The Key to Midnight

license, or any other identification, and the absence of ID told him almost as much as he could hope to learn: He was dealing with a cautious professional.
        The guy was carrying a gun: a Japanese-made 9mm automatic with a sound suppressor. It was in his right overcoat pocket, which was much deeper than the left pocket. Evidently he carried the pistol so routinely that he had modified his wardrobe to accommodate it. He also had a spare magazine of ammunition.
        Alex propped him against a wall on one side of the alleyway. The gunman sat where he was placed, hands at his sides, palms turned up. His chin rested on his chest.
        After retrieving his soiled topcoat, Alex slipped it on, not just cape style this time. The knife wounds flared with pain as he eased his bandaged left arm into the coat sleeve.
        By now a thin, icy lace of snow covered the unconscious man's hair. In his battered condition, with the snowflake mantilla, he looked like a pathetic yet determinedly jaunty drunk who was trying to get laughs by wearing a doily on his head.
        Alex stooped beside him and slapped his face a couple of times to bring him around.
        The gunman stirred, opened his eyes, and blinked stupidly. Comprehension came gradually to him.
        Alex pointed the pistol at the guy's heart. When he was sure that his captive was no longer disoriented, he said, 'I have a few questions.'
        'Go to hell,' the guy said in Japanese.
        Alex spoke in the same language. 'Why were you following me?'
        'I wasn't.'
        'You think I'm a fool?'
        'Yes.'
        Alex poked him hard in the stomach with the gun, then again.
        Wincing, the stranger said, 'I was going to rob you.'
        'No. Nothing that simple. Someone ordered you to watch me.'
        The man said nothing.
        'Who's your boss?' Alex asked.
        'I'm my own boss.'
        'Don't lie.' Alex poked him hard with the gun once more.
        The stranger gasped in pain, glared at him, but didn't respond.
        Although Alex was incapable of using physical abuse to extract information, he was willing to engage in light psychological torture. He put the cold muzzle of the weapon against the man's left eye.
        With his right eye, the stranger stared back unwaveringly. He didn't appear to be intimidated.
        'Who's your boss?' Alex asked.
        No response.
        'One round, through the brain.'
        The stranger remained silent.
        'I'll do it,' Alex said quietly.
        'You're not a killer.'
        'Is that what they told you?' Alex pressed the muzzle against the guy's left eye just hard enough to hurt him.
        The wind fluted through the clusters of trash barrels, playing them as though they were organ pipes, producing a crude, hollow, ululant, unearthly music.
        Finally Alex sighed and rose to his feet. Staring down at the stranger, still training the gun on him, he said, 'Tell your bosses I'll get to the truth one way or another. If they want to save me time, if they want to cooperate, maybe I'll keep my mouth shut when I know what this is all about.'
        The gaunt man virtually spat out his response: 'You're dead.'
        'We're all dead sooner or later.'
        'In your case, sooner.'
        'I'm not going to drop this case. I'm going to be a bulldog. Tell them that,' Alex said. 'You people don't scare me.'
        'We haven't tried yet.'
        Still holding the pistol, Alex backed off. When he and the stranger were separated by twenty yards of pavement, he turned and walked away.
        At the end of the alley, when Alex glanced back, the gaunt man had vanished into the gloom and the snow.
        Alex rounded the corner and walked swiftly through the Gion maze toward more major thoroughfares.
        The blackness above the city seemed to be something other than an ordinary night sky, something worse, an astronomical oddity that bled all the heat from the world below, that sucked away the light as well, until even the dazzling spectacle of the Gion dimmed to a somber glow, until every bright-yellow bulb began to radiate a thin and sour aura, until red neon darkened to the muddy maroon of cold, coagulating blood.
        The late-autumn chill pierced him and scraped like a steel scalpel along his bones.
        It was not a night for sleeping alone, but the bed that awaited him would be empty, the sheets as crisp and cool as