"You knew this man?"
"Once," Stan said slowly. "A long, long time ago."
He turned and walked up the street.
"Hey, you can't go! We need your help for questioning!"
He had more important business, Stan thought. With Mr. Ainsworth and Mr. Malcolm.
And his fellow renegade, Tanner.
Avis was waiting for him in the alley, standing in the shadows by the circle of whirling black. Her face wasn't the collection of hard planes and angles it usually was and he realized dimly there was a beauty about her he had never appreciated before. A beauty and a certain sympathy....
He stood helplessly and looked at her. There was nothing he could say.
There was nothing to say. He had betrayed his world and she knew it.