I didn't have any FTAs to retrieve. I didn't have a dog to walk. I had no one to watch, no houses to break into. I could have gone to a locksmith to have the cuff opened, but I had hopes of getting the key from Ranger. I was going to turn him over to Joyce tonight. Better to deliver Ranger to Joyce than have to talk Carol off the bridge again. Rescuing Carol from a watery grave was getting old. And it'd be easy to deliver Ranger. All I had to do was arrange a meeting. Tell him I wanted the cuff off, and he'd come to me. Then I'd knock him out with the stun gun and pack him off to Joyce. Of course, after I handed him over I'd have to do something sneaky and rescue him. I certainly wasn't going to have Ranger hauled off to jail.

Since it would appear I didn't have anything on the agenda until tonight, I thought I should clean the hamster cage. And after the hamster cage, maybe I'd do the refrigerator. Hell, I might even get totally carried away and scour the bathroom . . . no, that wasn't likely. I dumped Rex out of his soup can and put him in my big spaghetti pot on the kitchen counter. He sat there, blinking in the sudden light, unhappy to have his sleep interrupted.

"Sorry, little guy," I said. "Gotta clean the ol' hacienda."

Ten minutes later, Rex was back in his cage, frantic because all his buried treasures were now in a big black plastic garbage bag. I gave him a cracked walnut and a raisin. He took the raisin into his new soup can, and that was the last I saw of him.

I looked out my living room window, down into the wet parking lot. Still no sign of Habib and Mitchell. All the cars belonged to tenants. Good deal. It was safe to get rid of my garbage. I shrugged into my jacket, grabbed the bag of hamster bedding, and hustled down the hall.

Mrs. Bestler was still in the elevator. "Oh, you look much better now, dear," she said. "Nothing like spending a relaxing hour at the beauty parlor." The elevator doors opened to the lobby, and I hopped out. "Going up," Mrs. Bestler sang out. "Menswear, third floor." And the doors slid shut.

I crossed the lobby to the rear entrance and paused for a moment to pull my hood up. The rain was steady. Water pooled on the glistening blacktop and beaded on the old folks' freshly waxed cars. I stepped outside, put my head down, and hurried across the lot to the Dumpster.

I pitched the bag inside the bin, turned, and found myself face to face with Habib and Mitchell. They were soaking wet, and they didn't look friendly.

"Where'd you come from?" I asked. "I don't see your car."

"It's parked on the side street," Mitchell said, showing me his gun, "and that's where you're headed. Start walking."

"I don't think so," I said. "If you shoot me, Ranger has no incentive to deal with Stolle."

"Wrong," Mitchell said. "If we kill you, Ranger has no incentive."

Good point.

The Dumpster was on the back edge of the lot. I stumbled across a patch of rain-slicked lawn on wobbly legs, too scared to think clearly. Wondering where Ranger was now, when I needed him. Why wasn't he here, insisting on locking me up in a safe house? Now that my hamster's cage was clean, I'd be happy to oblige.

Mitchell was driving the mom-van again. Guess they weren't having a lot of luck cleaning up the Lincoln. And probably I didn't want to choose that as a topic of conversation.

Habib sat beside me in the backseat. He was wearing a raincoat but it looked soaked through. They must have been crouching in the bushes at the edge of the building. He was hatless, and water dripped from his hair, down the back of his neck, and onto his face. He wiped his face with his hand. No one seemed to mind that they were getting the mom-van wet.

"Well," I said, trying to make my voice sound normal. "Now what?"

"Now you do not want to know," Habib said. "You should being quiet now."

Being quiet was bad, since it gave me time to think. And thinking wasn't pleasant. No good was going to come of this ride. I tried to close my emotions down. Fear and regret weren't going to get me anywhere. Didn't want