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got them; they intended to prosecute the money man who had hired Rasmussen, for no doubt the hacker’s employer was one of Decodyne’s primary competitors. They had allowed Tom Rasmussen to think he had compromised the security cameras, when in fact he had been under constant observation. They also had allowed him to break down the file codes and access the information he wanted, but unknown to him they had inserted secret instructions in the files, which insured that any diskettes he acquired would be full of trash data of no use to anyone.
    Flames roared and crackled, consuming the van. Julie watched chimeras of reflected flames slither and caper up the glass walls and across the blank, black windows of Decodyne, as if they were striving to reach the roof and coalesce there in the form of gargoyles.
    Raising her voice slightly to compete with the fire and with the shriek of approaching sirens, she said, “Well, we thought he believed he’d circumvented the videotape records of the security cameras, but apparently he knew we were on to him.”
    “Sure did.”
    “So he also might’ve been smart enough to search for an anticopying directive in the files—and find a way around it.”
    Bobby frowned. “You’re right.”
    “So he’s probably got Whizard, unscrambled, on those diskettes.”
    “Damn, I don’t want to go in there. I’ve been shot at enough tonight.”
    A police cruiser turned the corner two blocks away and sped toward them, siren screaming, emergency lights casting off alternating waves of blue and red light.
    “Here come the professionals,” Julie said. “Why don’t we let them take over now?”
    “We were hired to do the job. We have an obligation. PI honor is a sacred thing, you know. What would Sam Spade think of us?”
    She said, “Sam Spade can go spit up a rope.”
    “What would Philip Marlowe think?”
    “Philip Marlowe can go spit up a rope.”
    “What will our client think?”
    “Our client can go spit up a rope.”
    “Dear, ‘spit’ isn’t the popular expression.”
    “I know, but I’m a lady.”
    “You certainly are.”
    As the black-and-white braked in front of them, another police car turned the corner behind it, siren wailing, and a third entered Michaelson Drive from the other direction.
    Julie put her Uzi on the pavement and raised her hands to avoid unfortunate misunderstandings. “I’m really glad you’re alive, Bobby.”
    “You going to kick me again?”
    “Not for a while.”

7
    FRANK POLLARD hung on to the tailgate and rode the truck nine or ten blocks, without drawing the attention of the driver. Along the way he saw a sign welcoming him to the city of Anaheim, so he figured he was in southern California, although he still didn’t know if this was where he lived or whether he was from out of town. Judging by the chill in the air, it was winter—not truly cold but as frigid as it got in these climes. He was unnerved to realize that he did not know the date or even the month. Shivering, he dropped off the truck when it slowed and turned onto a serviceway that led through a warehouse district. Huge, corrugated-metal buildings—some newly painted and some streaked with rust, some dimly lit by security lamps and some not—loomed against the star-spattered sky.
    Carrying the flight bag, he walked away from the warehouses. The streets in that area were lined with shabby bungalows. The shrubs and trees were overgrown in many places: untrimmed palms with full skirts of dead fronds; bushy hibiscuses with half-closed pale blooms glimmering softly in the gloom; jade hedges and plum-thorn hedges so old they were more woody than leafy; bougainvillea draped over roofs and fences, bristling with thousands of untamed, questing trailers. His soft-soled shoes made no sound on the sidewalk, and his shadow alternately stretched ahead of him and then behind, as he approached and then passed one lamppost after another.
    Cars, mostly older models, some rusted and battered,