now on stay the hell away from me. I don't like you and I don't like the way you do things." He moved toward the door. Kittrell, lounging across it, obstructed his path—just enough to stop him.

"Where're you going?" the bigger man asked.

"To report this," Mac snapped. "You'll get out of it all right."

"Don't report it."

"Why not?"

Kittrell grimaced distastefully. "Too much red tape. What the devil, who'll know we were here?"

Mac snorted and filled his lungs preparatory to telling Kittrell just what he thought of him. There was a sweetish, balsam-like taste to the air, like the smell of a fir forest.

Or like the smell of narcophene.

He had picked up the knife; still had it in his hands. While he was still figuring things out, his hand swept up with the knife still in it, pressed against Kittrell's abdomen. Kittrell's draw had been fast. Maybe he was naturally gun-slick—fast enough, maybe, for a lightning draw like that to be natural to him. Maybe he was, but maybe he was just burning up the years of his life twice as fast as normal under the influence of the drug.

"If you don't want your gut slit, Kittrell, keep your hands where they are!" Mac grated, his voice suddenly gone flat and hard.

Kittrell's hand had fluttered toward his shoulder holster; it stopped as Mac spoke.

"I don't know whether you're really Kittrell or not—probably you are," Mac muttered. "But if you're in TPL now, you'll be out pretty soon. As soon as I tell them you're a hophead."

Kittrell's face had gone white. Other than that there was no change as his bleak eyes bored steadily into MacCauley's. "What are you talking about?" he said evenly. "Take that thing out of my stomach."

"Oh, no!" Mac shook his head decisively. "You killed one of my witnesses; you'll take his place. You're going to tell me how to find the guy that sells you the narcophene."

"Sorry," said Kittrell, tautening still more, "but I can't." At the last possible second his eyes flicked behind and over Mac's shoulder.

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