I

Lieutenant Detective Innis Garris at Homicide, Precinct 20, was sitting in a McDonalds and eating lunch when his phone rang.

"We just found the remains of a dismembered corpse, sir," said police sergeant Bolland over the phone.

"Where?" Garris sipped the last of his mug of coffee, and chewed up his second Filet'O Fish.

"A large chunk of human skin floated ashore in Sanford Bay. Completely skinned, sir. I found it on my morning patrol. Excuse me..." Garris heard him choke, as if he were about to throw up. "It was a man, sir. And the skin is tattooed... looks like a gang tattoo, but not like any I've seen before."

Garris drew a breath. The gangs had more or less stayed out of the 20th precinct since the 1970s, but a spectacular murder like this could mean they were coming back.

"Don't mention the tattoo to the media, and deliver the remains to the lab as discreetly as possible."

"That's easy - I can roll up the skin and put it in a bag."

"Good. I'll meet you in the lab in..." He looked at his food tray and the open newspaper on the table. "Thirty minutes."

Only in the movies are cops stupid enough to leave their lunch untouched as soon as a corpse turns up, thought Garris and ordered another mug.

He was a stocky, bull-necked middle-aged man with big hands and short-cropped greying hair. His eyes had a restless, shifting quality - an old habit from 20 years' service in the city's strangest police district. Garris had grown accustomed to seeing the unexpected and unlikely in the most everyday circumstances and settings.

Still he would not allow himself to get excited or ambitious over the bizarre crime cases that occurred in the 20th precinct. Once he had been ambitious - eager to gain publicity and promotion - and because of his vanity, an innocent had died.

After that Garris had lost the thrill of the job. Now it was, first and foremost, penance.

***

The police lab of the 20th shared offices with Antonioni University, and physician students from the medical faculty often came to visit. This early afternoon, a dozen youngsters in white coats stood watching as the pathologists examined the remains that Bolland had brought in.

Garris stepped into the room and waved at the sergeant to come over.

"You should've told the students to stay away," he whispered.

One of the youngsters held up a mobile phone camera and approached the examination table to take a picture. Bolland turned his head in a squirming manner; he had a hard time being rude to others.

Garris did not have that problem. He rushed the student, snatched the phone and put it in the student's coat pocket.

"No photos. You're disrupting a criminal investigation. Out! Out!"

Bolland gently led the students outside, while they made loud protests and called Garris a fascist, Nazi, red-stater and despoiler of the Constitution.

"Did they get to see the tattoo on the corpse's arm?" he asked the chief pathologist, Dr. Schmidt.

"No, I turned the remains on its, uh... stomach. Not that I found a stomach. Never saw anyone so perfectly skinned, Garris. There should be an incision, but I haven't found a single one."

Schmidt turned the remains over, exposing the front.

The skin which had once covered a man's face and head lay spread out on the table like a mask - a mask with a stubble, long matted hair, ears and sideburns. Its mouth was open in an obscene "O". One could almost believe the victim had died with a screaming, widely stretched mouth.

Garris searched for cuts in the skin. One detail struck him: there were several small holes in the earlobes, nostrils and around the lips - typical piercing marks - but there were no rings there, no metal objects. And he saw no sign of injuries around the holes. It was as if the man had been carrying around a great number of piercing-rings... which had suddenly disappeared.

"What about that?" Garris pointed out a dark line along the wrinkled empty cover that had belonged to a human arm.

"An old scar, probably from a knife wound," said Schmidt. "He led a violent life, whoever he was." Schmidt smiled a little. "He was circumcised. Not for religious reasons, he doesn't look to be the orthodox type. Circumcision's become a cosmetic fad, you know. It implies that he was an American." The pathologist sniffed the remains. "I think he smoked pot."

"But you could take his fingerprints? Is he in the files?"

Schmidt's assistant held up what resembled a dirtied, thin rubber glove. The tips looked knotted and singed. "The killer or killers dipped the victim's fingers in acid, apparently to ensure that he couldn't be traced."

Garris frowned. The room reeked of formaldehyde, but from long experience he had grown used to it. "I was wrong. If it had been a gang murder, the perps would've wanted the victim identified as a message to his gang. I assume the man was dead before he got skinned."

Schmidt took off his glasses and sprayed them with a bottle of blue window-cleaning fluid. He seemed reluctant to answer.

"But how long has the, uh, skin...been lying in the water?" the detective asked.

"Few hours, at most. What with all the boat propellers and fish in the water, it must've been dumped in the morning. I'd advise you to send out dogs to sniff out the rest of the body.

"Of course," Garris said, and felt embarrassed for not having thought of it already. "See if you can find traces of poisons or other substances in the skin. The perps must've treated it with chemicals to get it so flesh-free. Maybe we can trace them back to the manufacturer. And we need a photo of the tattoo."

Bolland leaned over the table and took a snapshot with his mobile-phone camera. "I'll e-mail it to the precinct right away, sir. Melvin can run it through the gang register in no time."

Garris and Bolland went back to their cars.

"I ought to get one of those phone cameras," said Garris. "Can I see the photo?"

On the phone screen, the yellowish skin appeared like a flabby cloth on which was drawn an intricate emblem in blue-black ink: headless snakes slithering around a cube, and small signs at each corner.

When Bolland saw Garris squint, he showed how one could zoom in on the image. Now the signs became legible: Roman letters, one on each of the seven corners in the cube drawing.

First, Garris read them from the upper left corner: "L... A... B... U... K... R..." Then he read from the uppermost corner, and continued underneath: "A... L... Albukra."

He got goose-bumps on his skin and felt a cold shiver. "Remember Lippincott, who disappeared last summer? He'd been questioning that witchdoctor who moved in, about something with that particular name. We never found his body."

The sergeant, who rarely showed surprise, did so now. "Is it him who...?

"No, no... an academic like Lippincott wouldn't go around with pierced ears, nose and lips. Ask the precinct to send dogs to the site where the corpse... the skin was found. We're going to Ratboro and question that witchdoctor... what's his name?"

"Ngolo, sir."

Garris parked his car at the police station, and Bolland drove him to Ratboro.

II

Ngolo and family had turned The Voodoo Inn & Hotel into their private residence in the slum blocks. Crime in Ratboro had not increased since they moved in, but a few people had disappeared. The Immigration Bureau was still investigating Mr. Ngolo's political-refugee status, and Garris suspected that Ngolo had made himself a local gang boss.

So far, the Narcotics squad had failed to prove that Ngolo was dealing, but everyone at the 20th precinct were convinced that Ngolo made shady deals to allow him to live in a half-bad hotel and drive a new Cadillac.

Mr. Ngolo, a paunchy man with a broad dark face, sat in the hotel and played cards with one of his sons when Garris and Bolland walked in. He was dressed in a garish polyester suit and was smoking a pipe with unknown contents. Garris couldn't place the incense-like scent, but it smelled neither like pot nor hashish. The cards on the table were laid out as if for a game of solitaire.

With his gaze fixed on the cards Ngolo said: "Detective Garris?" His young son stared at the policemen. Ngolo smacked the boy's fingers and spoke to him in Swahili; the boy ran away. "Please sit down."

Garris borrowed Bollands phone and asked to look around in the lobby, while he sat down in the armchair facing Ngolo.

"What is the meaning of this tattoo?"

Ngolo received the cell-phone and studied the photo on the screen intensely. He muttered something in a language that wasn't Swahili and looked Garris in the eyes.

"Where did you find it?"

"On the skin of a dead man, floating in the bay this morning. Skinned alive, apparently. We only found the skin. The letters on the tattoo, 'Albukra'... you've come across that word before, haven't you?"

Ngolo paled. "I implore you. Do not say the name."

Garris was still mad at Ngolo for refusing to help solving the disappearance of Jonathan Lippincott - which seemed to have occurred in the hotel after Ngolo and family might have been in contact with Lippincott. He didn't know what to think about Ngolo's attempts to appear mysterious and superstitious. It struck him now, that the only way to know for sure was to test Ngolo.

He pulled in air and chanted in a loud voice: "Albukra, Albukra, Albukra, Albukra..."

"Garris, I beg you" Ngolo grabbed a feathered stick and drew circles in the air. "You don't know what you're doing!"

"Will you help me find the one who murdered and skinned the victim? Yes or no? I don't know many occult activities in my district, so I must ask the expert. Start talking, or I'll continue. Albu-"

"No!" Great sweat stains had grown on Ngolo's suit. He lowered his voice. "Listen... I came to your part of the city precisely because here is a strong presence of... what used to be called 'evil spirits' or 'ghosts'. An unusual amount of disappearances, you know? Crimes without understandable motives or rational explanations, yes? Of course you don't believe me, but I am here to contain the evil, not to spread it."

"Is this a ritual murder?" asked Garris and held up the photo. "A human sacrifice? Yes or no?"

Ngolo studied it for another few seconds. "Yes. Not my doing, but a kind of sacrifice."

"Where? Who?"

"I don't know. There has to be others in the city who... are involved in occult ceremonies."

"Why was the victim skinned? Have you seen similar rituals before, in your home country?"

"America is my home country now. I can't return."

Garris chose not to raise his voice. He looked Ngolo in the eyes without trying to act threatening, and repeated the question. Ngolo grasped his magic stick with both hands as he talked.

"The people who lived here before the Europeans drove them away, when this land was made up of fields, forests and swamps, they spoke of a place underground... a cave or pit called 'the tent with no walls.' If one went inside it, one could make physical contact with the evil spirits who existed outside the physical world.

"But doing so would cause a horrible death: the spirits sucked out one's life force and left behind an empty hide. So the Indians built a wall around 'the tent with no walls' and planted trees above the place, so that it would never be found again.

"Later, a city was built over the place. But somewhere beneath our feet, 'the tent with no walls' is still there.

Ngolo drew something on a piece of paper and showed it to Garris: a cube wrapped in snake-like, headless forms - just like the tattoo but without the letters. "An old North American shaman showed me this symbol, and warned me that it represents an ancient evil - older than man. If I should come upon the symbol, he said, it is either a warning - that the 'tent' is near - or a mark used by those who worship the evil spirits, who give sacrifice to the spirits in return for favors. The man with the tattoo was such a worshipper, and what killed him was 'the tent with no walls'."

"If you know so much about this, why shouldn't I suspect you of being involved in the ritual murder? I haven't forgotten Lippincott."

"Everyone who fights evil gets soiled by it, Mr. Garris." Ngolo took a puff from his pipe and made a regretful face. "Just by telling you this, I'm placing you and your colleagues in danger. If you try to arrest the evil men, you must make special precautions. Never enter 'the open tent', no matter how harmless it may seem. Do not touch unknown symbols or the people who carry them. There are poisons they know and use. Also the famous zombie poison which turns the victim into the walking dead. Wear gloves." He gave a crooked smile. "But bullets kill them just like anybody else."

Ngolo moved the drawing to his pipe. The paper caught fire and he dropped it in the ashtray on the table.

Garris felt exhausted and confused by Ngolo's talk. He rose from the armchair with an effort and picked up the phone.

"So where should I look for the man whose skin we found?"

Ngolo wiped sweat from his brow and gazed down at his playing-cards with an absent-minded expression. "Start with men who work underground. They could have found 'the tent with no walls' and told others."

"There is no subway here."

"There are always tunnels. Remember: gloves!"

"Thanks for your help. Don't leave town. I'm sure I'll have more questions for you later."

Garris immediately went for the exit. Bolland followed.

"Nothing here, sir. Only people."

Bolland's phone rang in Garris's coat pocket, and he gave it back.

The sergeant took the call, hummed and nodded, and tucked it into his jacket. Outside, spring had finally arrived and the last remains of snow were melting away in the alleys and corners. Old garbage bags had begun to smell again.

"It was Schmidt," Bolland said. "They couldn't ID the tattoo, but the killer missed one finger when he poured on acid. The victim's prints are in the police files."

They went into the patrol car and switched on the portable computer terminal. Bolland typed in the name he had received, and large amounts of personal data appeared on the flat screen:

Richard Genges, born 1972, previously sentenced for assault and possession of narcotics. His last known employer was a private construction company, Bromberg PipeCo, specializing in sewer and tunnel repair.

Garris asked: "Wasn't there an item in the news a while ago... that the mayor bragged about what a cheap offer he got from the private sector to fix up the city's old pipe system?"

"That's right, sir. I've seen them dig up the street in a few places and ship pipes on trucks. Very discreet firm. They stick to side streets and the old alleys."

Garris checked his watch. "Let's go back to the precinct and load the car with rubber gloves, boots and raincoats. And gas masks and flashlights. If anyone asks, we'll be checking up a lead where you found the skin. Say nothing about witchdoctors and mysterious Indian legends."

"I'd never think of doing that, sir."

***

III

The tunnel works were in progress along Red Chief Street, adjacent to the road that separated the modern high-rises of Riverside Park from the old blocks of Chippewa Alley.

Practically everyone who lived in the 20th called the street "Red Chief Trail".

Red Chief Trail was so narrow, only a small private car could pass through. The block had been constructed before World War I, before zoning laws banned excessively narrow streets, and remained the oldest preserved part of town. The blackened brick walls lay partly in near-permanent shadow; rumor had it that the city's oldest clans were still living inside the worn-down twelve-story buildings.

A tent erected by the construction crew completely blocked the southern end of the street. Signs told pedestrians to walk around the block. Bolland drove around and parked by the other end. He and Garris brought their equipment and wandered down the unusually narrow street. The streetlights on the walls spread a gloomy, yellow-green light. Farther ahead, several of them had gone out and the street level lay submerged in darkness.

Garris tripped on a loose cobblestone, cursed and lit his flashlight. Bolland looked up at the walls that seemed to lean toward each other. Lights shone out of several windows above their heads, but it was impossible to see in from the street below. Faint, vague sounds leaked from the lit windows: the mumble of voices, distorted music, scattered laughter from a TV show... and short, dull noises that they could not identify.

No human, no animal, not even a rat came in their way. The street appeared completely deserted, though the sun had not yet set. A faint illumination from the work-tent made it resemble a glowing mass in the farthest part of the dark.

The echo of their steps bounced back from the close walls and made it sound like a platoon of officers followed right behind them. Garris showed no worry on the outside, but he was glad Bolland came with him.

When they arrived by the tent they saw signs of work, but no workers. Tools, pipes, crates, planks and an empty cable-drum rested against the house walls. A very small car with a flatbed blocked the passage to the tent, and the two officers had to squeeze past it. On the car door was the logo BROMBERG PIPECO.

Garris walked into the narrow illuminated tent. A portable generator stood humming in the far end, and from it ran a power cable into a hole in the street. Beside the 3-feet-wide hole rested a pneumatic drill, and a rusty manhole cover underneath the drill. Apparently the workers had widened the original opening to get their tools into the tunnels.

A brand-new ladder stood bolted to the street and went down into the dark hole. Garris picked up a hardhat with a headlamp and handed it to Bolland; the sergeant was a head taller than Garris and might easily hit his head against the tunnel ceiling.

Bolland hesitated. "Shouldn't we get a search warrant first?"

Garris sat down on a crate and pulled on his thick rubber boots. "If we run into anyone down there, we're only looking to ask questions about Richard Genges. The media must not get wind of this investigation. The chief of police and the mayor would skin us alive, if we made an official connection between the repairs and a ritual killing."

"Skin us. I understand, sir." Bolland tied the hardhat to his head and tested the headlamp. It didn't work.

***

Wearing boots, raincoats and gloves, they climbed down. Garris counted the depth they descended to, and came to twelve feet. He had never been below the street before: the first thing he noticed was that the tunnel was not quiet at all.

The pipes which ran along the tunnel walls and ceilings made surging, bubbling noises. Water dripped without pause onto the narrow strip of floor. The moist, cool air stank of dirt, leaking sewers and the asphalt of the streets above. The tunnel stretched in two directions beneath Red Chief Street; Garris glimpsed a faint light in the southern direction and walked that way. Neither of the two policemen said anything.

After a few minutes they came to a bend, where the tunnel split. To the right, the pipes continued into the dark. The power cable went into the illuminated left tunnel which led downward and apparently had been dug recently. A weak light emerged from the left.

Garris stopped and listened. From the tunnel on the left came an incessant dripping and purl, and the drone of what might be a pump.

"You got your gun?" he whispered to the sergeant, who had to stoop forward in the tunnel. Bolland patted the pocket of his raincoat.

They continued down the slightly sloping tunnel on the left. The entrance had been drilled through a brick wall of indeterminate age, and planks had been laid out as rudimentary steps. Fresh wooden stanchions were in place every fifteen feet of the ceiling.

They had to tread carefully on the slippery planks. The stairs ended, and they arrived in a level section where muddy, foul water reached above the ankles of their boots.

The drone of the pump increased in volume, and very soon they found the plastic pipe through which water was being pumped away from the floor. Water continued to ripple from the rough stone walls; Garris imagined they must have come quite close to Sanford Bay.

They rounded another bend and entered a passage halfway blocked by stones and gravel. The water level had become a little deeper.

The light-cones from their flashlights danced across the nearest wall: It was smoother, angular and adorned with narrow, thin grooves. Garris moved closer and studied the groove patterns. These were not letters but curves and lines, some in the shapes of animals - birds, lions and mythical figures.

Further on, the straight tunnel intersected in a perfect "T". An arc-light hung mounted on a pole, receiving power from a small generator placed in the center of the "T".

Garris heard a gasp and turned around. Bolland was leaning against a wall, hyperventilating; he had claustrophobia but had refused to mention it.

"Take it easy, Bolland," said Garris and moved toward him. "We're going back now. Breathe slowly. It's all right."

They both heard a noise from behind and froze. Footsteps approached from the tunnel they had entered before. Excited voices shouted. Garris grabbed Bolland's arm; they fled into the "T" of the tunnel and turned left.

The passage widened somewhat, sloped upward. They arrived in a small chamber with a dry floor and a door.

This door was completely new, made of steel plating, and fitted into a steel frame inside the wall of smooth, ancient masonry. It must have come from a ship, for the door had a wheel-shaped door lock in its center.

Garris threw himself at the wheel and turned it until the door opened. Bolland pulled his revolver and aimed it at the passage where they had entered. The voices had died down, but the footsteps of the pursuers splashed audibly across the tunnel floor.

Garris stopped on the threshold, and moved the light-beam of his flashlight over the walls inside. The inner chamber was only somewhat larger than the antechamber where Bolland and Garris stood. Its walls gleamed with moist, crudely cut rock without decorations.

There were no cracks, no water, not a draft of air, nothing remarkable... except for the symbol engraved in the smooth stone floor.

A cube wrapped in headless snakes.

When Garris spotted the emblem a horror gripped him that made his skin cold. His initial impulse had been to hide in there, but he did not dare step over the threshold. The apparently pointless steel door had been installed for a reason. Whatever had happened to Richard Genges might have taken place in that very room...

He switched off his flashlight and waved at Bolland to do likewise. Garris pulled his gun, cocked it and took aim at the arc-light out in the corridor. His hands trembled so badly, he had to rest his gun arm against a corner.

He pulled the trigger and the shot blew the arc-light. The corridor and antechamber went almost completely dark.

Lightbeams from the strangers' flashlights darted along the corridor walls. Garris pulled Bolland with him into cover behind the open steel door. They huddled down in the shadows and heard the unknown pursuers run into the antechamber. Someone fired a few gunshots. They heard the voices and footsteps jostle in through the open door: one... two... three people.

"Now!" Garris whispered. He threw his weight against the door and shut it with an echoing clang, flew to his feet and turned the wheel. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it would burst.

"Lights on!" he shouted hoarsely. Bolland's flashlight illuminated the antechamber; Garris picked up his gun and aimed in the direction of the corridor. Almost simultaneously, shots were fired from inside the locked chamber and struck the door.

Then the guns went quiet. Bolland turned the light on the steel door. They saw small bulges in the surface where bullets had impacted on the inside of the steel plate.

"Hello?" Garris shouted at the corridor. "This is the police! Put down your weapons!"

No one answered. He pounded on the steel door and yelled: "Police! Put down your weapons! You're under arrest!"

All he heard was his and the sergeant's heavy breathing.

Garris thought: If I open and they are in there, they shoot us. If I don't open... No, I have to know.

His hand reached, as if by its own will, toward the wheel, but Bolland stopped Garris with a gesture.

"Wait, sir! They outnumber us. Let'em stay in there and we'll get reinforcements."

Garris swallowed hard and backed away from the door. "You're right. Let's get out of here. Be careful, might be others up there."

They hurried more than necessary to get up to the street level. While they waded through deep puddles, half-ran through tunnels, rushed up slippery steps and climbed up the ladder, Garris thought over and over: They've got to be locked in that chamber. I heard them run inside. I saw the dents their bullets made in the door. I locked it. There's absolutely no other way out. Why aren't they making any noise? Why aren't they crying for help? Why aren't they trying to force the door open?

Bolland reached the street first, and gasped for air. He helped Garris up and they looked around for more pursuers, but they were alone on the site. Garris called for reinforcements while they walked back to the patrol car. It stood parked right where they had left it.

And someone had slashed all four tires.

They sat in the car and waited until three other patrol cars arrived with howling sirens and flashing blue-red lights, and blocked both ends of Red Chief Trail. Alerted sewer workers came to help the police find other manholes where the suspects might escape.

But there were too many tunnels, too many manholes. The suspects must have escaped.

For the chamber was empty. Garris insistently warned about a "great danger of cave-ins", and talked the SWAT-team out of entering it. They surveyed the chamber from the open doorway outside. No police officer disappeared, but they found no traces of the suspects - not even an empty cartridge. Bullets were extracted from the dents in the steel door, and then it was locked from the outside.

The spent bullets remained the only evidence that someone had actually fired at Garris and Bolland in the tunnel, and were sent to the lab. After a few days, the bullets returned. Captain detective Patricia McKinnick, the new head of Homicide at the 20th, made sure she would read the lab report first.

***

IV

McKinnick entered Garris's office without knocking, and handed over the lab report together with a plastic bag containing the bullets. She wore her uniform; the long hair with the different color streaks she wore in a neck bun.

Garris was sitting by his desk reading a thin yellowed book: Flatland, by Edwin Abbot.

"Don't you want to read the report?" she asked.

He regarded first the folder, then her piercing black eyes.

"Give me the summary."

"The bullets were too deformed to be traced. The whole crew at Bromberg PipeCo's been gone since you were down in the tunnels. Their relations are harping on us to find them.

"The mayor's called. He was a tad worried, but I calmed him by saying it was an ordinary 'unexplained disappearance', possibly a work-related accident. And you know what he said?"

"No." Garris meant it.

She made a little smile. "Your distinguished mayor said, that the city has wasted enough money on trying to fix those dangerous, obsolete pipes. So he would see to it that the new pipes are laid around that tunnel, and that the tunnel under Red Chief Street is sealed, for good."

Garris felt relief: the mayor had buried the case - not because of what had happened, but because it might lead to political embarrassments. Thank God for the stupidity of our elected representatives, he thought.

He put away the book and folded his hands over the desk.

"I'll probably never be able to prove it, but I've got a hunch about how Genges died. Suppose that inner chamber contained an opening, to another dimension that exists in a direction where we human beings don't have a skin or a skeleton to keep our innards in place.

"Picture a two-dimensional human... like a gingerbread man. The thin crust along the edge is his skin, but he has no crust on the upside... and if you lift this gingerbread man, up into the third dimension that he can't see..."

McKinnick rubbed the brow between her eyebrows, as if she tried to massage away the furrow there. She checked that no one stood outside the door and listened, and closed all the shutters in Garris's tiny office.

"Innis... I'll pretend this conversation never happened. And I order you to treat this case as an 'unexplained disappearance' in the tunnel works. The chief and the mayor will fire us both if we start yakking about gingerbread men and other dimensions."

"I promise you, that nothing I've said here is going to make it into my report."

"But..." She set her head at an angle and leaned toward him across the desk. McKinnick had curves Garris could not avoid glancing at, and her hair carried the scent of some perfume he had never smelled before. "Between the two of us... what do you think really happened to Richard Genges?"

He blinked and became aware of her question. "The lab found nothing at all on the inside of the skin. No blood, no bone fragments, no flesh, no knife marks. Genges wasn't skinned. He fell."

She gave him a look of incomprehension.

"Out of his skin," he added.

"If that's the case, why didn't we find the skins of the others who shot at you?"

"There are worse things than falling."

At once McKinnick looked very tired. She slumped down on the chair facing Garris, and stared at him with questioning eyes. He opened another old book he had found in the used-book shop, written by a scientist named George Gamow.

"I read about it in this book. A four-dimensional being could lift a three-dimensional being into the fourth dimension, and... wring him inside out. Like a sock."

McKinnick shut her eyes, leaned back in her chair and sighed. "We'll never talk about this case again. And, may I add, you've got a sick sense of humor."

Garris wished she had been right. "Welcome to the 20th, captain."





"The Man Who Fell Out" (c)A.R.Yngve 2006. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced without permission.