Think, goddamn it. This is no time to catnap.

First, he needed a new alias. His eyes moved left and right, finally resting on the taxi driver's name on the displayed license.

Benjamin Johnson. Bruce turned the name around. John Benson.

That would be his name until tomorrow. John Benson. Just until tomorrow. Now if he could just stay alive until then... He dared not think that far ahead.

Everyone at the clinic thought he was still on vacation in Cancun, Mexico. No one absolutely no one knew the whole vacation idea was merely a diversion. Bruce had played the role of happy traveler to the utmost. He had bought beachwear, flown down to Cancun last Friday, checked into the Cancun Oasis Hotel, prepaid for the week, and told the concierge that he would be renting a boat and could not be reached.

Then he shaved his beard, cut and bleached his hair, and put on blue-tinted contact lenses. Even Bruce had trouble recognizing the image in the mirror. He returned to the airport, left Mexico, checked in at his true destination under the name Rex feneto, and began to investigate his horrible suspicions.

The truth, however appeared to be more shocking than he had imaged.

The taxi slowed now in front of the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue. The lights of Central Rark twinkled from across the street and to the north. Bruce paid the driver, tipping him no more or less than the proper amount, and strolled into the lush lobby of the hotel. Despite his designer suit, he felt conspicuously sloppy. His jacket was heavily creased, his pants completely wrinkled. He looked like something left in the bottom of a laundry hamper for a week hardly what his mother would have called presentable.

He began to walk toward the reception desk when something he barely spotted out of the corner of his eye made him stop.

It's just your imagination, Bruce. It's not the same guy. It can't be.