“The question was simple enough, bud – what the hell are you doing here? Can you answer it, or do I give you another blast?”

I twiddled my fingers in his armpit just to refresh his memory and he screamed again. “Paintin the hall! Jeezis, can't you see?”

I could see, all right, and even if I'd been blind, I could smell. I hated what both of those senses were telling me. The hallway wasn't supposed to be painted, especially not this glaring, lightreflecting white. It was supposed to be dim and shadowy; it was supposed to smell like dust and old memories. Whatever had started with the Demmicks” unaccustomed silence was getting worse all the time. I was mad as hell, as this unfortunate fellow was discovering. I was also scared, but that was a feeling you get good at hiding when carrying a heater in a clamshell holster is part of the way you make your living.

“Who sent you two dubs down here?”

“Our boss,” he said, looking at me as if I were crazy. “We work for Challis Custom Painters, on Van Nuys. The boss is Hap Corrigan. If you want to know who hired the cump'ny, you'll have to ask h…”

“It was the owner,” the other painter said quietly. “The owner of this building. A guy named Samuel Landry.”

I searched my memory, trying to put the name of Samuel Landry together with what I knew of the Fulwider Building and couldn't do it. In fact, I couldn't put the name of Samuel Landry together with anything... yet for all that it seemed almost to chime in my head, like a churchbell you can hear from miles away on a foggy morning.

“You're lying,” I said, but with no real force. I said it simply because it was something to say.