hand up, let it hover over the control buttons.

The room was as silent as a room can ever be.

A buzzer suddenly bracked out. It was a loud, naked, startling sound. Like a bugle in an empty church. Henderson jerked. He gulped in a trembling breath, turned, nervously wet his lips. He went over to the outside front lock and pulled it open.

It was a black-haired woman who had wide, wild eyes. The woman was wearing a golden-colored modo-strap between dead white breasts. And in her hand she clutched a heat gun.

"Back it right in, Buster!" The woman's voice was harsh. "You're not the one I want, but right now I'm not too choosey."

Henderson swallowed. He took a few backward steps. Then a few more. He watched the woman's shoulder nudge the lock shut. He watched her come toward him.

"That's far enough. Where is he? Where's Artie Sterling?"

Henderson didn't say anything. The woman's skin. White. Prison white. He knew.

The woman saw the heat gun on the table. She smiled, not amused, and picked it up. That made two guns leveled at Henderson.

"What I couldn't do with these. All right, where is he?"

But he didn't answer. Adjustment is a method thing.

The woman rapped: "Look, I got the word. They said I'd find my husband with somebody's wife. Here. At 327 Residential. That jar your memory?"

It seemed to. Henderson said softly: "Your husband?"

"Yeah. Up here with a guy's wife. How do you like that? There ain't enough unmated kids around, he wants the married ones, too."

"He isn't here."

"Huh?" a little admiration lit up the woman's eyes. "Look, guy, you got guts. I'll hand you that. But tonight I ran across another who had guts too. You oughta see him now."

There was a silence then. You take away the sounds and there are always silences. And then:

"The guy's my husband, see? And once there was a time when I loved him. I loved him hard enough 

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