"It was dusk and I was about to head back to the highway when I saw a building in the distance. Lights were on. Even if it was just somebody’s house, I decided I’d stop and ask for directions...."

Even a private eye can't always see the danger he's walking into. What makes people do the things they do?

"When I was 17, I killed a man. He was very old, and he was walking by the side of the road in the twilight."

"Barney Rudolph was a solitary man. This is what he silently said in his private story of self. Alienated, a loner, lone wolf, outsider. Always an outsider."

"At fifty-five years of age he found himself on the shelf. It was an actual shelf in a warehouse on the Brooklyn waterfront...."

"I placed my hand in the shoe, and stuck my finger through the hole. But it didn’t emerge from the shoe.... After six tries, I realized the problem: my forefinger had entered another dimension."

"It was last spring, early, when I fell in love with the ferret woman. The first beautiful day, exquisite whirlybird of a sunny blue day, and I’m in the park, lying on the lawn."

"Stuva Grundlig stood on a bluff overlooking the sea. This was a sign, this winking moon. Tomorrow they would go."

The need for quality may call for heroic measures. What would you do if your home couldn't weather the rain?

"The interior of the Goldmine Casino was a realm all its own, row after row of slot machines bracing the floor, a steady current of beeps and buzzes, flashing lights...."