Larkin went down, the knife flying from his hand. Kintyre fell off and went in a heap. This wasn't judo, it wasn't anything; Trig would laugh himself sick if he could watch. But-- Kintyre rolled back. Larkin was climbing unsteadily to his feet. Kintyre pulled him down and got a choking hold from behind. He lay on Larkin's back, his legs and sheer weight controlling the body, one arm around the throat, hands gripping wrists. "Okay," he panted. "Squirm away. You'll just strangle yourself, you know." Larkin hissed an obscenity. He was lighter, but Kintyre could feel a hard vitality in him. No matter, he was held now. "Bartender," wheezed Kintyre. "Call the police--" Something landed on his head. It was like an explosion. For a moment he spiraled down toward night. He felt Larkin wriggle free, he groped mindlessly but his hands were empty and the world was blackness and great millstones. Then he was aware once more. Guido crouched beside him, shaken and sobbing, and pawed at his bleeding scalp with a handkerchief. "Oh, God, Doc, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Are you hurt?" Kintyre looked around. "Where'd Junior go?" he croaked. "Out the back door. Christ, Doc, I had to, you don't know what--Mary, Mother of God, forgive me, but--" Kintyre stood up, leaning on Guido. A small riot was developing among the clientele and the help. He ignored it, brushing someone aside without even looking. The singer's stool lay at his feet. Guido must have clobbered him with that. "Suppose you tell me why," he said. "I--Get out. Get out before the cops come. I'll cover for you--tell them I don't know who you are, you were a stranger and--Get out!" Guido pushed at him, still weeping. "I don't have anything to fear from them," said Kintyre. "It strikes me that maybe you do." "Maybe," whispered Guido. "Bruce died in a nasty way." "This isn't--nothing to do with--I swear it, Doc, so help me God I do. Think I'd ever--It's something else, for Christ's sake!" Guido spoke in a slurred muted scream. "It's not only the cops I'm scared of, Doc, it's the others. They'd kill me!" Kintyre studied him for a long second. After all, he thought, this was Bruce's brother. And Corinna's. "Okay," he said. "I promise you nothing. I, at least, will insist on knowing what this is all about. When I do, perhaps I'll decide the police ought to be told, and perhaps not. But for now, good night, Guido." He turned to go out the rear exit. Faintly through the main door, he heard approaching sirens, but there was time enough to get into a back alley and thence to his car. He realized, suddenly, with an unsurprised drowsy delight like the aftermath of love, that the horror had left him. When he continued his search for Larkin and for that more terrible thing which Larkin must represent, it would be from honor, because he was taking it on himself not to tell the police at once that there was a mansticker loose in their city. He would not be merely running from his private ghosts.