Kurt gave him a sideways look. "It's weird, okay? The kid who saw it is never all that reliable, and he likes to embellish." "Okay," Alan said. The crowd was pushing around them now, trying to get past. The dry-goods lady sucked her teeth in annoyance. "So this kid, he was smoking a joint in the park last night, really late, after the clubs shut down. He was alone, and he saw what he thought was a dog dragging a garbage bag down the steps of your house." "Yes?" "So he went over to take a look, and he saw that it was too big to be a garbage bag, and the dog, it looked sick, it moved wrong. He took another step closer and he must have triggered a motion sensor because the porch light switched on. He says..." "What?" "He's not very reliable. He says it wasn't a dog, he said it was like a dried-out mummy or something, and it had its teeth sunk into the neck of this big, fat, naked guy, and it was dragging the fat guy out into the street. When the light came on, though, it gave the fat guy's neck a hard shake, then let go and turned on this kid, walking toward him on stumpy little feet. He says it made a kind of growling noise and lifted up its hand like it was going to slap the kid, and the kid screamed and ran off. When he got to Dundas, he turned around and saw the fat guy get dragged into an alley between two of the stores on Augusta." "I see," Alan said. "It's stupid, I know," Kurt said. Natalie and Link rounded the corner, carrying slices of pizza from Pizzabilities, mounded high with eggplant and cauliflower and other toppings that were never intended for use in connection with pizza. They startled on seeing Alan and Kurt, then started to walk away. "Wait," Alan called. "Natalie, Link, wait." He smiled apologetically at Kurt. "My neighbors," he said. Natalie and Link had stopped and turned around. Alan and Kurt walked to them. "Natalie, Link, this is Kurt," he said. They shook hands all around. "I wanted to apologize," Alan said. "I didn't mean to put you between Krishna and me. It was very unfair." Natalie smiled warily. Link lit a cigarette with a great show of indifference. "It's all right," Natalie said. "No, it's not," Alan said. "I was distraught, but that's no excuse. We're going to be neighbors for a long time, and there's no sense in our not getting along." "Really, it's okay," Natalie said. "Yeah, fine," Link said. "Three of my brothers have gone missing," Alan said. "That's why I was so upset. One disappeared a couple of weeks ago, another last night, and one this morning. Krishna..." He thought for a moment. "He taunted me about it. I really wanted to find out what he saw." Kurt shook his head. "Your brother went missing last night?" "From my house." "So what the kid saw..." Alan turned to Natalie. "A friend of Kurt's was in the park last night. He says he saw my brother being carried off." Kurt shook his head. "Your brother?"