And what did you hope to accomplish by doing that?

Christ, talk about a Bob True question. I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish; I just did it, OK? But because of Eyes Only, Panopticon knew I’d done it, and I’m sure they told True, and if it wasn’t bad enough to count as strike three, still, I’d disobeyed a direct order. So I figured the lack of assignments might be True’s way of punishing me: unofficial suspension.

Meanwhile, Dixon kept dropping hints that he was still on my case. I got another floor-sweeping gig at this office building on the waterfront. It was a lot quieter than the nursing home, just me and a security guard, which should have been great: no boss, whole place practically to myself, plus the vending machine on the top floor had this glitch where if you hit the buttons just right, you’d get two sodas for the price of one. But I started getting creeped out. The company that owned the building imported bobblehead dolls from Taiwan, and those freaking things were everywhere, not just watching me but nodding at me. It got so I couldn’t go more than half an hour without running down to the security station to calm my nerves.

One night I went in there and the guard had his TV on. The Graduate was playing. Not just any part of The Graduate, either—the first thing I saw coming in the room was Anne Bancroft putting her stockings on for Dustin Hoffman. So I’m like, “Can I change this?”, and the guard shrugged and said sure, so I flipped channels, into the middle of another bedroom scene: Bud Cort lying next to Ruth Gordon in Harold and Maude.So I flipped channels again, and it was a commercial, and I was like, OK, but then the announcer’s voice said, “Coming up next on A&E, The Mary Kay Letourneau Story…”

And you thought this was Dixon’s way of taunting you? By manipulating the TV schedule?

If it had just been the once, I might have put it down to coincidence. But after that, whenever I got near a television…I mean, I know they like to repeat stuff on cable, but how many times can they cycle through the same handful of shows?

And it wasn’t just TV. I started noticing little digs in the radio playlist, too. I’d be in the shower, singing along with KFOG, and all at once I’d be like, oh, “The Kids Are All Right,” are they? And if it wasn’t the song itself, it was the band…The Pet Shop Boys. Remember the Pet Shop Boys? They dropped off the charts, what, a decade ago? But suddenly they were in heavy rotation again.

Michael Jackson too, I suppose.

Don’t even get me started on Michael Jackson. If I never hear “Billie Jean” again in this life…

So what did you do about this…harassment?

At first I tried to ignore it; when that didn’t work, I went back to popping Valium. That helped for a while, but then Dixon started to play nasty. One day in the grocery checkout I realized I’d forgotten to get butter, and when I ran back to the dairy case, someone had turned all the milk cartons so that the missing-kid photos were face-out. They were all boys, and all looking at me with these disappointed expressions.

That was just too much. I mean, Harold and Maude, OK, that was funny in a demented sort of way, but this, to me, this was no joke.

So next I got this idea that I should leave town again. It didn’t really make sense, because Dixon’s jurisdiction wasn’t limited the way the SFPD’s is—Malfeasance is everywhere. But it was all I could think to do at that point.

What made you choose Las Vegas as a destination?

It wasn’t my choice. Where I wanted to go was the Pacific Northwest, Seattle or maybe Portland. I figured it’d be a nice change of climate, plus that part of the country is Mecca for serial killers, so I knew I’d have lots of work once True let me out of the doghouse. But it turned out True had other plans for me.

I went to this travel agency that specialized in helping people plan moves, and asked for some info on Washington and Oregon. The woman behind the desk looked at me like I was nuts. “The economy up there is terrible right now. Have you thought about Nevada?”

“Nevada?”

“Las Vegas is booming. It’s one of the only cities in the country that hasn’t been hurt by the recession. They’re building thousands of new homes a month.”

“Sorry, I’m not interested.”

“No, really, you should think about it. Just wait here, Jane, let me get you some literature…” She went into a back room, and I got the hell out of there. I hadn’t told her my name.

Back at my apartment, I gulped down three Valium and turned on the TV. I’d programmed it to skip over stations that showed movies or sex-offender trials, which didn’t leave a whole lot. Can you guess what the theme on the Travel Channel was that night?

Las Vegas?

Three shows in a row. You’d almost think the L.V. chamber of commerce was paying the network to advertise. And then when I clicked over to ESPN, they were covering a poker tournament at Binion’s Casino.

I switched off the TV and picked up the phone.

“Jane Charlotte.”

“Yeah, I’m calling for Bob True again. Tell him I got the message.”

“Look behind you.”

I turned around to see True coming out of my kitchen. “What’s in Las Vegas?” I asked him.

“An operation we believe you’d be perfect for.”

“You don’t have anything perfect someplace nicer?” True just arched an eyebrow, as if to say, You want me to cut you off for another three months? “Yeah, OK,” I said. “So what is it?”

“The details will be given to you by your handler after you arrive.”

“You’re not supervising me on this one?”

“I’ll be along later, but during the initial phase of the operation, you’ll be working with a colleague of mine named Robert Wise.”

“Is everyone in Cost-Benefits named Bob?”

“Wise isn’t with Cost-Benefits,” True said. “He’s a Scary Clown.”

“You’re teaming me with a Clown? What kind of op is this?”

“It’s not the nature of the operation so much as its location. The Scary Clowns consider Las Vegas to be their fiefdom, and they are extremely territorial. It’s not really possible for us to run an operation there without including them. But don’t worry, Wise is a good man. He’s…much less random than some of the others.”

“Great. So when do I leave?”

“We need you ready to go by Thursday. Catering will handle the travel arrangements.”

“OK. I’m going to need some money, though. The bobblehead people aren’t going to give me a paid vacation, and I’m already way behind on my rent.”

“Yes, I know. I was just coming to that.” He handed me a Jungle Cash ticket that had already been scratched off.

“Um, True,” I said, looking at the prize amount. “This is too little.”

“It’s enough for a long-term storage locker. A small one. You don’t have that many possessions.”

“You want me to give up the apartment?”

“Weren’t you planning to do that anyway?”

“Well yeah, but…How long is this Vegas operation supposed to last? I mean, does it make sense for me to burn all my bridges here?”

True held up the crumpled eviction notice that he’d fished out of my kitchen garbage can. “I’d say this bridge is already blazing, wouldn’t you?”

I put my stuff in storage. I stopped by the bobblehead company, intending to give my notice, and instead managed to talk this guy in payroll into giving me two weeks’ pay in advance. Then I called Black Helicopters, the subdivision of Catering in charge of transport. Even though I should have known better, I was honestly expecting them to fly me to Vegas. Hah.

“At five p.m. this evening,” the voice on the phone said, “go stand in the parking lot outside the Safeway supermarket in Pacific Heights. Someone will park within sight of you and leave their keys in the ignition.”

“What kind of car will it be?”

“At five p.m. this evening, go stand in the parking lot outside the Safeway supermarket in Pacific—”