on_

so that the high arm of the sofa supported him. Only then did he realize that under the blanket they’d thrown over his legs he wore only underwear; his pants and shoes were gone. “Hey!”
The moon-faced doctor grinned. “Sorry, son. Had to tend your wound. Your breeches were a loss, torn and bloody.” He reached down behind his chair, where a pair of gray trousers lay folded across an old-fashioned doctor’s bag. He handed the pants over to Harris. “Try these.”
“Thanks.” Harris hurriedly pulled the trousers on, barely glancing at the white bandage wrapped around his thigh. His injury wasn’t giving him much trouble; the doctor must have given him something for the pain. “Okay. Where am I?”
“The Monarch Building, up ninety. I am Alastair Kornbock. I hear you have already met Jean-Pierre Lamignac and Noriko Nomura; formal introductions are probably moot.”
Jean-Pierre picked up something from his lap, a wallet, which he flipped open. “Is your name Harris Greene?”
“Yeah. Hey, that’s my wallet.” Harris tried to stand, but weariness tugged at him and he thought better of it.
“Yes, it appears to be.” Jean-Pierre flipped it shut and negligently tossed it to Harris. “I gather from the way you defended yourself that you really weren’t trying to harm yourself on the bridge. So what injured you?”
Harris actually felt himself flinch away from the memory of Adonis. “You’d never believe it.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“No, you tell me. Tell me what the hell is going on. What all this crap is about Neckerdam. What happened to the Brooklyn Bridge. The streets. The cars, for Christ’s sake. Barefoot truck drivers and dwarfs who’ve filed their teeth. Because, believe me, I was knocking down some pretty