After a while he lowered himself from the trunk and made coffee. We drank it quietly. Fenig held the large cup with both hands. To drink he lowered his head to the rim, making a small sacrament of the act. It was roughly the middle of the day. I could hear my phone ringing for the third time in the past hour. Fenig poured more coffee. He took his cup to the typewriter table this time. Soon he began to scratch at the keys, first with two fingers, then with his left hand, thumb capering on the space bar, eventually both hands working, ten fingers crashing on the keys, his head moving closer to the black machine, eyes appearing to follow the arc of each metal slingshot hurling ink upon the page.

I went downstairs and fell asleep almost immediately. The telephone rang and I dragged myself over there to lift away the noise. It was Watney somewhere in the British Isles.

"Back finally?"

"Here I am," I said.

"Rang up before, Bucky. Three times exactly. No answer. Odd, I thought. Man's not there. Wonder where, I thought. Wonder where the central figure in this rapidly evolving scenario is off to. Odd, innit? That's what I thought."

"I'm back finally."

"Bucky, I'm contacting you as per our conversation of the twentieth last."

"What conversation?" I said.

"We agreed I'd ring you at a specific time, such and such a day. That's what I've been engaged in for the past hour. In other words I'm carrying out the specifics of our joint proposal as agreed upon. You said then you had no compass bearing on the product. I officially ask if the time is now a bit more propitious for a serious bid on the part of my Anglo-European associates and myself, as far as astrology and the gods are concerned."

"The product is out of my hands completely. I don't have it and I don't know how to get it. Somebody named Hanes has it. Five feet seven. A hundred and thirty pounds. No marks or scars."

"Somebody named Hanes," he said.

"That's right."

"Young. Slender. Fragile. Bored, sort of."

"That's him."

"Alabaster skin."

"That's him," I said. "Very descriptive. I like that. Oh, superb. Too bad he doesn't have an aquiline nose. You'd have a good combination going. But sure, that's him, that fits."

"He's had possession for a lengthy period of time, has he?"

"In terms of days or weeks I don't recall. But I know he's had the product since before you were here."

"Fancy, fancy," Watney said. "Seems I met Hanes in Toronto. He'd been lurking about for days. Dogging my every footstep. He came looking for me with that tarnished angelic look of his. Selling he was. What he called the ultimate drug. Selling outright. Selling shares. Selling European rights. He was flexible he was. See, all my information pointed to you, Bucky. You were the one with possession. I made my way through all of Canada, doing little bits of business here and there, laying groundwork, opening vistas. All the while intending to sneak up on the infamous Bucky Wunderlick and do some fanatical New York promoting. Lay a heavy-handed bid on my old comrade in arms. This boy Hanes came sauntering in with that desperate precious saunter of his. I gave it little thought I did. See, all the rumors in my dossier of rumors located the ultimate drug in your own notorious hands."

"Hanes ran off with it. He was supposed to deliver it somewhere and then negotiate a deal. But he ran off to deal on his own."

"Cheeky little bastard."

"You threw him out, I take it."

"Not a bit of it," Watney said. "I never toss people out the door. People are human beings. They're creatures of infinite capacity. They have immortal souls they do. No, I followed the usual procedure and sent a small sample of his wares by courier back to ground zero for analysis. Back to our clandestine waterfront laboratory somewhere in the center of Birmingham. Back to our first-rate technical lads in their white smocks and high-heeled, shoes. I speak in riddles, of course. I reveal only the salient findings."

"Which were?"

"Let's see then. A volunteer took a poke in the arm. Since then all he does is dribble and whine. Our technical lads did their clever tests at first. But the results were vague. So they called a volunteer out of the line and gave him a poke. Our biggest problem comes from volunteers queuing up on the sidewalk in broad daylight. So bloody eager they are to serve the cause of science. Let's see then. The drug attacks a particular region in the left hemisphere of the brain. That's the verbal hemisphere, it seems. Where the words are kept. The boy's been reduced to chronic dribbling. Naturally when I got the report I informed your Hanes person that we wanted no part of his vicious product. Christ, ethics do exist. I told the technical lads they should have used a bloody cat. They pointed to the fact that cats don't speak in the first place. Thus small value in injecting a cat. Little did I know when sweeping into your flat with my accustomed grandiosity that I'd already had my hands on the much-sought-after product."

"Do you know where you left the bubble gum cards?" I said.

"The airline bag, is it? Is that where my man left it? Did he leave it with you? Blessy's truly dim, you know. It's not just a game we play. He wants watching, that one does. I shall have to rake him over the electric coals for this. Shall have to instruct that boy in the wages of sin. He claimed the driver of the limousine drove off with it. No harm done. But sets a nasty precedent."

"If it's not an unfair question, why do you travel around with bubble gum cards?"

"Not a bad likeness of me, is it? Taken some years back. All done up in blue velvet I was. A childhood dream come true. My own bubble gum card. They're magic cards, Bucky. Very hush-hush. Promise not to breathe a word."

"Okay."

"Truly promise. Put heart and soul into it. A soldier's oath. The vow of a pristine nun. Second thought, not much sense of obligation left in those quarters anymore. Give me a blacker oath. The kind they take in shabby inner offices. Narcotics agent. Postal inspector. Customs official. Give me an oath with blood on it."

"Brothers," I said.

"I take hundreds of bubble gum cards everywhere I go. The Watney bubble gum card. Hard-to-get item. Rarer than a pair of blue suede shoes in Tierra del Fuego. I've virtually cornered the market, you see. I've established a virtual monopoly. Sometimes two or three of the cards in my luggage are different from all the rest. These are the magic cards, a direct offspring of our own Industrial Revolution. Buy British, I always say. The magic cards are constructed in such a way that they can be sealed and resealed a number of times with our own private sealing agent. The tiniest sample of this or that item can be placed inside a miniature casing of anodized metal, which in turn is fitted into a given card and taken to a given place. Card unsealed. Item tested. We carried samples of microdot LSD in from Malta with Watney bubble gum cards. Thoroughly enjoy carrying the things about. Wonderful at parties. One's own bubble gum card. Good fun to flash on unsuspecting fellow passengers aboard a great jetliner streaking across the heavens. I enplane at point A. I deplane at point B. Blowing metaphorical bubbles all the way. Just ordinary cards in the bag Blessy left at your flat. None of the magics there. The magics were in the luggage proper. The heavy luggage. The real thing. The baggage. Sets a bad precedent however. Shall have to get grim with that boy."

"I'm. going back out on tour. What do you think? Do you think I'm crazy? I feel I have to do it. Time's up. Have to make the move."

"Back out, is it? Back into the pits and dung troughs. Best provide for all contingencies, old Bucky. Prepare an overdose for the critical minutes. Have it sitting on the dresser. Ancient bitch of the road. Best do it, old friend. You don't want to drop apart gradually. Bad for the image. You're required to go all at once. Excess. That's the number under your name. I could never match the genius of your excess. I was too artificial. Had to make it all up and shake it all down. That was my critical failing. I failed to embody true and honest excess. I was just a wad of chewing gum on your shoe. So stick to the image, old Bucky. Prepare a careful OD and flame yourself away. Be deliberate about it. Be as thorough as humanly possible. Don't forget to lick the spoon."