"I'll stake you," Pete said, suddenly, on impulse.

"You can't afford to. I'm expensive, because I don't start winning right away. It takes time for my skill-factor to overcome any chance runs... such as the celebrated one by which Luckman wiped me out."

From the front of the store came the sounds of the superb tenor Gigli singing; Schilling paused a moment to listen. Across from the table his huge dingy parrot Eeore shifted about in its cage, annoyed by the sharp, pure voice. Schilling gave the parrot a reproving glance.

"Thy Tiny Hand Is Frozen," Schilling said. "The first of the two recordings Gigli made of that, and by far the better. Ever heard the latter of the two? From the complete opera and so bad as to be unbelievable. Wait." He silenced himself, listening. "A superb record," he said to Pete. "You should have it in your collection."

"I don't care for Gigli," Pete said. "He sobs."

"A convention," Schilling said irritably. "He was an Italian; it's traditional."

"Schipa didn't."

"Schipa was self-taught," Schilling said.

The tall, skinny youth had approached, carrying the Gigli record. "I'd l-like to buy this, Mr. Schilling. H-how much?"

"One hundred and twenty-five dollars," Schilling said.

"Wow," the youth said, dismally. But nevertheless he got out his wallet.

"Very few of these survived the war with the vugs,"

Schilling explained, as he took the record and began wrapping it in heavy cardboard.

Two more customers entered the shop, then, a man and woman, both of them short, squat. Schilling greeted them. "Good morning, Les. Es." To Pete he said, "This is Mr. and Mrs. Sibley; like yourself vocal addicts. From Portland, Oregon." He indicated Pete. "Bindman Peter Garden."

Pete rose and shook hands with Les Sibley.

"Hi, Mr. Garden," Les Sibley said, in the deferential tone used by a non-B with a B. "Where do you bind, sir?"

"Berkeley," Pete said, and then remembered. Formerly Berkeley, now Marin County, California."

"How do you doo," Es Sibley said, in an ultra-fawning manner which Pete found—and always had found—objectionable. She held out her hand and when he shook it he found it soft and damp. "I'll bet you have a really fine collection; I mean, ours isn't anything. Just a few Supervia records.

"Supervia!" Pete said, interested, "What do you have?"

Joe Schilling said, "You can't eliminate me, Pete. It's an unwritten agreement that my customers do not trade among themselves. If they do, I stop selling to them. Anyhow, you have all the Supervia records that Les and Es have, and a couple more besides." He rang up the hundred and twenty-five dollars from the Gigli sale, and the tall, skinny youth departed.

"What do you consider the finest vocal recording ever made?" Es Sibley asked Pete.

"Aksel Schlitz singing Every Valley," Pete said.

"Amen to that," Les said, nodding in agreement.

After the Sibleys had left, Pete paid for his Schipa record, had Joe Schilling wrap it extra-carefully, and then he took a deep breath and plunged into the issue at hand. "Joe, can you win Berkeley back for me?" If Joe Schilling said yes it was good enough for him. I

After a pause, Joe Schilling said, "Possibly. If anybody can, I can. There is a ruling—little applied—that two persons of the same sex can play as Bluff-partners. We could

see if Luckman would accept that; we might have to put it to the vug Commissioner in your area for a ruling."

"That would be a vug which calls itself U.S. Cummings," Pete said. He had had a number of squabbles with that particular vug; he had found the creature to be particularly trying, in a nit-picking manner.

"The alternative," Joe Schilling said thoughtfully, "would of course be to temporarily deed title to some of your remaining areas to me, but as I said before—"

"Aren't you out of practice?" Pete said. "It's been years since you played The Game."

"Possibly," Schilling conceded. "We'd soon find out, I hope, in time. I think—" He glanced toward the front of the store; another auto-auto had parked outside and a customer was entering.

It was a lovely red-headed girl, and both Pete and Joe temporarily forgot their conversation. The girl, evidently at a loss in the chaotic, littered store, wandered about aimlessly from stack to stack.

"I better go help her," Joe Schilling said.

"Do you know her?" Pete asked.

"Never saw her before." Pausing, Joe Schilling straightened his wrinkled, old-fashioned necktie, smoothed his vest. "Miss," he said, walking toward the girl and smiling, "can I assist you?"

"Perhaps," the red-headed girl said in a soft shy voice. She seemed self-conscious; glancing about her, not meeting Schilling's intent gaze, she murmured, "Do you have any records by Nats Katz?"

"Good grief no," Schilling said. He turned around and said to Pete, "My day's ruined. A pretty girl comes in and asks for a Nats Katz record." In chagrin, he walked back to Pete.

"Who's Nats Katz?" Pete asked.

The girl, roused by amazement from her shyness, said, "You've never heard of Nats Katz?" Clearly, she could not believe it. "Why he's on TV every night; he's the greatest recording star of all time!"

Pete said, "Mr. Schilling here does not sell pops. Mr. Schilling sells only ancient classics." He smiled at the girl. It

was hard, with the Hynes Gland operation, to assess a person's age, but it seemed to him that the red-headed girl was quite young, perhaps no more than nineteen. "You should excuse Mr. Schilling's reaction," Pete said to her. "He's an old man and set in his habits."

Schilling grated, "Come on, now. I just don't like popular ballad-belters."

"Everybody's heard of Nats," the girl said, still indignant. "Even my mother and father, and they're distinctly fnool. Nats' last record, Walkin' the Dog, has sold over five thousand copies. You're both really strange people. You're real fnools, for real." Now she became shy again. "I guess I better go. So long." She started toward the door of the shop.

"Wait," Schilling said in an odd tone, starting after her. "Don't I know you? Haven't I seen a news-wire picture of you?"

"Maybe," the girl said.

Schilling said, "You're Mary Anne McClain." He turned to Pete. "This is the third child of the woman you met today. It's synchronicity, her coming in here; you recall Jung's and Wolfgang Pauli's theory of the acausal connective principle." To the girl, Schilling said, "This man is Bindman for your area, Mary Anne. Meet Peter Garden."

"Hi," the girl said, unimpressed. "Well, I have to go." She disappeared out the door of the shop and got back into her car; Pete and Joe Schilling stood watching until the car took off and was gone.

"How old do you think she is?" Pete said.

"I know how old she is; I remember reading it. She's eighteen. One of twenty-nine students at San Francisco State College, majoring in history. Mary Anne was the first child born in San Francisco in the past hundred years." His tone, now, was somber. "God help the world," he said, "if anything happens to her, any kind of an accident or illness."

Both of them were silent.

"She reminds me a little of her mother," Pete said.

Joe Schilling said, "She's stunningly attractive." He eyed Pete. "I suppose now you've changed your mind; you want to stake her instead of me."

"She's probably never had an opportunity to play The Game."

"Meaning?"

"She wouldn't make a good Bluff partner."

"Right," Joe said. "Not nearly as good as me. And don't forget that. What's your marital status, right now?"

"When I lost Berkeley, Freya and I split up. She's now Mrs. Gaines. I'm looking for a wife."

"But you've got to have one who can play," Joe Schilling said. "A Bindman wife. Or you'll lose Marin County just like you lost Berkeley and then what'll you do? The world can't use two rare-record shops."