The Robot is easily upset; my sphincter was already tightening as soon as she warned me there was a jolt coming and she didn't really need to add that bit about my asshole. Carlo and his gun. Hagbard and his gun. Drake's mansion. I took a deep breath and waited to see what the Robot would do.

A panel in the wall opened and Harry Coin was pushed into the room. I had time to think that I should have guessed, in this game where both sides were playing with illusion constantly, Coin's death could have been faked, artificial intestines dangling and all, and of course Mavis and her raiders could have taken him out of Mad Dog jail even before they took me out of course, and I remembered the pain when he slapped my face and when his cock entered me, and the Robot was already moving, and I hardly had time to aim of course, and then his head was banging against the wall, blood spurting from his nose, and I had time to clip him again on the jaw as he went down of course, and then I came all the way back and stopped myself as I was about to kick him in the face as he lay there unconscious. Zen in the art of face-punching. I had knocked a man out with two blows; I who hated Hemingway and Machismo so much that I'd never taken a boxing lesson in my life. I was breathing hard, but it was good and clean, the feeling of after-an-orgasm; the adrenalin was flowing, but a fight reflex instead of a flight reflex had been triggered, and now it over, and I was calm. A glint in the air: Hagbard's pistol was in Mavis's hand, then flying toward me. As I caught it, she said, "Finish the bastard."

But the rage had ended when I held back the kick on seeing him already unconscious.

"No," I said. "It is finished."

"Not until you kill him. You're no good to us until you're ready to kill, George."

I ignored her and rapped on the wall. "Haul the bastard out," I said clearly. The panel opened, and two Slavic-looking seamen, grinning, grabbed Coin's arms and dragged him out. The panel closed again, quietly.

"I don't kill on command," I said, turning back to Mavis. "I'm not a German shepherd or a draftee. My case with him is settled, and if you want him dead, do the dirty work yourself."

But Mavis was smiling placidly. "Is that a Natural Law?" she asked.

And twenty-three hours later Tobias Knight listened to the voice in his earphones: "That's the problem. I can't remember. But if you leave me alone for a while maybe it'll come back to me." Smoothing his mustache nervously, Knight set the button for automatic record, removed the earphones and buzzed Esperando Despond's office.

"Despond," the intercom said.

"The CIA has one. A man who was with the girl after Mocenigo. Send somebody down for the tape- it's got a pretty good description of the girl."

"Wilco," Despond said tersely. "Anything else?"

"He thinks he might remember the name of her next customer. She mentioned it to him. We might get that, too."

"Let's hope so," Despond said and clicked off. He sat back in his chair and addressed the three agents in his office. "The guy we've got- what's his name? Naismith- is probably the next customer. We'll check the two descriptions of the girl against each other and get a much more accurate picture than the CIA has, since they're working from only one description."

But fifteen minutes later, he was staring in puzzlement at the chart which had been chalked on the blackboard:

???? DESCRIPTIONS OF SUSPECT

???? First WitnessSecond Witness

???? Height 5'2" 5'5"

???? Weight 90-100 lbs 110-115 lbs

???? Hair Black Blond

???? Race Negro Caucasian

???? Name or alias Bonnie Sarah

???? Scars, etc. None Scar on throat

???? Age Late teens Mid-twenties

???? Sex Female Female

A tall, bearish agent named Roy Ubu said thoughtfully, "I've never seen two eyewitness descriptions match exactly, but this. .."

A small, waspish agent named Buzz Vespa snapped, "One of them is lying for some reason. But which one?"

"Neither of them has any reason to lie," Despond said. "Gentlemen, we've got to face the facts. Dr. Mocenigo was unworthy of the trust that the U.S. government placed in him. He was a degenerate sex maniac. He had two women last night, one of them a Nigra."

"What do you mean that little sawed-off bastard is gone?" Peter Kurten of the CIA was shouting at that very moment. "The only way out of his room was right through that door, there, and we've all had it under constant surveillance. The door was only opened once when DeSalvo took out the coffee urn to have it refilled at the sandwich shop next door. Oh… my… God… the… coffee… urn.. ." As he slumped back in his chair, mouth hanging open, an agent with a device that looked like a mine sweeper stepped forward.

"Daily sweep for FBI bugs, sir," he said uncomfortably. "I'm afraid the machine is registering one under your desk. If you'll let me just reach in and… uh…that gets it…"

And Tobias Knight, listening, heard no more. It would be a few hours, at least, until their man in the CIA was able to plant a new bug.

And Saul Goodman stepped hard on the brakes of his rented Ford Brontosaurus as a tiny and determined figure, dashing out of the Papa Mescalito Sandwich Shop, ran right in front of the fender. Saul heard a sickening thud and Barney Muldoon's voice beside him saying, "Oh Christ, no…"

I was at the end of my ropes. The Syndicate I could see, but why the Feds? I was flabbygastered. I said to that dumb cunt Bonnie Quint, "Are you a thousand percent sure?"

"Carmel," she says. "I know the Syndicate. They're not that smooth. These guys were just what they claimed. Feds."

Oh, Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus with egg in his beard. I couldn't help myself, I just hauled off and bopped her in the kisser, the dumb cunt. "What'd you tell them?" I screamed. "What'd you tell them?"

She started to snivel. "I didn't tell them nothing," she says.

So I had to bop her again. Christ, I hate hitting women, they always blubber so much. "I'll use the belt," I howled. "So help me, God, I'll use the belt Don't tell me you didn't tell them nothing. Everybody tells them something. Even a clam would sing like Sinatra when they're finished with him. So what'd you tell them?" I bopped her again, Christ, this was terrible.

"I just told them I wasn't with this Mocenigo. Which I wasn't."

"So who did you tell them you were with?"

"I made up a prescription. A midget. A guy I saw on the street. I wouldn't give the name of a real John, I know that could come back against you. And me."

I didn't know what to do, so I bopped her again. "Go away," I says. "Be missing. Let me think."

She goes out, still blubbering, and I go over to the window and look at the desert to calm my head. My rose fever was starting to act up; it was that time of year. Why did people have to bring roses to the desert? I tried to contemplate hard on the problem and forget my health. There was only one explanation: that damned Mocenigo figured out that Sherri was pumping him and told the Feds. The Syndicate wasn't in it yet They were all still running around the East like chickens with their legs cut off, trying to figure who rubbed Maldonado, and why it happened at the house of a straight like this banker Drake. So they hadn't got the time yet to find out that five million of Banana Nose's money had disappeared into my own safe as soon as I heard he was dead. The Feds weren't in on that at all, and the connection was circumsubstantial.

And then it hit me so hard that I almost fell over. Besides my own girls, who wouldn't talk, there were a dozen or two cab drivers and bartenders and whatnots who knew that Sherri worked for me. The Feds would get it out of somebody sooner or later, and probably sooner. It was like a light bulb going on over my head in a comic strip: TREASON. AIDING AND ABEDDING THE ENEMY. I remembered from when I was a kid those two Jewish scientists who the Feds got for that. The hot squat. They fried them, Christ Jesus, I thought I'd vomit. Why does the fucking government have to be that way about somebody just trying to make a buck? Even the Syndicate would only shoot you or give you a lead enema, but the cocksucking government has to go and put you in an electrical chair. Christ Jesus, I was hot as a chimney.