Winder said, "So you really wouldn't want to get fired."

"The hell are you talking about?"

"For lying. I think you're lying."

"What about?"

Joe Winder said, "Don't play dumb with me." As if the guy had a choice. "Tell me why you sent a man to Koocher's lab yesterday. I know you did, because he called me about it."

Pedro Luz got red in the cheeks. The cords in his neck stood out like a rutting bull's. "I already told you," he said. "I don't have no report on that guy."

"He's missing from the park."

"Then I'll do up a report," Pedro Luz said. He breathed deeply, as if trying to calm himself. "Soon as I get outta here, I'll make a report." He took the IV tube out of his mouth. "This stuff's not so bad," he said thoughtfully. "Tastes like sugar syrup." He replaced the tube between his lips and sucked on it loudly.

Joe Winder said, "You're a moron."

"What did you say?"

"Make that a submoron."

Pedro Luz shrugged. "I'd beat the piss out of you, if I didn't feel so bad. They gave me about a million shots." He leered woozily and opened his gown. "See, they broke two needles on my stomach."

Joe Winder couldn't help but admire Pedro Luz's physique. He could see the bright crimson spots where the hypodermics had bent against the muscle.

"Least I won't get the rabies," said Pedro Luz, drawing merrily on the tube. "You oughta take off, before I start feeling better."

Winder stood up and slid the chair back to its corner. "Last chance, Hercules. Tell me why you sent a man to the lab yesterday."

"Or else what?"

"Or we play "This Is Your Life, Pedro Dipshit." I tell Kingsbury's people all about your sterling employment record with the Miami Police Department. I might even give them a copy of the indictment. A spine-chilling saga, Pedro. Not for the meek and mild."

Pedro Luz removed the tube and wiped his lips on the sleeve of his gown. He looked genuinely puzzled. "But they know," he said. "They know all about it."

"And they hired you anyway?"

"Course," said Pedro Luz. "It was Kingsbury himself. He said every man deserves a second chance."

"I admire that philosophy," Joe Winder said, "most of the time."

"Yeah, well, Mr. X took a personal liking to me. That's why I'm not too worried about all your bullshit."

"Yes," said Joe Winder. "I'm beginning to understand."

"Because you couldn't get me fired no matter what," said Pedro Luz. "And you know what else? Don't never call me a moron again, if you know what's good for you."

"I guess I don't," said Joe Winder. "Obviously."

SEVEN

The ticket taker at the Wet Willy attraction was trying to control his temper. Firm, but friendly. That's how you deal with difficult customers; that's what they taught in ticket-taker training.

The young man, who was new to the job, said, "I'm sorry, sir, but you can't cut to the front of the line. These other people have been waiting for a long time."

"These other people," the man said; "tell me, do they own this fucking joint?"

The ticket taker did not recognize Francis X. Kingsbury, who wore thong sandals, baggy pastel swim trunks and no shirt. He also had a stopwatch hanging from a red lanyard around his neck.

"Now, you don't want me to call Security," the ticket taker said.

"Nothing but idiots," Kingsbury muttered, pushing his pallid belly through the turnstile. He shuffled up two flights of stairs to the launching ramp, and dropped to all fours.

The Wet Willy ride was one of the Amazing Kingdom's most popular thrill attractions, and one of the cheapest to operate. A marvel of engineering simplicity, it was nothing but a long translucent latex tube. The inside was painted in outrageous psychedelic hues, and kept slippery with drain water diverted at no cost from nearby drinking fountains. The narrow tube descended from a height of approximately six stories, with riders plunging downhill at an average angle of twenty-seven exhilarating degrees.

Francis X. Kingsbury was exceptionally proud of the Wet Willy because the whole contraption had been his idea, his concept. The design engineers at the Amazing Kingdom had wanted something to compete with Disney's hugely successful Space Mountain ride. Kingsbury had collected all the press clippings about Space Mountain and used a bright yellow marker to emphasize his contempt for the project, particularly the development cost. "Seventeen million bucks," he had scoffed, "for a frigging roller ride in the dark."

The engineers had earnestly presented several options for the Amazing Kingdom – Jungle Coaster, Moon Coaster, Alpine Death Coaster – but Kingsbury rejected each for the obvious reason that roller-coaster cars and roller-coaster tracks cost money. So did the electricity needed to run them.

"Gravity!" Kingsbury had grumped. "The most underused energy source on the planet."

"So you're suggesting a slide," ventured one of the engineers. "Maybe a water slide."

Kingsbury had shaken his head disdainfully. Slides look cheap, he'd complained, we're not running a goddamn State Fair. A tube would be better, a sleek space-age tube.

"Think condom," he had advised the engineers. "A three-hundred-foot condom."

And so the Wet Willy was erected. Instantly it had become a sensation among tourists at the park, a fact that edified Kingsbury's belief that the illusion of quality is more valuable than quality itself.

Lately, though, ridership figures for the Wet Willy had shown a slight but troubling decline. Francis X. Kingsbury decided to investigate personally, without notifying the engineers, the ticket takers, the Security Department or anyone else at the park. He wanted to test his theory that the ride had become less popular because it had gotten slower. The stopwatch would tell the story.

The way the Wet Willy was designed, a 110-pound teenager would be able to slide headlong from the ramp to the gelatin-filled landing sac in exactly 22.7 seconds. Marketing specialists had calibrated the time down to the decimal point – the ride needed to be long enough to make customers think they were getting their money's worth, yet fast enough to seem dangerous and exciting.

Francis X. Kingsbury weighed considerably more than 110 pounds as he crawled into the slippery chute. Ahead of him, he saw the wrinkled bare soles of a child disappear swiftly into the tube, as if flushed down a rubber commode. Kingsbury pressed the button on the stop-watch, eased to his belly and pushed off. He held his arms at his sides, like an otter going down a river-bank. In this case, an overweight otter in a ridiculous Jack Kemp hairpiece.

Kingsbury grimaced as he swooshed downward, skimming on a thin plane of clammy water. He thought: This is supposed to be fun? The stopwatch felt cold and hard against his breastbone. The bright colors on the walls of the tube did little to lift his spirits; he noticed that some of the reds had faded to pink, and the blues were runny. Not only that, sections of the chute seemed irregular and saggy, as if the latex were giving way.

He took his eyes off the fabric long enough to notice, with alarm, that he was gaining on the youngster who had entered the Wet Willy ahead of him. Being so much heavier, Francis X. Kingsbury was plummeting earth-bound at a much faster speed. Suddenly he was close enough to hear the child laughing, oblivious to the danger – no! Close enough to make out the grinning, bewhiskered visage of Petey Possum waving from the rump of the youngster's swimming trunks.

"Shit," said Kingsbury. Feverishly he tried to brake, digging into the rubber with his toes and fingernails. It was no use: gravity ruled the Wet Willy.

Kingsbury overtook the surprised child and they became one, hurtling down the slick pipe in a clumsy union of tangled torsos.