"So?" "So- remember? His orders were not to sell them for ten school days. Okay. So the ten days came and went and he's still saying no." "So what?" … - Robert Cormier

Silence. Archie let it gather. He could always feel a heightening of interest in the room. It always happened this way when an assignment was about to be given. He knew what they were thinking- what's Archie come up with this time? Sometimes Archie resented them. The members of The Vigils did nothing but enforce the rules. Carter was muscle and Obie an errand boy. Archie alone was always under pressure, devising the assignments, working them out. As if he was some kind of machine. Press a button: out comes an assignment. What did they know about the agonies of it all? The nights he tossed and turned? The times he felt used up, empty? And yet he couldn't deny he exulted in moments like this, the guys leaning forward in anticipation, the mystery that surrounded them all, the kid Goober white-faced and frightened, the place so quiet you could almost hear your own heartbeat. And all eyes on him: Archie.

He turned again to Bunting, saw his troubled countenance, the beads of sweat dancing on his upper lip. "And Bunting..." "Yes?" "Forget the alibi. The Vigils don't provide alibis," Archie said. The words final, like a trapdoor slamming shut.

Three days of thirty, Trent knew there would be no response. Sarah Downes would not be calling back. Neither would the senator. His jaw began to ache, like an old enemy asserting its presence. "Don't forget your appointment with the chief," Effie said, sudden sympathy in her voice. She knew what awaited him at the meeting: a demotion not in rank but in everything else. Maybe the graveyard shift,midnight to eight. No more special privileges, no more interrogations. There probably wouldn't be any more calls for interrogations, anyway.