“Shtreckfooss,” said he, clicked his heels, and raised and lowered Reinhart’s hand once only before dropping it. He wore an ankle-length white laboratory coat and stood in the foreground of a room full of rectangular devices along with vessels of glass. But nothing revolved or whirred; there were no jacob’s ladders of electrical sparks, no scurrying troglodytes or other props of horror movies. However, the lab was rather cold, and Streckfuss had on a sweater beneath the gown, a currently fashionable one, in fact, with a turtleneck of wool around his skinny column of tendons. “Enchanté,” said he to Reinhart. To Sweet he said: “Alors?” Reinhart peered down at Streckfuss’ carrot nose, pitted cheeks, swarthy coloring, hectic, thick black hair, obsidian eyes which darted lizardlike up the fat bluff of Reinhart’s front, froze briefly on his Adam’s apple, and scampered down. “Were you ever in Berlin?” Reinhart asked. “Jamais.” Sweet explained: “Hans is fluent in English except when he’s very tired.”
