_The smile stayed fixed, but she shrugged. "So maybe the music we'd make together wouldn't exactly be Brahms. But it wouldn't be Guy Lombardo, either. You've got the rocks, but your client doesn't know a thing about that unless you tell her. I have ... other things. And I can be sweet when I want." She moved closer and planted an arm around his neck, leaning in to make herself comfortable. "I can be so sweet you almost couldn't stand it. Almost."_ _"So can a cyanide soda," Fleetwood said dully. "Sweet and final." He lifted her arm away from his neck, and it might have been a noose. He let it drop._ _When he went out the door her smile had got itself all bent._ * * * * * The hallways of the Grande Apartments were carpeted as thickly as the living quarters. It was the only place in town where you could sneak up on someone at a dead trot. Fleetwood plushed along in the direction of the elevators. He was nearly there, just abreast of a drinking fountain, when it hit him, just like it had those other times before. He stopped and reached out a hand to steady himself against the fountain. In a moment his head began to clear a little and he straightened, running a lean, trembling hand through his carrot-colored hair. Even so he clung to the fountain a bit longer and when he finally let go it was only to free his hand so he could check his pulse. The attacks were coming closer together now, he reflected. But so were the events which usually led up to them--the incidents of violence, the sight of blood. It was crazy, a sort of general softening and mellowing, the kind of thing that makes you bait for the boys with the cushiony couches and the expensive ears. It was downright absurd. He had to get hold of himself. He searched his mind warily for his own thoughts, as an agent might search for saboteurs. He looked for those innermost stirrings of the soul, the ones that breathe of fear and anxiety. But there was nothing. And that was crazy too. It was as though he'd never had a thought in his life, or even an experience from which to draw a thought. It was like amnesia, and yet it wasn't amnesia at all. He knew that he was Fleetwood Cassidy and he knew that he was a private investigator who worked independently. But that was where he ran into the wall. But the really frightening part of it was the veiled feeling that even if he should manage to scale the wall and look behind it, he'd find--exactly nothing!