"Those were some shitty directions you left for me."

Apparently I wasn't the only one who'd been left. Since any information I produced now was bound to be worse, I forced myself to my feet and handed the phone to Sternway.

"Tell him where we are."

Some of the dead patches along my ribs contracted. Others spread out like oil spills.

Through the obscurity, Sternway's shape gave off the charged impression of a man with something important to say, but he didn't hesitate. He identified himself to the phone, said a few things that must've made sense to Moy. By the time he hung up, I could see red and blue lights strobing on the sides of the buildings.

The detective had been that close If I hadn't given him shitty directions, he might've been able to rescue me.

That was usually Ginny's job.

The ringing took on a vague resemblance to music. I thought I recognized the animal husbandry section from Handel's Messiah. All we like sheep.

Sternway poked the phone at me.

"Axbrewder," he said again.

"We need to talk."

Vaguely I accepted the phone, put it away.

"About?"

"I backed you up." He pitched his voice so that it wouldn't carry.

"Now it's your turn. Don't say anything about the club."

I stared at him past a shroud of darkness. For a moment I couldn't think of a response. He wanted to protect his peculiar taste in recreation I understood that but the distortion of his priorities confused me anyway.

Boy, do we like sheep.

Finally I murmured, "Ask me something I can do. Moy needs to know.

Now, tonight. He has to trace Hardshorn. Get his real name, find out where he lives, where he works, who his friends are, anything."

Otherwise the link to Bernie's killer would vanish forever.

"That means he needs to question people right away."

Behind us, car doors slammed. Guided by flashlights, three men headed into the alley. They didn't appear to be hurrying.

"I saved your life," Sternway insisted.

What the fuck are you doing?

I nodded at the gloom.

"And I owe you. But I need Moy. I can't handle all this alone."

Despite the groaning protests of my ribs and arms, I braced myself to interfere if he tried to leave. I knew I couldn't stop him, but I intended to make an issue out of it nonetheless.

Fortunately he didn't move.

A minute later, the flashlights came around the end of the Dumpster.

Edgar Moy and a couple of CPD uniforms incarnated themselves out of the shadows. The street cops weren't familiar to me, but Moy seemed unchanged, trench coat and all. Languidly he held his flashlight so that we could see his face, with its pencil-stroke mustache, nerveless cheeks, and sour eyes. The grey in his hair made him look like he'd just emerged from a dustbin.

"Axbrewder." He sounded too far away to do me any good.

"Mr. Sternway." Then he aimed his flashlight at the pavement.

"Who's the corpse?"

I told him. Gradually the ringing in my ears lost its weird resemblance to music. Now it sounded more like a drill bit running too hot.

I missed the sheep.

"Isn't that a coincidence," he observed rhetorically.

"Two days ago he kills a security guard at The Luxury, and already you've tracked him down." His skepticism had all the subtlety of an interrogation with a rubber hose.

"Even though it's none of your business.

"Which one of you heroes whacked him?"

Sternway donned his regalia, in a manner of speaking HRH complete with pomp and circumstance.

"It wasn't like that, Sergeant," he answered stiffly.

"Axbrewder recognized him inside." He indicated the door to the club.

"We didn't want to lose him, so we followed him when he left. He attacked Axbrewder suddenly. Axbrewder fell, and I joined the struggle. While we fought, I struck him in the throat. His larynx was crushed.

"I didn't expect that. I've seen him fight before. I had no idea of beating him. I simply hoped to stay alive until help arrived."

With imperial ease, he made his explanation sound like a complaint against the cops, as if Hardshorn might somehow still be alive if Moy had done his job properly.

The uniforms put on a show of inspecting the body probably just staying out of Moy's way. Then one of them wandered back to the cruiser to call in the lab boys and photogs. The other studied the nooks and corners of the alley for no apparent reason.

Moy turned his head toward me at a quizzical angle.

"That right, Axbrewder?"

I nodded.

"Justifiable manslaughter." I tried not to sound bitter.

"I couldn't handle him. I'd be dead now if Mr. Sternway hadn't jumped in."