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I no longer sensed that alternate base shut, one a fraction of a second after the other, the former softer than the latter

When I turned to Mr Hitchcock, I found that he atchingmy reaction to what had just happened, he raised his eyebrows

Although I am not an important person by any definition, at that moment I almost felt like one In spite of my paranormal ability, I ales to fry hen he has a job and, if possible, at all tiht of all those ated to fulfill his directorial expectations, to answer his raised eyebroith a reh to be delivered by Cary Grant

Instead, I said, "Uh …… see … you know … the thing is … I don’t understand Where were those twothat happened here earlier? Or so that’ll happen in the future?"

He shook his head and then tapped the face of his atch with one finger, perhaps to indicate that the time in both basements was the same, that what I’d seen had happened just now Orhis life and felt a duty to sell the brand even after death

"Sir, I’ his face, with an expression of amazement, Mr Hitchcock ! Iars belief!

If he’d been Quentin Tarantino or Oliver Stone, I ht have been a bit offended--or even alarmed by the possibility of mindless violence--but in his day he’d been known for his unexpected clowning and practical jokes His friend, the actor Gerald du Maurier, had been appearing in a play at St Ja a perforrown horse into the star’s dressing roo it happen When du Maurier returned at the end of the play, he found the huge ani

Now the director turned frolided across the basement as if he wore ice skates and the floor were a frozen pond, and I had to hurry to keep up with hih a heavy fire door, which I yanked open in his wake, wondering if this ht be the door that I had heard crash shut twice in quick succession when the see-through cowboy had departed the other basement or this basement, or both

Witha drab corridor to a pair of elevators--the sht--where Mr Hitchcock stood As I arrived, a bell sounded, the first set of doors slid open, he stepped into the waiting car, and I followed him

Even if I’d been able by then to come up with a line worthy of Cary Grant, before I could have delivered it, the director soared through the roof of the elevator and disappeared I had never known a ghost to be this exuberant, this frolicsoht in his supernatural abilities flu out of the elevator into the hallway lined with shops on the ht, standing by the service-h and waved atthe dozen or so truck drivers currently entering and leaving the building

As I approached, he winked out of existence--and then reappeared on the far side of the glass doors of theMr Hitchcock, I sensed the cowboy nearby, although he was nowhere in sight Then I saw the ProStar+ receding along the exit lanes frohway

The roar of a nearer engine followed by the shrill squealing of brakes startled me backward The superstretch Mercedes li-rubber stop in front of me

He couldn’t have been roadkill, of course, because he lacked h the openin the driver’s door, Mrs Edie Fischer said, "Hurry, child, or wedisappeared into the underpass beneath the highway

I darted around the car, clilanced through the open privacy panel into the passenger compartment "Where is he?"

Of course Mrs Fischer didn’t know that I was looking for Mr Hitchcock, who I thought e

Perched on her booster pillow, barely able to see over the steering wheel, piloting the immense car around the service islands, she said, "You called him a flamboyant rhinestone cowboy, but I saw him, and there’s no honest honky-tonk in that man He’s flam with none of the buoyant All deceit, lies, trickery Planning murder, is he? Child, you need to take him down"

"I knocked him flat with apples--Red Delicious, Granny Suns, I probably need one"

Indicating the purse on the seat between us, she said, "Take the pistol I showed you earlier"

"I don’t want to get you in trouble"

"Sweetie, that gun’s even harder to trace than apples"

I didn’t feel that it was proper to open her purse, even though she invited me to do so Besides, I didn’t have an i, ere only followingto shoot out his tires or leap fro limo to the driver’s door of the truck I’ one of the exit lanes, Mrs Fischer accelerated toward the underpass "Belt up," she advised

By this point, I knew her well enough to take such advice without hesitation

Co the curved on-rahway, she rapidly accelerated, as if the laws of physics did not apply to her If we’d been in an SUV or an ordinary car, we ht have rolled off the roadway at the apex of the arc The liravity, and we rocketed to the top of the ran, Mrs Fischer pressed great blasts of sound froht be approaching froht-hand lane The lieted ProStar+

"Take it easy," I warned "We don’t want to catch hi to murder three people He has to be stopped"

"We’ll stop hi, what he’s up to He’s not in this alone That reuy come out of the truck stop with hiered on the last word, as though the sound of it enchanted her

"I don’t knohat it is This other guy--he’s wearing jeans and a black-leather jacket Lizard-lid eyes, stocky, looks like he was into one of those martial arts where he broke cement blocks with his face but sometimes the block won"

"This is rinned broadly, and her adorable diht have lived in the eased up on the accelerator, she said, "So we’ll just stay far back and keep the truck in sight--is that it?"