Sleep proved as elusive as expected, so the two hours in his rooming house mainly involved staring at the crack in the ceiling and wondering how long it was going to take before the bed in the more or less identical room above him fell through and crushed him. He hoped to have moved by then, but he had been hoping to move since before the crack first appeared. At a minute past midday Vergil arrived on Haverhill Street and made a beeline for the piano store. He pretended to look inside the dusty old place, but he was really letting his other senses do their job. He could hear jazz. The speakeasy was open for business. There was a slotted door down a side alley and it only took one rap with his knuckles before the cover was pulled aside and he had to suffer the scrutiny of the lowlife on gua
