"Probably."
    "Doesn't look like it hurt," he observed; the corpse appeared quiet, as if he had died without pain, in his sleep.
    "The crime scene's already been cleaned up, this was two weeks ago. He was on the sixth floor, his window was open, but there's no easy egress or entrance. Of course, if we're dealing with some sort of supernatural killing, someone could have ghosted up through the floor for all we know. Here's a list of the theme villain robberies that have taken place over the last few weeks." He dropped the stack of papers on the table; it was a good two inches thick. "Most of them have been fairly petty."
    "The theme villains or the robberies?" Thunderbolt wanted to know.
    "The robberies. Roy McCoy keeps robbing sporting goods stores, for example. The Librarian and the Archivist keep going after rare book dealers, everyone has their own little niche. We managed to convince the Red Sox not to have the big 'come in costume as your favorite theme villain' thing."
    If they had, we would have let them deal with the consequences themselves.
    "And we don't know where Albert is," I sighed.
    "Does anybody read French?" Scott asked.
    "I do," Paul spoke up.
    "Why don't you check out his room. The guy takes notes."
    "Good idea."
    "I'm going to head to the office and start putting this up on the big board," the robot sighed, picking up the papers.
    I went out to patrol for a while, make sure people knew that we were back. There was a good bit of cheering, which is nicer than some of the alternatives.
    It was an inordinately boring day. Theme villains not being entirely stupid, they were undoubtedly aware that we were back and in a collective foul mood toward their ilk the likes of which the city had never seen.

[Aside: Others]

    Having patrolled for a while without incident and then talked to Thunderbolt, who filled me on what he'd found in Albert's notes, I headed over to the Agglomerated building to see if I could find anything there. Busy work, really. I just had this mental image of Albert striding in there, impeccable in coat and tails, to confront the man he thought was the Toy Man and then... what? Meeting something he hadn't expected to, apparently, but had it been the Toy Man or someone else?
    All I learned was that
    a) Their security guards aren't terribly bright—he thought I was on the payroll, and once he realized I wasn't it took a call to his boss to get me into the building,
    b) the security tapes from a week ago have already been overwritten, and
    c) Albert's assistant is hopelessly devoted to him. He had gone in to tape the show as usual, seemed quite pleased with himself, and left. No one had seen him leave the building, but it's very easy for Albert to be unseen by people if he doesn't want them to bother him.
    I headed back home to rest up and worry, certain that Halloween night would bring something for us to do.

[Aside: Others]

    Nor was I incorrect.
    "What's the emergency?" I answered the phone. It had been a spectacularly boring night so far, nothing much to do but wonder what the hell to do about Neil and worry about Albert.
    "Count Bastard and the five-man Jazz Trio along with the Postman have decided to come crash the party."
    "I should have foreseen this one, shouldn't I?"
    "I'm really starting to think that maybe he has dyslexia."
    "Something along those lines. I'll be right over. What's the situation like?"
    "Large party, rich people stuck in a building...."
    "I could have Neil blow out the windows or something."
    "Probably a bad idea."
    "What's going on?" Neil wanted to know as I flew over.
    "Somebody's robbing the Top of the Hub. Keep an eye on things out here. I really don't think this'll take too long."
    "I'll be waiting, then."
    Oh, God.

[Aside: Others]

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