Chicago, February 1938 WHEN I set the brake and cut the motor, the dead man in the backseat of my Nash shifted, groaned, and straightened up to look around. He suppressed a cough, arms locked against his bloodstained chest as though to keep it from coming apart. "You okay?" I asked. "Peachy." His voice rasped hollow and hoarse. He was lying, but that's what you do when you feel like hell and don't want to give in to it. His name was Whitey Kroun. He was a big bad gang boss out of New York who had come to town to oversee my execution. That hadn't worked out very well. He'd taken a bullet through the chest only a couple hours earlier and should be healing faster. He needed blood and a day's rest on his home earth, but that would have to wait; I had one more thing to do before either of us could have a break. "What's this?" His dark eyes were bleary with fatigue and pain. We were in a parking lot close to the hospital. "I gotta see a man about a dog." He grunted and pushed up his coat sleeve to squint at his watch. The crystal was gone, and the exposed hands swung loose over the numbers. "Well, it's half past, better get a move on." I slammed out of the car and hurried toward the hospital entrance. The streets weren't