He didn't have a moronic or particularly brutal looking face. Intelligence of a high order had given his features a cast you couldn't mistake. It was the kind of look that went with disciplined thinking--long years of it--and behavior that was based on intellectual discernment, however much that discernment had been abused during moments of uncontrollable rage. Uncontrollable rage, as every psychologist knows, can tie the reasoning part of any man's mind into knots. Everything that was primitive in him seemed to be at the helm now, as if he bore me so much ill-will that he might be capable of trying to take my life with just his bare hands, if he happened to be unarmed. And I was far from sure of that. His glacial gray eyes seemed to say: "I've got you exactly where I want you, chum. It won't do you any good to shout for help. It stands to reason that if I could get in here to talk to you at a time like this, throwing my weight around a little further would be no problem at all. Five minutes of privacy will suit me fine. After all, how long will killing you take?" He was a fairly big man, compactly built, with hands that looked strong enough to bend a steel bar, if he didn't mind chancing a rush of blood to the head that might have been a little risky in a man his age. I had no idea why he was sitting there, only that the alarm bells were ringing again. Only this time it wasn't taking place in a crowded subway train in total darkness, or up near the top of a swaying spiral where an assassin's aim could be a little less than sure. It was man to man, tete-a-tete, in a well-lighted hospital room. I was flat on my back and weak as hell and Death was looking straight at me out of ice-blue eyes. I had only one straw to clutch at. The hospital room might just possibly be under surveillance and an act of violence that's likely to boomerang can give an assassin pause. His first words ripped that straw from me and crumpled it up, with such vigor I was sure I could hear a crunching sound. "I've just a few questions to ask you," he said, in a surprisingly mild tone. "We've made sure that there are no recording devices in this room. We always make a careful check as a matter of routine, when we're forced to demand complete privacy during an interrogation of this sort. It's something we'd prefer not to do, but there are times--" He shrugged, as if he'd made the point clear enough and resented the necessity of making it any plainer.