE TRIED WITH STUPID RIDDLES.”

“Most are smart,” Susannah said, but she looked anxiously at Eddie as she said it.

“YOU LIE. YOU DON’T KNOW THE QUALITY OF THESE RIDDLES AT ALL.”

“How can you say—”

“VOICE ANALYSIS. FRICTIVE PATTERNS AND DIPHTHONG STRESS-EMPHASIS PROVIDE A RELIABLE QUOTIENT OF TRUTH/UNTRUTH. PREDICTIVE RELIABILITY IS 97 PER CENT, PLUS OR MINUS .5 PER CENT.” The voice fell silent for a moment, and when it spoke again, it did so in a menacing drawl that Eddie found very familiar. It was the voice of Humphrey Bogart. “I SHUGGEST YOU SHTICK TO WHAT YOU KNOW, SHWEETHEART. THE LAST GUY THAT TRIED SHADING THE TRUTH WITH ME WOUND UP AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEND IN A PAIR OF SHEMENT COWBOY BOOTS.”