Denton hitched a breath. “I already told you in—”

“You will tell me again, truthfully this time. And you will drop all interest in Kobinski. You will not read, write, or speak about him ever again. You will not publish in any format, even on the Web. If you do, you will be very, very sorry. Understand?”

Denton nodded, tears mingling with blood on his cheeks. He did not feel far away now. No, the world was no bigger than this miserable dining room. “The editor at Mysterious World magazine. He k-k-knows all about Kobinski.”

Edwards took a small notepad from a pocket, flipped it open. “Name?”

“Jack Lorenz. Their a-a-address is in my files. His phone number is…” He slurped up blood from the bottom of his mouth.

“We have it from your phone memory.”

“Oh… I’m sure he’s talked about it to people. I haven’t. I mean, I haven’t discussed it with my f-f-friends or anything. Except one guy, Dave Banks. He works for Lockheed. And then there’s my antiques agent, Fleck, and this r-r-rabbi, Schwartz…”

Denton regurgitated everything, everything and anything he might have said or done, anything he’d ever considered saying or doing. Edwards watched him coldly. Occasionally he made a notation, but mostly he just stared, as though this information were valueless. And Denton knew that it mostly was. He was babbling, but he didn’t know how to stop. He even told them about Molly Brad and about stealing Schwartz’s letter. Everything. Anything they wanted. Anything at all.

“We’re done,” one of the other men interrupted him.

“Take it all downstairs,” Edwards said.

The two men carried out boxes of Denton’s work. Denton watched them go, tears making his vision of the travesty mercifully dim. He let out a blubbering sigh.

“What are you going to do now?” Edwards asked, rising.

Denton looked up at him in confusion. “Wha…”

“I asked,” Edwards said more firmly, “what will you do?”

“I-I-I. Nothing.”

“Correct. Will you call the police?”

Denton tried to shake his head, but it hurt. “No.”

“Because it would be a waste of time and you’d be sorry.”

“I won’t c-c-call them.”

“If your editor phones tell him you’re no longer doing the story and hang up. You will not discuss it any more than that.”

“ ‘Kay.”

“And you won’t speak about Kobinski again.”

“I know.”

“Or write about him.”

“Or write about him.”

Edwards put his hand on Denton’s chin, pulled it upward—painfully—so that Denton’s eyes overflowed with fresh hot tears. “Because we’ll be watching.”

“Yeah.”

Edwards left. In the hall, Denton could hear the ding of the elevator.

For a while he just sat there. Then the phone rang. He lost precious time staring at it, trying to decide if he wanted to answer it or not. He decided he wanted to. It might be someone who’d feel sorry for him, someone to come and tend his wounds. He started for the phone, but he had a dizzy spell as soon as he stood up. Blood gushed from his nose. At the feel of it, the taste and sight of it, he nearly passed out, went white and clammy. He never could stand the sight of blood. He headed for the kitchen and let the blood drip bright and red onto a couple of dirty dishes in the sink. The answering machine clicked on. He heard his cheery message: Hi! This is Denton. I’m your humble servant, so… leave me a message! Beep.

“Denton, you asshole! I can’t believe what you’ve done!”

Jack Lorenz’s voice, barely controlled fury. Blood spun lazily in the sediment of a soup bowl.

“You are so finished in this industry! Can you understand that, Denton? Can you understand that it’s wrong to break into private property and steal things?”

Denton pulled off a fistful of paper toweling, stuffed it in his face to stop the bleeding, and sank to his knees.

“And don’t bother to deny it. How could you be so stupid? They have a fucking videotape, Denton, of you prying open that whateveritwas in the library. A video! What were you thinking! Did you not see the camera or what? What am I saying? That’s not even the point.”

Denton hobbled on two knees and a hand—the other hand holding toweling to his face—into the living room. He didn’t pick up the phone, only fell down beside it, back propped up against the couch.

“I can’t believe you did this. You’re going to get us sued, and you know we don’t have the money for that! I’ll be surprised if we’re not ruined. After all the effort I’ve put into this magazine. I just—I can’t believe you did this to me!”

Denton shivered with cold. He grabbed the silk throw off the couch and put it over his knees.

“So you can anticipate a class action suit against you personally—from us. But then, you won’t need your money anymore, will you, since you’ll be in jail. Because that little stunt was a felony, and I hope they—”

There seemed to be some background discussion going on. Denton pulled the toweling away from his face and looked at it. Bright red blood against the papery white. It reminded him of his entire life—an abortion.

“Hello, Mr. Wyle?” A man’s voice. “I’m Gip Bernstein, lawyer for Rabbi Schwartz. He does have an offer to make,” officious clearing of throat. “Assuming we get back the property you took, of course, and the monies for the property damage you inflicted… well, against my better judgment, he’s willing to not press charges. He says you purchased a manuscript in Germany recently, from a private family, the Krolls. He would like that manuscript, Mr. Wyle. If you turn it over to him in the next week he will not prosecute you for burglary. Please call my office at…”

The lawyer rattled off his number. Jack came back on the line. There was a bewildered silence in which Denton could hear him breathing.

“Um… Denton? Just… call me, okay?” Jack sounding confused. Jack thinking that if Schwartz wanted the damn thing that bad, if it was that valuable, maybe the magazine wasn’t completely through with Denton after all. Jack had a surprise visit coming from Mr. Edwards. Denton hoped they got along really, really well.

He was humming something in his throat. He heard it—it was “Mandy” by Barry Manilow. He stopped. He sat there while the sun set outside, the light from the window creeping away, making the condo dimmer and dimmer.

He must have fallen asleep. The phone rang again, startling him awake. He almost picked it up, then looked at it with a laugh.

Tee hee. Tee hee hee, he giggled stupidly. What now? His mother had died in a plane crash? Tibet had just succumbed to a gigantic earthquake? His latest lover had tested positive for AIDS? Nukes were headed this way?

The answering machine clicked on. “Denton Wyle? I hope you remember me.” The voice was thin and papery, an old man’s voice. “I, uh, was a friend of your father’s. We met once, overseas. You liked the tattoo on my arm.”

Denton grabbed the phone. “ ‘allo?”

“Is that you, Mr. Wyle?” The caller’s voice was wary. Denton didn’t exactly sound like himself. His lip had swollen like a water balloon and his jaw had frozen up.

“Yeth. Where arth you?”

A pause. “We can meet if you’d like. I’d like to catch up. And I have something of yours.”

“Yeth!”

“Are you sure?” The voice was serious, warning. “You’ll have to come to me, I’m afraid. Perhaps you’re up for a little vacation?”

Denton thought about it for half a second, but deep thought was really beyond him. Only one word rang in his head, despite everything, or because of everything, or maybe he was just a freaking idiot. Tears rolled down his face, stinging his many cuts. “Yeth.”

“Very well. Now listen carefully…”