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fellows were up and running through the gate.
    They soon fell back, to wait for reinforcements and enter the city the following day; but that night, wrapped in a blanket on the lobby floor of the Rivoli Hotel, Lepidopt had realized that it was true— You’re scared until the first shot. After that first machine gun had begun firing in the Lion’s Gate, he had simply been dealing with each moment as if it were a ball pitched at him, not looking ahead at all. Fear was the future, and all his attention had been fixed on grappling with each new piece of now.
    The next day he had learned that the future could chop you down too; and that there was no way of getting around the fear of that.
    â€œThe door light’s on,” said Bozzaris now from the kitchen. “That’ll be Malk, or the FBI.”
    Lepidopt turned away from the window and hurried across the tan carpet to the kitchen, where he pulled up the long accordioned sheet from behind the printer and tore it off; the touch of a cigarette would flash the paper to ash in a second, and he glanced at the pin in the side of the computer, which only had to be yanked out to ignite a thermite charge over the hard drive. As he quickly lit a cigarette, he mentally rehearsed how he would do both actions, if he should have to.
    A muffled knock sounded from the door in the living room.
    It was today’s two-and-two recognition knock, but Lepidopt stepped behind the kitchen wall, reinforced now with white-painted sheet steel, and he glanced at the bowl of dry macaroni on the shelf by his left hand; but when Bozzaris had got the door unbolted, it was Bert Malk who stepped in, his jacket wrapped around his fist, his tie loosened over his unbuttoned collar, and his sandy hair visibly damp.
    â€œMatzáv mesukán?” he asked quietly. It meant Dangerous situation?
    â€œNo,” Lepidopt said, leaning out from behind the wall. “Just new information.”
    Malk slid a small automatic pistol out of his bundled jacket and tucked it into a holster behind his hip. “It’s worse in here than on the street,” he complained. “I’ll take a cut in pay if you’ll get an air conditioner.”
    When Bozzaris had closed and rebolted the door, Lepidopt tossed the stack of printout onto the counter and stepped out from behind the kitchen wall. “It’s not the cost, it’s the constant evaporation.”
    â€œSam’s gotta learn to screen out phase changes,” Malk said irritably. “Why don’t cigarettes bother him?”
    Malk already knew the answer— smaller scale, and thefire hides it —and Lepidopt just said, “Come listen to this new tape he made.”
    He led Malk to the closed door off the kitchen, and knocked.
    A scratchy voice from the other side of the door said, “Gimme a minute to get dressed.”
    â€œSorry, Sam,” said Lepidopt around his cigarette as he opened the door, “time untied waits for no man.” He led Malk into the cluttered room.
    Skinny old Sam Glatzer was sitting up on the bed, strands of his gray hair plastered to his gleaming forehead, and in the glare from the unshaded bulb on the ceiling, his face seemed particularly haggard. The window in here was covered with aluminum foil, though Lepidopt could hear the speaker behind it—violins and an orchestra; Lepidopt hadn’t been a fan of classical music since 1970, but Sam always brought along Deutsche Grammophon tapes in preference to whatever the radio might provide, though there was a strict rule against bringing any Rimsky-Korsakov. The stale air smelled of gun oil and Mennen aftershave.
    Sam was wearing only boxer shorts and an undershirt, and he hooked his glasses onto his nose, scowled at Lepidopt and then levered himself up off the bed and began to pull on his baggy wool trousers. A whirring fan turned slowly back and forth on one of the cluttered desks, fluttering the fringe of one of