Sometimes your world slows to a crawl: Adrenalin hits you right in the sternum and everything's slower and brighter, that sharp silver clarity that makes things direct and simple. When that happens it can propel a car off your child's legs; it can set you spinning out from under a landslide; or it can freeze every moment of a crushing failure for its own miniaturized eon.

Gary folds his hands into fists, and I memorize every hair on his arms before he's finished crooking his fingers.

"Miss Doring just contacted me," he explains, every word crisp, dry, and quivering. "And she tells me...that she caught your friends...running their hands along her car." He cocks an eyebrow; his pupils are the size of pennies. "Do you...know anything about this?"

I flap my lips until my trachea kicks in. "I don't—they were headed south to check a crime scene—"

"Crime scene." Gary's nostrils flare. "Crime scene. Where would that crime scene be, exactly?"

"The..." My stomach's all one big cramp. "The trailer park down near Albion."

"Down near Albion." It's much more violent when he says it. "Down near Albion like, near my house?" I see his teeth. "Conveniently near?"

I'm the little kid caught talking in class, curled up fetal at the thought of eye contact. "'Conveniently' isn't the adjective I'd use—"

Anger pours off Milk, thick enough to clot my mind; my shoulders go iron, eyes closed at the thought of impact.

"It's exactly what you think, Gary," Milk rumbles, and lets go of the back of my chair. Swear words pile up in my skull; he got my guard down.

Gary stares at me, fingers drumming the table. "Well, Mr. Chatham, at least I can rest easy knowing you won't be joining some massive conspiracy against the agreement. You're far too unimaginative to get it off the ground." He smirks at that, the look of a gator within sprinting range. "My turn for questions." His grin spreads, fills his face with sharp angles; rage shines molten in his eyes. "What exactly were you hoping to do?"

"I—"

I lurch forward as Milk kicks the legs of my chair; all my energy goes to not letting him in my mind. I look across at Gary, and summon up what courage I have with a long-haired bag of hate glaring daggers into my neck. Time for brilliant and evasive honesty.

"You know why you'd be a suspect, Gary; you said so yourself. And I would have loved to work together. But I had to be sure, first, and you're too well-armored to scan and probably too dignified, or too guilty of something unrelated, to submit to one. Or both." My patter glitches as I correct myself; shake your head, get in the game. "So I figured I'd take you out to lunch, get to know you, see if I could rattle your cage and figure out if you were involved; and while I was here, yes, I thought I would have some friends—"

I stop as Gary looks up past my shoulder. The waitress has come into the room, but clearly already thought better of asking us how we're doing; her face is grim and her thoughts are worse.

"Some friends," I continue as she leaves, "go back and check your place out. Scan it for anything untoward. If nothing else, I figured we'd find out what was making you play it so close to the chest and I could move forward in an alliance with you, clean of any suspicious thoughts. Beyond what I have for anyone who willingly hangs out with demons, self included." I sit back, try to breathe. "Sir."

Anvils drop on both my shoulders; washes of stress pour down along my back. Gary leans back slowly, eyes wide but no longer so volatile, and exchanges a look with Milk. My teeth lock at the moth-scale brush of psychic chatter. I can't make anything of the motions of his face, can't hear even a snippet of what they're thinking—and then he's back looking at me, expression flat and rigidly calm.

"Mr. Chatham...I understand." There's a second where he might smile. "I do not approve. At all. But I understand. And I appreciate your honesty." His emphasis is too assured; needles blossom in my arteries. "I am going to pay for lunch, so that you understand that I am neither incensed nor cruel. I am going to pay for lunch, but I am going to leave; and I am going to never see you again unless it happens accidentally about town, or unless you have some express purpose for seeing me and an appointment." He punctuates it with a finger stabbed right at my face. "Are we absolutely—fucking—clear?"

My thoughts dry up. I will never call Barg harsh again.

"Clear," I say. "Absolutely."

Gary wipes his mouth with his napkin, tosses it onto the table. "Good. Milk will explain the situation to the waitress. Tastefully altered."

"Gary's sick," the demon says.

"I'm sick," Gary replies. "You should enjoy your meal; it's really quite good. I trust I will not speak to you again."

"Not without express purpose." I keep my attention on the napkin. "And an appointment."

Gary wheels out from the table, stops next to me. He leans in close with his hands on his wheelchair, that thick grey beard just a mass of bristles at this range.

"You're not very funny," he breathes, and Milk wheels him out.

And just like that, my little noir detective dream is shattered, a battered fedora forgotten on the floor. It barely registers when the waitress comes by with my food. I can actually feel myself failing, the cascade of mistakes an infinite loop in my head; the successes of other patrons are actually reduced by my failure. I lean over, take a sip of the beer I didn't pay for, and balk when I hear my cell phone ring.

"Paul," I say into the mouthpiece.

"Randall," replies Arabella. "We're almost to the Brewery, you there?"

"There and eating alone," I reply. "Should I annoy the waitress by adding three new guests?"

"Meet you inside."

"So yes. Bye."

The waitress arrives with my food five minutes later, looking at me like she can't decide whether to hug me or scream. I wonder what Gary told her a half second before I catch it off her: not much.

"Three other people might be joining me," I say. "Sort of"—giggle—"sort of replacement friends, you know?"

That's a little dilution in her sympathy. "Three more?" she asks, holding up fingers.

I nod. "Two of them are just gonna be drinking, though." I try to look thankful, but it just tells me how brittle my calm is. "That okay?"

All she's thinking about is her tip. The happiness in her voice is thin ice. "Sure."

And she leaves. I drink my beer, poke at my now-uninteresting food, and debate exactly how explosive I should be when my friends get in the door. I'm still debating when they come in: Kelly first, then Arabella, then Paul leading up the rear. They sit down at the table like they're gearing up for a funeral; all I can do is glare from under my embarrassment. Paul, of course, is the first to talk.

"So that's two strikes, then?"

"Two strikes, too many balls," I pun. I swallow and my tonsils clench. "What the"—here comes the heat I was banking—"fuck did you guys do?"

Arabella leans forward. "Doring. Anna Doring, Gary's executor?"

"You think that's what she does," Paul murmurs.

She waves him off with a snap of her wrist. "We ran into her as we were heading south; she was pulling off the road out of Willits into that shopping center on the south end of town."

"Boatyard," Paul corrects.

Arabella bats her lashes at him. "Glutton. Anyway, so she shows up—"

We're interrupted by the waitress returning, her smile accompanied by wide, weary eyes; she feels like a sausage screaming in a microwave. Arabella wants a burger and Paul wants a whiskey; Kelly contents herself with water. The waitress leaves; the knot in my spine doesn't.

"So she shows up," Arabella continues, "and we follow her, go into the lot the other way. She parks, goes into the grocery store, and we see our chance"—her voice is high and colorful, so bubbly you almost can't hear she's rattled—"so we park with the motor running"—spy films scud through her head—"and Paul and I run out and do a little instant wiretapping." She wiggles her fingers like I'm supposed to be impressed.

I'm a rock. "And then she came out of the store quicker than you expected and saw you feeling up her car."

"It was dressed like it wanted it."