“Sorry, I’m about to be sick ... sorry, sick.., beg pardon, yes, feeling sick ...

This time a path opened very nicely. Not a word of protest. Hands actually helped me along. They feared I was about to vomit, and nobody wanted it—at least not on them. I made it to the door in about forty-five seconds.

My attorney was downstairs at the bar, talking to a sporty-looking cop about forty whose plastic name-tag said he was the DA from someplace in Georgia. “I’m a whiskey man, myself,” he was saying. “We don’t have much problem with drugs down where I come from.”

“You will,” said my attorney. “One of these nights you’ll wake up and find a junkie tearing your bedroom apart.”

“Naw!” said the Georgia man. “Not down in my parts.” I joined them and ordered a tall glass of rum, with ice.

“You’re another one of these California boys,” he said. Your friend here’s been tellin’ me about dope fiends.”

“They’re everywhere,” I said. “Nobody’s safe. And sure as not in the South. They like the warm weather.”

“They work in pairs,” said my attorney. “Sometimes in gangs. They’ll climb right into your bedroom and sit on your chest, with big Bowie knives.” He nodded solemniy. “They might even sit your wife’s chest—put the blade right down on her throat.”

“Jesus god almighty,” “said the southerner. “What the hell’s goin’ on in this country?”

“You’d never believe it,” said my attorney. “In L.A. it’s out of control. First it was drugs, now it’s witchcraft.”

“Witchcraft? Shit, you can’t mean it!”

“Read the newspapers,” I said. “Man, you don’t know trouble until you have to face down a bunch of these addicts gone crazy for human sacrifice!”

“Naw!” he said. “That’s science fiction stuff!”

“Not where we operate,” said my attorney. “Hell, in Malibu alone, these goddamn Satan-worshippers kill six or eight people every day.” He paused to sip his drink. “And all they want is the blood,” he continued. “They’ll take people right off the street if they have to.” He nodded. “Hell, yes. Just the other day we had a case where they grabbed a girl right out of a McDonald’s hamburger stand. She was a waitress. About six teen years old ...with a lot of people watching, too!”

“What happened?” said our friend. “What did they do to her?” He seemed very agitated by what he was hearing.

“Do?” said my attorney. “Jesus Christ man. They chopped her goddamn head off right there in the parking lot! Then they cut all kinds of holes in her and sucked out the blood!”

“God almighty!” The Georgia man exclaimed ... “And nobody did anything?”

“What could they do?” I said. “The guy that took the head was about six-seven and maybe three hundred pounds. He was packing two Lugers, and the others had M-16s. They were all veterans.”

“The big guy used to be a major in the Marines,” said my attorney. “We know where he lives, but we can’t get near the house.”

“Naw!” our friend shouted. “Not a major!”

“He wanted the pineal gland,” I said. “That’s how he got so big. When he quit the Marines he was just a little guy.”

“0 my god!” said our friend. “That’s horrible!”

“It happens every day,” said my attorney. “Usually it’s whole families. During the night. Most of them don’t even wake up until they feel their heads going—and then, of course, it’s too late.”

The bartender had stopped to listen. I’d been watching him. His expression was

not calm.

“Three more rums,” I said. “With plenty of ice, and maybe a handful of lime chunks.”

He nodded, but I could see that his mind was not on his work. He was staring at our name-tags. “Are you guys with that police convention upstairs?” he said finally.

“We sure are, my friend,” said the Georgia man with a big smile.

The bartender shook his head sadly. “I thought so,” he said. “I never heard that kind of talk at this bar before. Jesus Christ! How do you guys stand that kind of work?”

My attorney smiled at him. “We like it,” he said. “It’s groovy.”

The bartender drew back; his face was a mask of repug nance.

“What’s wrong with you?” I said. “Hell, somebody has to do it.”

He stared at me for a moment, then turned away.

“Hurry up with those drinks,” said my attorney. “We’re thirsty.” He laughed and rolled his eyes as the bartender glanced back at him. “Only two rums,” he said. “Make mine a Bloody Mary.”

The bartender seemed to stiffen, but our Georgia friend didn’t notice. His mind was somewhere else. “Hell, I really hate to hear this,” he said quietly. “Because everything that happens in California seems to get down our way, sooner or later. Mostly Atlanta, but I guess that was back when the goddamn bastards were peaceful. It used to be that all we had to do was keep ’em under surveillance. They didn’t roam around much ... .” He shrugged. “But now, Jesus, nobody’s safe. They could turn up anywhere.”

“You’re right,” said my attorney. “We learned that in California. You remember where Manson turned up, don’t you? Right out in the middle of Death Valley. He had a whole army of sex fiends out there. We only got our hands on a few.

Most of the crew got away; just ran off across the sand dimes, like big lizards ... and every one of them stark naked, except for the weapons.”

‘They’ll turn up everwhere, pretty soon.” OI said. “And let’s hope we’ll be ready for them.”

The Georgia man whacked his fist on the bar. “But we can’t just lock ourselves in the house and be prisoners!” he ex aimed. “We don’t even know who these people are! How do you recognize them?

“You can’t,” my attorney replied. “The only way to do it is to take the bull by the horns—go to the mat with this scum!”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked.

“You know what I mean,” said my attorney. “We’ve done it before, and we can damn well do it again.”

“Cut their goddamn heads off,” I said. “Every one of them. That’s what we’re doing in California.”

“What?”

“Sure,” said my attorney. “It’s all on the Q.T., but everybody who matters is with us all the way down the line.”

“God! I had no idea it was that bad out there!” said our friend.

“We keep it quiet,” I said. “It’s not the kind of thing you’d to talk about upstairs, for instance. Not with the press around.”

Our man agreed. “Hell no!” he said. “We’d never hear the ~goddamn end of it.”

“Dobermans don’t talk,” I said.

“What?”

“Sometimes it’s easier to just rip out the backstraps,” said attorney.

“They’ll fight like hell if you try to take the I without dogs.”

“God almighty!”

We left him at the bar, swirling the ice in his drink and not smiling. He was worried about whether or not to tell his wife It it. “She’d never understand,” he muttered. “You know women are.”

I nodded. My attorney was already gone, scurrying through of slot machines toward the front door. I said goodbye end, warning him not to say anything about what him.