enough, with a husband who'd employed him to spyon his adulterous wife, and had ended on the top storeyof the Lomax house with the world he thought he'dknown turning inside out. When the body-count wasdone, and the surviving priests dispatched, he was leftwith a fear of stairs, and more questions than he'd everanswer this side of the family plot. He took no pleasurein being reminded of those terrors.

'I don't like to talk about Brooklyn,' he said.

'Forgive me,' the woman replied, 'but I needsomebody who has experience with ... with theoccult.' She stopped speaking for a moment. He couldstill hear her breath down the line: soft, but erratic.

'I need you,' she said. He had already decided, in thatpause when only her fear had been audible, what replyhe would make.

Til come.'

'I'm grateful to you,' she said. 'The house is on East61st Street -' He scribbled down the details. Her lastwords were, 'Please hurry.' Then she put down thephone.

He made some calls, in the vain hope of placating twoof his more excitable clients, then pulled on his jacket,locked the office, and started downstairs. The landingand the lobby smelt pungent. As he reached the frontdoor he caught Chaplin, the janitor, emerging from thebasement.

'This place stinks,' he told the man.

'It's disinfectant.'

'It's cat's piss,' Harry said. 'Get something done aboutit, will you? I've got a reputation to protect.'

He left the man laughing.The brownstone on East 61st Street was in pristinecondition. He stood on the scrubbed step, sweaty andsour-breathed, and felt like a slob. The expression onthe face that met him when the door opened did nothingto dissuade him of that opinion.

'Yes?' it wanted to know.

'I'm Harry D'Amour,' he said. 'I got a call.'

The man nodded. 'You'd better come in,' he saidwithout enthusiasm.

It was cooler in than out; and sweeter. The place