"You're the loveliest of the peaches, lovely child."

"Oh, golly, thank you! Now just hold on."

It never failed, mused Culver. A little soft oil from the magnolia worked a hell of a lot better than the bark of a gnarled oak. That bitch of a first assistant of his might take a lesson from her Southern superiors; she talked like some Yankee dentist had bonded her fucking teeth together with permanent cement.

"That you, Cull?" came the voice of Redhead over the line, intruding on Parnell's thoughts as he wrote a seventh obscenity on the legal pad.

"You're momma-letchin' right, boy, and we got a problem! The fricassee bitch is doin' it again. I got our Wall Streeters inked in for a table at the reception on the twenty-fifth, the one for the new French ambassador and she says we gotta bump 'em for some core-dee-ballet fruitcakes-she says she and the First Lady feel mighty strong about it. Shee-it! Those money boys gotta lot of French interests goin' for them, and this White House bash could put 'em on top. Every frog on the Bourse will think they got the ears of the whole town here!"

"Forget it, Cull," broke in the anxious Redhead, "We may have a bigger problem, and I don't know what it means."

"What's that?"

"When we were back in Saigon, did you ever hear of something or someone called Snake Lady?"

"I heard a hell of a lot about snake eyes," chuckled Parnell, "but no Snake Lady. Why?"

"The fellow I was just talking to-he's going to call back in five minutes-sounded as though he was threatening me. I mean actually threatening me, Cull! He mentioned Saigon and implied that something terrible happened back then and repeated the name Snake Lady several times as if I should have run for cover."

"You leave that son of a bitch to me!" roared Parnell, interrupting. "I know exactly what that bastard's talking about! This is that snotty bitch first assistant of mine-that's the fuckin' Snake Lady! You give that slug worm my number and tell him I know all about his horseshit!"

"Will you please tell me, Cull?"

"What the hell, you were there, Redhead. ... So we had a few games going, even a few mini casinos, and some clowns lost a couple of shirts, but there was nothin' soldiers haven't done since they threw craps for Christ's clothes! ... We just put it on a higher plane and maybe tossed in a few broads who'd have been walkin' the streets anyway. ... No, Redhead, that elegant-ass, so-called assistant thinks she's got somethin' on me-that's why she's goin' through you, 'cause everybody knows we're buddies. ... You tell that slime to call me and I'll settle his grits along with that bitch's twat! Oh, boy, she made a wrong move! My Wall Streeters are in and her pansies are out!"

"Okay, Cull, I'll simply refer him to you," said the Redhead, otherwise known as the vice president of the United States, as he hung up the phone.

It rang four minutes later and the words were spat out at Parnell. "Snake Lady, Culver, and we're all in trouble!"

"No, you listen to me, Divot Head, and I'll tell you who's in trouble! She's no lady, she's a bitch! One of her thirty or forty eunuch husbands may have thrown a few snake eyes in Saigon and lost some of her well-advertised come-and-take-me cash, but nobody gave a shit then and nobody gives a shit now. Especially a marine colonel who liked a sharp game of poker every once in a while, and that man is sitting in the Oval Office at this moment. And furthermore, you ball-less scrotum, when he learns that she's trying to further defame the brave boys who wanted only a little relaxation while fighting a thankless war-"

In Vienna, Virginia, Alexander Conklin replaced the phone. Misfire One and Misfire Two ... and he had never heard of Culver Parnell.

The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Albert Armbruster, swore out loud as he turned off the shower at the sound of his wife's shrieking voice in the steam-filled bathroom. "What the hell is it, Mamie? I can't take a shower without you yammering?"

"It could be the White House, Al! You know how they talk, so low and quiet and always saying it's urgent."

"Shit!" yelled the chairman, opening the glass door and walking naked to the phone on the wall. "This is Armbruster. What is it?"

"There's a crisis that requires your immediate attention."

"Is this 1600?"

"No, and we hope it never goes up there."

"Then who the hell are you?"

"Someone as concerned as you're going to be. After all these years-oh, Christ!"

"Concerned about what? What are you talking about?"

"Snake Lady, Mr. Chairman."

"Oh, my God!" Armbruster's hushed voice was a sudden involuntary cry of panic. Instantly, he controlled himself but it was too late. Mark One. "I have no idea what you're talking about. ... What's a snake whatever-it-is? Never heard of it."

"Well, hear it now, Mr. Medusa. Somebody's got it all, everything. Dates, diversions of materiel, banks in Geneva and Zurich-even the names of a half-dozen couriers routed out of Saigon-and worse. ... Jesus, the worst! Other names-MIAs established as never having been in combat ... eight investigating personnel from the inspector general's office. Everything."

"You're not making sense! You're talking gibberish!"

"And you're on the list, Mr. Chairman. That man must have spent fifteen years putting it together, and now he wants payment for all those years of work or he blows it open-everything, everyone."

"Who? Who is he, for Christ's sake?"

"We're centering in. All we know is that he's been in the protection program for over a decade, and no one gets rich in those circumstances. He must have been cut out of the action in Saigon and now he's making up for lost time. Stay tight. We'll be back in touch." There was a click and the line went dead.

Despite the steam and the heat of the bathroom, the naked Albert Armbruster, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, shivered as the sweat rolled down his face. He hung up the phone, his eyes straying to the small, ugly tattoo on the underside of his forearm.

Over in Vienna, Virginia, Alex Conklin looked at the telephone.

Mark One.

General Norman Swayne, chief of Pentagon procurements, stepped back from the tee satisfied with his long straight drive down the fairway. The ball would roll to an optimum position for a decent five-iron approach shot to the seventeenth green. "That ought to do it," he said, turning to address his golfing partner.

"Certainly ought to, Norm," replied the youngish senior vice president of Calco Technologies. "You're taking my butt for a ride this afternoon. I'm going to end up owing you close to three hundred clams. At twenty a hole, I've only gotten four so far."

"It's your hook, young fella. You ought to work on it."

"That's certainly the truth, Norm," agreed the Calco executive in charge of marketing as he approached the tee. Suddenly, there was the high grating sound of a golf cart's horn as a three-wheeled vehicle appeared over the incline from the sixteenth fairway going as fast as it could go. "That's your driver, General," said the armaments marketer, immediately wishing he had not used his partner's formal title.

"So it is. That's odd; he never interrupts my golf game." Swayne walked toward the rapidly approaching cart, meeting it thirty feet away from the tee. "What is it?" he asked a large, middle-aged beribboned master sergeant who had been his driver for over fifteen years.

"My guess is that it's rotten," answered the noncommissioned officer gruffly while he gripped the wheel.

"That's pretty blunt-"

"So was the son of a bitch who called. I had to take it inside, on a pay phone. I told him I wouldn't break into your game, and he said I goddamned well better if I knew what was good for me. Naturally, I asked him who he was and what rank and all the rest of the bullshit but he cut me off, more scared than anything else. 'Just tell the general I'm calling about Saigon and some reptiles crawling around the city damn near twenty years ago.' Those were his exact words-"