Even if mixing meat and milk wasn't kosher, it sounded good to me. I hated to have to say, "I'm sorry, we're just looking for a pay phone."

"Across the street, behind the camiceria next to the Hanese bookstore," he said, pointing. "I don't know why they didn't put it out front, but they didn't. And when you've made your call, why don't you come back? I have figs and dates preserved in honey, all kinds of good things."

He was a salesman and a half, that one. I got out of the Dvin Deli in a hurry, before I was tempted into spending the next hour and a half there, buying things I didn't need and half of which I wasn't permitted to eat.

The Hanese bookstore also had a two-word English skin - HONG'S BOOKS - and the rest was in ideograms. For a couple of seconds, I didn't see the pay phone back of the Aztecian meat market. It was on the far side of a very fragrant trash dumpster; nobody flying casually down the street would have noticed anything going on while whoever had Judy made her call me. The camiceria's back door didn't have a window, either, so people in there might not have spotted anything amiss, either.

I dug in my pocket, found change, and fed it into the greedy little paw of the pay phone's money demon. I called Plainclothesman Johnson, Saul Klein, and Legate Kawaguchi, in that order. Johnson and Klein weren't altogether convinced that Chocolate Weasel was involved in Judy's kidnapping, though they both said the evidence was better than anything else they had. Kawaguchi said I'd handed him enough so he could give Chocolate Weasel a good going-over.

"Don't just send constables," I warned him. "That place is major sorcerous trouble. If you don't call out a hazardous materta magica team for it, you'll never, ever need one."

"I appreciate your concern, Inspector Fisher,"

Kawaguchi said, "but I assure you that I shall make all necessary arrangements. Good day." Shut up and let me do my job, was what he was saying. I just hoped he knew the kind of trouble his people were liable to walk into at Chocolate Weasel.

After that, I had to cadge some more change from Michael. I called Bea to let her know what was going on.

Instead of Bea, I got Rose, who told me the boss was at a meeting away from the Confederal Building and couldn't be reached no matter what for the next couple of hours.

"Wonderful," I said. "Listen, Rose, dungs are liable to start felling on your head any minute now." I explained how and why.

She just took it in stride. I would have been surprised at anything less. Whatever needed doing, she'd take care of it as if Bea were standing behind her giving orders. We're unbelievably lucky to have her, and we know it When I was done, she said, I have two important phone messages for you. One is from Professor Blank at UCAC and the other is from a Mr. Antanas - is that right? - Sudakis at the Devonshire dump."

"Yes, Antanas is right. Thank you, Rose. We'll be back at the office soon, and I'll attend to the calls then. 'Bye," I said, and hung up. I'd been meaning to call Blank, and I wasn't all that surprised to hear from him first. But I wondered why he said it was urgent for me to call him back - nothing about his investigation of the Chumash Powers had been urgent up till now. And I wondered what had bitten Tony on the backside. Just my luck to be out of the office when two important calls came in.

Michael said, "Before we leave this site, I suggest that you examine it most carefully. I would be willing to wager the CBI has tried already, but if you find anything here which you can identify as belonging to Mistress Ather, the law of contagion may enable us - or the constabulary, or the CBI - to trace her present whereabouts. No guarantees, of course, sorcerous countermeasures having become so effective these days, but a chance nonetheless."

So I looked. God, did I look! Leaving something behind was just the sort of thing Judy would have done if she got the chance - anything to give us a better shot at finding her. I went down on my hands and knees and pawed through weeds and pebbles like a wino after a lost quarter-crown, hoping, praying, she'd managed to drop a button or something.

No luck. All I got was the knees of my pants dirty. Finally I admitted it, even to myself. "Sorry, Michael, but Acre's nothing here. In the adventure stories, people always manage to leave a clue while the bad guys aren't watching. I guess it doesn't work that way in real life."

"It would appear not to," he agreed. "This is my first encounter with a situation which might reasonably fall into that category, so my experience is as limited as yours. I suspect, however, that if real criminals made as many errors as those in adventure stories, virtue would triumph in the real world more often than it does."

"I suspect you're right," I said glumly, brushing at my trousers. Some of the dirt looked to be there to stay. I sighed, feeling useless and also, irrationally, as if I'd let Judy down.

"Let's head back to the office, then - we're wasting time here. From what Rose said, I've had a couple of calls that need answering right away."

"I also have other work upon which I could be usefully engaged," Michael said. That made me feel bad all over again; I hadn't even asked him what I was disrupting by dragging him up to the Valley again and again. But he went on, "Seeking information which will aid in the rescue of your fiancee necessarily takes priority over other concerns."

"Thank you, Michael," I said as we walked back to his carpet His glance over at me was puzzled, as if he wondered what I was thanking him for. Maybe he did. He thinks so well that I sometimes wonder about the rest of his spirit I noticed that he flew down Soto's to the freeway instead of going back to Winnetka. With Michael, I think it was gust for the sake of greater efficiency. I'd have done the same thing, but not on account of that I just wouldn't have wanted to swing back any closer to Chocolate Weasel than I had to.

When we got back to the Confederal Building, I bought something allegedly edible from the cafeteria; while I fought it down, I kept thinking about lamb with yogurt and mint leaves - sinful as bacon for me, but it sounded delicious all the same - and candied dates. Then, with my fireplace full of fuel - and with a heartburn to prove it - I went to my office and picked up the phone.

Professor Blank sounded blunter than phone imps could normally account for when he answered the phone, so I figured I'd caught him at lunch twice running, and probably a brown bag one. UCAC boasts better eateries than we have here, which meant he was either tight with a crown or else dedicated to what he was doing.

I'd been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt even before he said, "I'm so glad you returned my call, Inspector Fisher. I've been waiting here at my desk, hoping you would."

"I just now got in," I answered, starting to feel guilty because I'd eaten lunch before I called him back. "Rose, our secretary, said it was urgent, so you're the first call I've made." That, at least, was true. "What's up?" "I trust you will recall," he began, which meant he didn't trust any such thing, "that when we last spoke I was uncertain whether the Chumash Powers were extinct or had, so to speak, encysted themselves on the Other Side, abandoning all contact with This Side for an indefinite period, perhaps in the hope of being lured back Here should more worshipers appear to propitiate them."

He hadn't said all that when we talked before; some of it he must have worked out since then. But he had said enough of it to let me answer, "Yes, I remember that. Do you know which is true now?"

"The latter, I'm afraid,'' he said, "and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word."

I'd figured it was the latter; having learned that the Chumash Powers were in fact extinct wouldn't have been news urgent enough for him to haunt his office waiting for me to call back. But I hadn't though even finding them active would be frightening. "What's to be afraid of?" I asked.