"I warned you, Handsome."

How did she manage to see her cards?

I had not seen the redhead since before my negotiations with the runt arms merchant. I didn't see her now, but something flashed around a turn of brick up ahead. The guy who laid out Heartlight Lane was either a snake stalker or a butterfly hunter. It zigs and zags and comes close to looping for no reason more discernible than the fact that that is the way it has got to go to get between the buildings. A few quick turns and the lane became deserted except for a big brown coach, its door just closing.

Empty streets are not a good sign. That means folks have smelled trouble and want no part of it.

Maybe somebody just wanted to talk to me. But then why not just come to the house?

Because I don't always answer the door? Especially when somebody might want me to go to work? Maybe. Then there is the fact that the Dead Man can read minds.

I took a couple of cautious steps, glanced back. That tarot girl sure was a temptation. On the other hand, red hair is marvelous against a white pillowcase. On the third hand...

I got no chance to check my other fifteen fingers. From out of the woodwork, or cracks in the walls, or under the cobblestones, or a hole in the air came the three ugliest guys I have ever seen. They had it bad. I think they wanted to look human but their mothers had messed them up with their hankering after lovers who spelled ugly with more than one G. All three made me look runty, too, and I am a solid six feet two, two hundred ten pounds of potato-hard muscle and blue eyes to die for. "Hi, guys. You think we're gonna get some rain?" I pointed upward.

None of them actually looked. Which left me with a nasty suspicion that they were smarter than me. I would have looked. And they hadn't followed some wench-o'-the-wisp up here where some humongous brunos could bushwhack them, either.