I hurried along a corridor, made a turn and hurried along another. I didn’t recall the geography of the place from when the little lady had escorted me in, but it didn’t matter. When you’re escaping from a dead man with a gun, all roads lead to safety. I was puzzling over that paradox as I narrowly evaded a wheeled cart piled with mysterious-looking equipment. He couldn’t be dead or he wouldn’t be chasing me. But he was chasing me—ergo, he couldn’t be dead. But I had seen him dead and Lieutenant Delancey had confirmed it. … Was the lieutenant playing some devious game? The thought brought to mind recollections of a Charlie Chan movie in which the Honolulu detective had an actor impersonate a murder victim so as to get the murderer to confess. No, I decided. That didn’t sound like Delancey’s style. He just wasn’t the Charlie Chan type. On the other hand, there was more to him than met the eye. Pay attention to getting out of here, I told myself. REFRESHMENT CENTER, said a large sign, and a group of men and women clustered around several vending machines.
