Brigitte looked around blankly. "What?"

"The contestants you've looked after-how many of them won?"

Brigitte came over to her and briskly plumped up a pillow. "Aren't you getting a little morbid, dear? All this talk about being the bad girl, and bad luck, and now this. I'd think about something else if I were you. Why don't you watch TV or something? There's 'Penal Colony' on channel 80. You like that?"

Wanda-Jean stuck out her lower lip. "I don't want to watch TV. I want to know how many of the contestants who've been through your hands have won. Okay?"

"Isn't this all a bit childish?"

"How many won, goddamn it?"

As Wanda-Jean's voice got more hysterical, Brigitte's, in direct proportion, became more soothing.

"I can't tell you that."

"Why not?"

"It's against the rules, dear."

Wanda-Jean tried wheedling. "You can tell me, Brigitte. Nobody will find out."

"I can't, and you know that."

"Then fuck you, you miserable bitch. You probably put a jinx on all of them."

"You ought to start to grow up, dear. Neither of us needs this sort of thing."

Wanda-Jean rolled over so her back was toward Bri-gitte. She lay in sullen silence for a long time, until a new idea struck her.

"I want to go out."

Brigitte's patient look switched on. "You know you can't do that."

"So I'm a prisoner?"

"You're not a prisoner. You have to stay inside for your own protection."

"Who's going to hurt me?"

"Fans, psychopaths, people who've bet on the show, you want a list?"

"How am I supposed to get any exercise if I can't get out?"

"You know damn well that there's a gym, a swimming pool, and a sauna in the basement of the hotel. You can use them anytime."

"I just can't stand being cooped up in here. It's driving me crazy.''

"If you don't like the rules there's a very obvious solution."

Wanda-Jean raised a quizzical eyebrow. "What solution?"

Brigitte smiled. It was a calm, superior smile. "You can always quit the show. Go back to your job and your little apartment and forget the whole thing ever happened."

Wanda-Jean glared at her. "You'd really like that, wouldn't you?"

"I don't care either way. It's not my job to get involved."

"Yeah?"

"You can believe what you like."

Wanda-Jean lay flat on her back and stared at the ceiling. Brigitte moved busily about the room. All Wanda-Jean could think about was how ridiculous the whole situation was. She was supposed to be a star, the fan magazines told her that, and yet she wasn't even allowed to enjoy it.

The bodyguard stuck his head around the door. The bodyguards were changed regularly, but they all had the same flat, faceless, unapproachable expression, close-cropped bullet head, and massive shoulders. They reminded Wanda-Jean of retired ball players.

"There's a visitor coming up."

Wanda-Jean sat up. "Who is it?"

"It's a Mr. Priest."

"I'm not sure I want to see him."

Brigitte stepped in. "Send Mr. Priest right through."

"Sure."

Wanda-Jean jumped angrily to her feet. "Don't I get any say in the matter? I said I didn't want to see him."

"You don't say that to Bobby Priest."

"Jesus…"

"Hi, there. Is everybody happy?"

Bobby Priest was already in the room. He was almost as flamboyant off set as he was on. His white lounging suit would have cost a month's salary for Wanda-Jean at her old job.

Wanda-Jean was still standing glowering at Brigitte with clenched fists. Brigitte managed a calm greeting.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Priest."

"Hi there, Brigitte. Do I detect some tension in the air?"

"I think Wanda-Jean is starting to feel the strain. The fan rags weren't very kind to her."

Bobby Priest was the picture of caring concern. He put a protective arm around Wanda-Jean. "You don't want to let those things get to you. They got to write something or they wouldn't stay in business."

Wanda-Jean crumpled. She sat down on the bed. "It's not just that. It's the whole thing, being shut up in here, not having any life of my own. It just gets so hard."

"You'll be the one who's laughing, when you win."

"If I win."

"You got to think positive."

"Everyone seems to want to tell me what I got to do."

Bobby Priest sat down beside her. He took hold of her hand and stroked it. "Just relax, babe. Take one thing at a time and you'll be okay."

"You don't know what it's like. It's the waiting, the not knowing what's going to happen to you."

"You think I don't have troubles?"

Wanda-Jean dropped her head into her hands. "Yeah, I suppose so. I've just got myself wound up."

Bobby Priest patted her shoulder and got up. "I think I know what you need. You need to get out of here for a while."

Wanda-Jean looked up sharply. "I've been saying that all day. I just get told that it's against the rules."

"Not if you're with me."

Wanda-Jean half smiled. She almost, but not quite, fluttered her eyelashes. "Are you asking me for a date, Mr. Priest?"

Bobby Priest hit a formal pose. "I'd be honored if you'd permit me to take you to dinner tonight, ma'am."

Wanda-Jean laughed. "I'd be honored to come."

Instantly Bobby Priest was back again being his highspeed self. "Good. I've got to move now. I'll pick you up at eight."

"I'll be ready."

"Yeah, right."

It seemed as though Wanda-Jean was dismissed already. With mixed feelings, she watched Priest hurry out of the suite.

RALPH EMERGED FROM THE RT EXPRESS station to the all-too-familiar crowding, the piled-up trash, and the relentless decay. Even the booze and the contempt that familiarity was supposed to breed didn't stop the dull fear that always nagged at his gut on the ride home. The fear started fairly soon after the monorail pulled out of Reagan Plaza. That was the last outpost of downtown civilization. After Reagan Plaza, the twilight sprawl started, the miles of urban wasteland, the seemingly endless expanse of burned-out shopping malls, twentieth-century high-rise towers that loomed like giant crumbling headstones, and the equally beat-up durafoam adobes that were the sad legacy of the Cuomo Administration's final, doomed crusade for national urban renewal. From Reagan on, only the underclass rode the rail, and they had long since been told to go and lose themselves. The cops had been pulled off the trains and it was a safe bet that there was no one watching the security monitors. The farther out one went from Reagan Plaza station, the more the fear grew. The cars became increasingly empty, and the dwindling numbers of passengers became more and more vulnerable to attacks by gangs of railjammers, bloods, and locos. Once upon a time, robbery had been the motive. Now most of the passengers who went all the way out to Lincoln Avenue, 207th Street, Southend, or the Point had very little worth stealing. That didn't, however, stop the attacks. The weirdies were on the rail, and they were so unpredictable they could do just about anything to the lone riders that were unfortunate enough to be on a train they took it into their heads to wild through.

Down on street level, the rail curved away, over the roofs of buildings that sagged against each other, apparently kept up only by encrusted grime and a miracle. Lincoln Avenue had once been a prosperous neighborhood shopping strip, but it had become a picture of desolation. The few stores that were still open were protected by steel grilles on the outside and armed guards within. Layers of graffiti covered every flat surface. Winos and derelicts shuffled on the cracked sidewalks, and groups of young men stood on street corners in immobile surly groups. Their fury at simply being alive was only temporarily damped down by Serenax, Blind Tiger, and Night Train.