I got out of my car. The nine-millimeter was stuck in my belt. I was wearing an old pair of jeans and a long-sleeved sweatshirt that said Wisconsin on it and a medium-weight corduroy jacket with yellow fuzzy fur-type lining. I looked like a college kid; at least that was the object. I’m young enough looking to pass for that, I guess. On jobs I wanted to look as anonymous as possible, and my practice was to dress like a businessman, and to drive a rental car, something ordinary like a middle-price range Ford or Chevy. But today I had my own car, my Opel GT, and it was too sporty-looking for a businessman. It could attract attention, a guy in a drab suit and trench coat stepping out of a sportscar. And attention isn’t a good thing to attract, when you have a nine-millimeter stuck in your belt.

I didn’t have anything fancy in mind. I certainly wasn’t going in shooting or kicking doors down or anything. Ash wouldn’t be expecting me, or at least the possibility of that seemed slim. Of course, if my callers last night were supposed to get in touch with Ash, after killing me, he might be a little on edge, since the only way he might have heard from those guys since last night was if he’d been to a seance.

Still, I didn’t figure Ash was going to be holed up in his apartment with a gun in each fist, waiting to shoot it out with me. Anyway, I hoped not. I wanted to talk to him before any shooting started. It was even possible Ash didn’t live here anymore, and that some new address of his went down with that station wagon to the bottom of that gravel pit, in which case the joke was on me.

But what the hell. Sometimes a calculated risk is necessary. Once I learned Ash lived within driving distance of my cottage, I felt it safe to assume he was still living in Milwaukee, hopefully in this same apartment.