“Bhutan money.” He went back to the closet and took out my cowboy boots. The last pair I’d seen were the orange ones worn by teenage me. At least these were black. Turning one over in my hand, I had to admit that if you had to wear a pair of lizardskin boots these were the ones.

Dressed, I checked myself in a full-length mirror. “We look like rich Texas Rangers.”

“I don’t know what Caz has planned today, but you can bet it’ll be interesting.”

“Caz? Caz Floon? What kind of name is that?”

“Caz de Floon. He’s Dutch. Frannie, if you don’t remember this guy’s name, you are having memory problems. Susan, are you ready in there?”

“In a minute!”

That minute turned into quite a few more, but when she emerged, my third wife looked great. She wore a sleeveless blue summer dress that made her appear years younger and sort of sexy, for an old woman.

“What are you wearing, Susan?” Gus’s voice was not friendly.

“Don’t be a bore, Gus. I don’t like the dress Floon sent. It makes me look like a palm reader at a cheap carnival. Madame ZuZu. I am going to carry the handbag though. It’s very nice.”

His mouth tightened and he took a deep breath before speaking. “Please don’t do this, Susan. You know what’s going to happen.”

They locked eyes. Neither backed off or looked away. You could almost hear the sound of their wills crashing head-on.

“Forget it. I like this dress. Caz de Floon is on an ugly power trip. He has to control everything. He invites his so-called friends to go on little trips with him, but then dresses them up in clothes he chooses and moves them around like they were Barbie and Ken dolls. I don’t like it. At first I thought it was okay but it’s not. It’s perverse. He’s perverse.”

“Yes, but you know what Floon will do when he sees you’re not wearing what he wants. Why create a fuss? It’s not a big deal.”

“To you it isn’t but it is to me. I’m not a puppet. I’m tired of his whims and fits and furies. Everything always has to be his way. When it isn’t, he sulks like a twelve-year-old. God, you’d think being one of the most powerful men in the world would have matured him a bit. I never would have gone on this trip if I had known how he was going to behave.”

“But Susan, Floon’s paying for everything. He gave you women all the same dress because he doesn’t want anyone being jealous of anyone else. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Plus the fact we’ve been living like gods on this trip.”

“Little gods.” She adjusted a shoulder on her dress. “Floon’s little gods who he bosses around as if he were Zeus. Going on this trip was like selling our souls to the devil. Sure you see everything and eat well, but you also have to do exactly what he wants or Floon gets mad. I can’t believe his ‘friends’ go along with this craziness. Screw his power trip—I don’t want to play anymore. Frannie was right—we never should have come. I made him, but now I know it was wrong.”

What I remembered from my last time in the future was Susan scolding me over the phone to stop griping about the trip. Today she wished she hadn’t come. Tomorrow she’d tell me to stop complaining. What happened between today and tomorrow to change her mind? More importantly, what happened today– period?

Who was Caz de Floon, besides one of the most powerful men in the world? How did he fit into my equation? And where was that feather I knew so well? I knew I had seen it up here. I was certain of that.

Downstairs in the lobby Floon’s merrymakers had assembled. The world is full of people standing around. We all do it and we’re used to seeing it. But now and then you see someone standing around looking so damned odd that your brain slams on its brakes and leans on the horn as hard as it can.

Downstairs in the lobby, Floon’s merrymakers were not only dressed identically, but because they came in various shapes and sizes, my first sight of them standing together was a picture that will stay with me until that motorcycle takes off my head.

Of course there was a midget. Or maybe he was a dwarf.

Definitely, a little person, or whatever they are calling themselves these days. His suit fit him perfectly but the cowboy boots made his already-odd walk odder. When he saw me coming out of the elevator he gave a big wave like we were best buddies.

The fortune teller dress Susan had complained about was all over the lobby. The majority of women who wore it were old. This dress might have worked on a twenty-year-old girl with perfect skin, body, and bedroom eyes that melted your underpants. But on these fat and thin white-haired birds, it looked tasteless at best, a cruel joke at worst. I later said to Susan these women looked like the chorus from an old age home’s production of Carmen, God forbid.

“How are you this morning, Frannie?”

I slid my eyes from the fossil gypsies to another man standing a couple of feet away wearing the suit of the day. “Are you Floon?”

He liked that. He opened his mouth and laughed—I guess. It looked like a laugh but he didn’t make a sound. “No, I’m Jerry Jutts. Remember we talked last night. Jutts Desserts? Caz is over there yakking with that big blond.”

The woman he pointed to looked like a sumo wrestler. Easily two hundred round pounds, not including a Grand Ole Opry hairdo that rose up off her head in a frozen yellow cyclone.

I whistled long and low. “Man, you’d need a wrecking ball to knock her down! Is that Floon’s bodyguard? She looks like a female Odd Job.”

“She’s my wife,” Jerry Jutts declared in a huff, and marched away.

I wanted to check out Floon before going over. But Astopel said I had no control over when I would be returned to my own time. Which meant I couldn’t waste a minute staking this guy out, knowing I might be flashed back home before even having had a conversation with him.

He looked normal enough. About sixty, he was middle everything—height, weight, a face you thought you might have seen before but couldn’t be sure. My first impression of Caz de Floon was businessman, well groomed, hands that he used constantly while speaking. They rose, circled, and swooped; the fingers pinched together and dropped like an Italian explaining anything.

Jerry had joined his gigantic wife. The two of them listened, rapt, to whatever Floon said. The incident that tipped me off to him was small and would have been easy to miss if I hadn’t been watching them so closely. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Jutts opened their mouths while Floon spoke. His hands moved continually, his face was very animated. He smiled often—a nice one, open and showing lots of teeth. However, it left as quickly as it came. Nothing that looked like it actually meant real warmth. His audience leaned forward to catch every word.

When he finally finished, his shoulders relaxed and he slumped a bit. Some seconds passed but none of them said anything. Then Mrs. Jutts spoke; her face bright with the kind of anticipation you see on a person before they say something they think is very smart or witty. Both men listened with full attention. She couldn’t have said more than three sentences—it took no more than a few seconds. When she finished it was plain she thought she’d said it just right. Jerry’s smile said the same thing. He was proud of the missus.

I cannot lip-read but I read Floon’s when he said to her, “That’s very stupid.” He mouthed the words slowly, dragging out “very” so that it became “verrrrrrry.” Mrs. Jutts’ face collapsed like a tent when the center pole is pulled away. Her husband looked quickly away. Floon said nothing more and neither did his expression. He drove the final nail into the coffin of her self-esteem by patting her shoulder and walking away. Looking stricken, the couple watched him cross the lobby—as if his leaving had been their fault.

“What a dick.”

I was about to follow him when a man in my suit came up and held out a folder. “Here are the plans for today.”