“Better be,” said Goodson, and rang off. Goodson tossed the phone to the desk, one side of his mouth yanked into a satisfied smirk. And here was the second reason he was having a good day: He had finally wrapped up some loose ends on the 354 W. 73rd Street project. Loose ends by the names of Mr. Stoop and Mr. Pinscher. Not their real names either, but it didn’t matter. Stoop and Pinscher were much worse at concealing themselves than Duke Goodson was. Much, much worse. After they’d been released by the police, Stoop and Pinscher had disappeared. It took a few weeks of searching, but he’d found the two of them holed up in a motel in some Podunk town in the middle of an Illinois cornfield. Pinscher had even gotten a job at the local gas station in order to keep himself and his stooped friend in bugburgers and Pop-Tarts. Wrappers everywhere in that motel room. It was disgusting. Also disgusting: Pinscher blaming his and Stoop’s failures on a bunch of kids. Stoop tearing up over his dead mutant pet as if it had been a golden retriever instead of a scuttling scrap of trash grown in a lab.

Useless, the two of them. Like blundering minions in a comic book.

So Duke did what one does with useless, blundering minions. He had Stoop and Pinscher dispatched to an outpost in Siberia. Duke knew lots of fine folks there. Hardy fellows, Siberians. Didn’t take any guff. Not that Stoop and Pinscher were in any condition to give any guff.

It was sad, really.

Ha, no, it wasn’t.

Goodson pushed the newspaper and the phone aside, pulled out a file labeled Morningstarr, made some notes. The third reason Duke Goodson was having a good day was because he’d grown curious about the kids who had allegedly gotten in Stoop and Pinscher’s way. Not curious because he actually believed Pinscher, but curious because he believed in being thorough. (How could mere children get in the way of grown, competent adults? They can’t! They’re children! Small, hungry, silly, helpless, overrated things, children. Duke didn’t understand why anyone would have them. He himself had never been a child, even when he was a child.)