“Well, good night, Mike,” I whispered, privily hoping my closed door would muffle the Sean and Sativa sinfonia.

“Set your clock for seven-thirty, right?”

“Seven-thirty!?”

“The early bird routine.”

“Worms?”

“Good night.”

Sean’s noise ignored my door completely. I might as well’ve been in the same room. I halfway wished I were, but I set my alarm as instructed and went to bed like a good boy.

Noise and all, I fell instantly asleep, still half dressed, and dreamed all night of a million Laszlos trailing me on rancid butterflies.

MONDAY STARTED poorly enough. I staggered naked and disheveled out of my room at half-past heathen seven to find Sean and Sativa, mutually radiant, fully occupying the living room and wearing nothing but wide grins.

“Groovy,” I complained. “Let’s have an orgy.” Instead I stumbled back into my room to find a bathrobe.

Sativa, I noticed, took this collective nudity in her cool stride, but Sean blushed all over — an impressive sight in so tall a kid — tried with a wholly inadequate hand to salvage his modesty, gulped “Oh wow,” and fled awkwardly to the guest room: a complicated reaction I was quite unable to understand.

Decently robed and less than half awake, I fumbled into Michael’s room and tried to rouse the master planner. This was far too much work to start a morning with, but if I had to get up, I’d be carefully damned if he was going to sleep.

Mike asleep is a fairly charming sight. His mouth is full of his right thumb, his face is round and innocent, and he isn’t saying anything. Nevertheless, I pulled his thumb out of his mouth, shook his head and shoulders fairly roughly, and yelled, “Reveille! Reveille! Out of the sack, soldier!” much more loudly than I liked.

“Gargh!” His eyes flashed open, his jaw snapped shut (which is why I pulled his thumb out first), and he sat up like an overwound automaton.

“Good morning, Michael,” I regretted, dialing his lights to full.

“Morning?”

“Right. Up and at ’em, more or less. Busy day. Get up.”

“Oh yeah. Sure. I’m awake.”

This I rather doubted, but I let it pass. Leaving Mike’s door aggravatingly open, I set my wobbly course back toward my own room, intending to get shaved and dressed, or whatever seemed appropriate.

Sean was back in the living room, his native modesty satisfied by a pair of not quite transparent briefs that were little more than a token gesture. He was grinning a high-grade idiot grin and holding hands with Sativa, who was still wearing mainly Sativa.

“Morning, children,” I begrudged as cheerfully as could be.

“Morning,” they burbled, not looking at me. A shower woke me, shaving reconciled me to being awake, and dressing — inconspicuous loud silks, a paisley scarf, and high suede boots, bright green — pretty well sealed my fate for the day. The whole process carried me through to eight-ten, and I finished by dousing myself in patchouli. Then, I went in search of Mike and breakfast.

Sean and Sativa seemed not to have moved, but he was apparently getting excited.

“Cool it,” I told them. “Mike up yet?”

“Mike? said Sean as though he’d never heard the name, and, “Nuh, uh,” Sativa added, which might easily mean anything.

“Right.” So I returned to Michael’s room and there he was, thumb firmly in mouth, at beautiful peace with the world. I was not pleased.

“Michael!” I yelled in the bosun’s mate voice I picked up in the Navy in my puppy days. Windows rattled gratifyingly. Even Mike went so far as to pull his thumb out of his mouth and mutter something inarticulate and vaguely placating.

“Wake,” I bellowed, “up!” I knew I wasn’t going to be able to speak above a whisper for the rest of the day, but Michael, by God, was going to get up.

He stirred uncomfortably. Sean and Sativa, hand in hand, came in to see what might be happening. “Up! Up! Up!” I screamed frantically.

“Oh,” Sativa said. “I can wake him up.” She dropped Sean’s paw, flowed over to the bed, sat down on it, and put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. Sean began to turn a purplish red.

“Michael, poochie,” she whispered in his ear. Michael, poochie? She stuck out her tongue and did something to Mike’s ear with it. I grabbed Sean and held him back.

Mike sat up, opened his eyes slowly and wide, and reached out for Sativa. She, giggling, got off the bed and backed toward the door — truly an inspiring sight. Mike got out of bed and followed her. Sean, still fuming, and I stepped out of the way.

She waited until Mike was half an inch short of touching her, then turned, and, laughing, skipped out into the living room. Michael followed blindly. When he passed through the door, I slammed it shut, released Sean, and said, “Good morning, Michael,” almost as maliciously as he deserved.

Sean and Sativa joined hands again, disillusioning Mike completely. He stood stock-still in the middle of the living room, looked around in marshmallow confusion, then realized with a start that he was both awake and up.

“Gnurph!” he said in horror. He headed back toward his room, but I fended him off and aimed him toward the john.

“Not today, old buddy,” still rather maliciously. “Communist Plot, baby, remember?”

“Gnurph!” he repeated, but he waddled toward the john.

Midway through breakfast most of us were wide enough awake to lay plans of a sort. Michael, his mouth ringed quaintly with milk, immediately took charge.

“The first thing we should do,” he said, we meaning myself and possibly Sean, “is search Laszlo’s pad. Right?”

“Why?” To me the idea lacked appeal.

“He probably keeps some kind of record,” very patiently, “of the source of those pills, or at least of how many he got and what he did with them. We’ll need that sort of thing for evidence when we go to the FBI. Why do I always have to explain these simple things to you?”

This wasn’t worth an answer, so I poured myself another cup of maté and thought about things for a while. Sean and Sativa — still holding hands and having a hell of a time trying to eat that way — weren’t saying anything, and I doubted that they were hearing much either. She was still wearing mainly herself, which gave the breakfast table an unduly festive air.

“Hey,” I realized, “just how’re we planning to go about searching Laszlo’s pad?” I suspected I already knew.

“Simple.” Mike sniffed in well-bred disgust. “We wait around until he splits and then break in.”

That’s what I thought. “As I recall,” I said sarcastically, “that’s called breaking and entering, and there are laws against it in this town.”

“Oh wow. Since when are you allergic to breaking laws?”

He had a point there, but, “I like to think I’m more or less selective about what laws I break. I mean, well, I like my felonies to be fun.”

“Breaking into Laszlo’s pad and searching it isn’t fun?”

“Hmmm.”

“Besides, it’s your patriotic duty to society. Remember that.”

“Um.”

“And if you find those records, you won’t have to follow Laszlo.”

“How do we do it?”

At quarter of twelve we stationed ourselves in a grubby candy store across the filthy cobbled street from Laszlo’s Avenue A pad. Mike phoned Laszlo, hanging up as soon as he answered.

“Still there,” he told us.

We settled down for a moderately long siege, sipping the worst chocolate egg creams on the Lower East Side. While I tacitly counted my woes (I like chocolate egg creams, generally), Mike taught Sean how to operate the two-way wrist radios we were using on this lark.

“All you have to do,” he said for the third unduly patient time, “is press the blue button and slide it to the right to send, and press the green button and slide it to the left to receive. The little gray button controls the volume: slide it to the right to get louder, to the left to get softer. It’s very simple.”