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a trail of still-fresh blood leading up to that last office, and a torn-away tragedy mask of stained bandages outside. Someone’s new look hadn’t turned out as well as he had expected. The glass was mainly cracked and distorting. Lloyd Nolan, Private Enquiry Agent, had a couple of bullet holes in his door. The faint chalk outline of a very fat man was traced around some indelible smears between a pair of ugly, overflowing stand-up ashtrays. I cursed the Monogram’s janitorial staff. With this amount of fifth on the floor, I would be as easy to find as Theseus in the labyrinth.
    I reached into my trench coat and found I had my gun back. That was something. I took out the snub-nosed automatic, and it felt good in my fist. I felt like shooting someone, which was a sure sign I had been on this case too long. The gun talked to me, gave me ideas.
    If I shot myself, maybe I’d wake up. Maybe I wouldn’t be a vegetable. Maybe my head wouldn’t explode in the dreaming cradle. Yeah, and maybe if I doused myself in gasoline and lit up a cigarette I’d get a nice winter tan.
    There wasn’t any easy way out.
    I walked down the corridor and found the elevator doors. I nerved myself up, and stabbed the call button. The cage grumbled down and stopped in front of me. I held the steel-mesh curtain aside and stepped in. The contractible cagefront slid shut again, criss-crossing me with cicatrice shadows. I punched for the ground floor, and the elevator slunk downwards. Floors passed me, desolate still lives beyond the metal net. I saw Escher patterns in the metalwork.
    I composed myself, pushed my hat to the back of my head, and tried to look stupid. Like a cop. I held my gun by the trigger guard, between thumb and forefinger as if it were a week-dead haddock.
    When we hit the ground floor, I pushed the mesh aside and walked smartly towards the main doors. There were uniformed cops in the foyer, milling about. I recognised Joe Sawyer, but the others were just faces.
    ‘Evidence,’ I told Sawyer, with hollow confidence, holding up the gun. ‘The lieutenant wants this down at the crime lab swiftkick.’
    Sawyer piggily looked back at me, raising a nightstick to his shiny wet cap-peak in a vague salute. I smiled on one side, like Dick Tracy in the funnies, and put my hand out to push the street door…
    ‘That’s one of the men,’ came a whine, ‘the middle-sized one.’
    I did a Billy the Kid trick with my gun, and was holding it properly again. I turned round fast but carefully, and levelled it.
    Byron Foulger had grabbed Sawyer’s arm, and was snivelling all over him, eyes agleam with the prospect of reward money. Or maybe just the chance to make someone more miserable.
    ‘Don’t move, coppers,’ I said, not liking the sound of it.
    Luckily, Foulger had Sawyer’s gun arm. The cop still had his nightstick up, but I was out of reach. I backed into the door, and it gave behind me. I felt cool air. I was stepping out to freedom. Then, the door suddenly swung the wrong way, hitting me in the back, and something tried unsuccessfully to walk through me. Sharp-ended fingers touched me just under my collar, and I felt the shove. I put my hands out, and took the fall on my wrists. I hurt the meat of my palm on my gunbutt. Sawyer pushed Foulger into a heap, and a shot went wild above my head. Someone shouted, and something behind me growled. I didn’t like the growl; it reminded me of the moonlight upstairs, bright enough to suggest a full moon outside.
    The cops all had their guns out now, and I was trying to put my hands up. But it’s difficult to surrender when someone is standing on your back. I felt bare, barb-toed feet digging into my vertebrae and tried to look up. The cops started shooting, but mercifully not at me. The someone on top of me walked forwards and I was able to stand up. My clothes must have been a mess, but my hat hadn’t come off. A large, swelling figure stood in the open door of the Monogram, between me and