I needed one of Bernie's men. I needed him now. Before the cops got here.

How long would Max take to cover everything?

A tremor spread from the pit of my stomach into my chest and shoulders.

I'd caused Bernie's death. Indirectly, innocently, I'd brought him to this. On some level, I knew I wasn't responsible for it. But I took it personally anyway.

The door shifted hard as someone in a hurry put his shoulder to it. I only let it open a crack until I recognized a Hotel Security blazer and badge. Then I stood aside.

The man was relatively young, at least by the standard of hotel security guards, and he'd been running. But he looked tight with muscle, in good shape. Exertion flushed his cheeks, although he didn't pant. Below a crop of blond hair, his pale eyes hinted at frenzy against a background of bravado.

His nametag said, "Wisman."

"Axbrewder?" he demanded urgently.

"What the hell ? Where's Bernie?"

He shoved past me when he spotted Bernie's feet. I didn't try to stop him. Still guarding the door, I watched him reach the stall, then go rigid with shock and stumble backward until he hit the sinks.

"Christ," he groaned. For a couple of seconds, I thought he was going to puke. His bravado didn't cover this. As hotel security, his experience and training probably didn't extend past rousting drunks.

Violence like this wasn't in his job description.

I didn't give him a chance to think. I needed answers.

"Wisman." I made my voice hard to get his attention.

"Did Bernie carry a weapon?"

He turned eyes full of distress and confusion toward me. His mouth hung open.

"A weapon ?"

Poor kid. If I'd had time, I might've allowed him a few minutes to pull himself together. But the cops were on their way, and I had no patience for him.

"A weapon," I insisted.

"Protection. Something to fight with."

He gaped at me stupidly.

"Axbrewder, what're you ? Hotel regulations " If Security carried unauthorized weapons, and Watchdog didn't know about them, The Luxury might lose its coverage. The hotel would probably fire every guard in the place.

I heard a siren. It sounded distant, the wail of someone else's crime.

But too many walls muffled it. For all I knew, the cops had already reached the portico.

Without transition, the tremors took over. My knees and arms shook. I didn't have a stunned nerve left in my whole body.

"Listen to me." Striding straight for Wisman, I grabbed him by his lapels and hauled his face up to mine.

"I don't give a shit about hotel regulations. I'm not going to cause any trouble."

Abruptly I released his blazer and groped his back until I found what I was looking for a hard shape like a short stick with a handle at right angles near one end.

"You've got a tonfa, for God's sake." In case he needed it. In case a drunk turned ugly on him. Almost shouting, I demanded, "Did Bernie carry a weapon?"

He still didn't answer. Maybe he couldn't. I knew his secret now I could get him in serious trouble.

I took his arm and wrenched him forward until he stood over Bernie's body. I wanted to force him to his knees, make him face Bernie's murder nose-to-nose, but I didn't.

"That wasn't a knife." Even the back of a blade couldn't have smashed Bernie's throat that way, or scarred the walls.

"He was killed with some other weapon. Did he carry ?"

Wisman heaved against my grasp.

"A flik," he answered suddenly.

"It's a " "I know what a flik is."

Roughly I let him go.

A flik was a short steel rod like a baton, usually about eighteen inches long and an inch thick. Inside it held a tightly coiled steel spring. Very tightly coiled. With a small lump of steel on the end for weight. A release on the handle let the spring out. You swung it the way you would a flail. The flex of the spring and the added weight gave it the force of a cudgel.

Bernie should've been able to handle almost anyone with it. Even that heavyset goon.

Wisman retreated to the sink again. For a minute longer, his brain refused to function. Then he turned, ran some water, and splashed it on his face. When he'd toweled himself dry, some of the frenzy had left his eyes.

"As far as I know," he said hoarsely, "he never used it. The flik. The hotel doesn't need to know about it. The cops can figure it out for themselves."

Absently I muttered, "Let them think the killer brought it with him." I wasn't really listening.

"Why not?"

My tone must've warned him that I was thinking about things which hadn't occurred to him.

"Why does it matter?" he asked.

"Because," I told him, "it isn't here."

He didn't understand and I didn't explain.

Why did the killer take the flik? It wasn't his. He had good reason to leave it behind. If the cops caught him, he could tell them Bernie attacked him with it. He got his hands on it and hit back, accidentally killed Bernie in self-defense. Then panicked and ran.

Involuntary manslaughter, not murder.

Either he was too stupid to think that clearly. Or he didn't care what he was charged with.

Or he wanted the cops to know that Bernie had been murdered.

Before I could go any further, a couple of uniforms came through the door, and the men's room turned into an official crime scene.