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out of the room before Nose said something Sebastian didn't want to share with anyone—yet.
    "Ashtray?" Nose asked. He located a mangled pack of Camels in a sagging pocket over his left thigh, extracted a bent cigarette, and clamped it between his teeth.
    "Sebastian?" Zoya made as if to rush at Nose. Smoking wasn't part of her regimen for perfect bodies.
    "Leave this to me." Sebastian caught her arm and ushered her gently, but firmly from the room. He gave her his best attempt at a conspiratorial grimace, murmured, "Boyhood acquaintance. Good heart, but always a bit disturbed," and closed the door on her, "Oh!"
    Nose had lowered his scrawny frame into a black lacquer chair shaped like a tall, springy Z, with an apparently unsupported burgundy leather seat. With a grimy thumb, he produced a flame from his lighter and set fire to shreds of tobacco drizzling from his cigarette.
    Sebastian stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled to lean against the edge of his desk. "From now on you're someone I knew when I was a kid."
    Nose took a deep drag, exhaled slowly and squinted at Sebastian through the smoke. "Sure. Old buddies, right?"
    "Someone I knew when I was a kid. Vaguely. You heard I was back in the area and came looking for some sort of job."
    "Anything you say." The cigarette bobbed. "In other words, you don't want anyone to know about our business?"
    "Right."
    "Always fancied a nice office in a ritzy building like this."
    "Yeah. How—"
    "What're you offerin'? Need someone to take the place of that nancy boy out there?"
    Rolling in his lips, Sebastian contained a chuckle. "Sure. You'd fit right in. How are your keyboard skills?"

    Nose waggled his fingers. "Just turned down the Seattle Symphony." He removed the cigarette, flicked ash into the zen garden on the desk, and unbuttoned a big pocket on his right thigh. "Fve got most of what you're looking for." A brown envelope, bent in half, came into view.
    "Did you verify the answer to the big question?"
    " 'Course. That was the simple part. You already had it right."
    "I thought I did." And he'd made some giant decisions based on being almost sure he was right. "I wanted absolute verification." He couldn't go forward without being certain—and even now, even being certain, he still had to question why he was rushing toward the craziest, most impulsive move he'd ever made.
    Nose studied him impassively. "Your verification is here." He tapped the envelope, then held it out. "D'you know what you're messing around with here?"
    Did he? "Maybe. Maybe not. Why don't you tell me?" He took the envelope.
    "Powerful people."
    Mildly confused, Sebastian frowned. "I'm powerful people, too." Not that he saw the connection between powerful people and his business in Washington State.
    "These powerful people don't let anything get in their way." Nose sniffed, and ground the Camel out among the precisely placed rocks in the formerly perfectly raked sand in the zen garden. "Nothing ever proved, you understand. But from where I'm lookin' it begins to look like anyone who gets in their way takes a long hike."
    Sebastian crossed his feet and leaned toward the other man. "What are you talking about? What does ... Sorry, Nose, I think of myself as sharp, but you're leaving me in the dark here."
    "Ain't so difficult to understand. The person you're interested in has connections to people in high places. Those people in high places always get what they want. Maybe it don't matter, but seems to me that if you was to get in their way, or mess with

    something—or someone—of theirs, you might end up like some others have."
    "And how is that?" Sebastian asked softly.
    Nose's sad, brown eyes shifted beneath shaggy, dun-colored brows. "I dunno for sure. But I haven't been able to verify their recent whereabouts. Or any whereabouts at all."
    Small hairs rose along the length of Sebastian's spine. "I'm not paying you to have an imagination."
    "Imagination? Not me, old buddy—old vague acquaintance,