The amnesty idea vanished from my thoughts to be replaced by a desire to forget everything and live out my last months as pleasantly as I could.

There was an area near Old Downtown where the law was most conspicuously absent. Under a tenement slum that even rats ignored lay a labyrinth honeycombing all of Bunker Hill. Inside it, every illegal substance, act, or commodity was available for a price. But this place was different from every other rathole of vice throughout history.

A blind man could stroll through with a fistful of gold and not be bothered. A mother could send her daughter to the ice cream store on the first level and see her return with her ice cream, change, and virginity all intact. The people who devised Auberge had a pleasant philosophy-if something's illegal, there must be a market for it. If it's marketable, they'd attract a much better clientele with a hotel or shopping mall atmosphere.

The armed guards in tuxedos served as the crime deterrent. The managements were eager to retain their wealthy customers from Malibu, the Valley Rim, and Disney County.

The same guards also prevented unwelcome intrusions by such spoilsports as the feds and the LAPD. Since half of City Hall frequented the casinos and cathouses there, such precautions may have been unnecessary. They patrolled the corridors and establishments anyway, each armed with a laser, a neural interruptor, and an automatic pistol of choice.

They never lost arguments.

I walked across the unpaved field that served as a parking lot. Expensive cars covered every square meter like party night at the Rockefellers'.

A blatantly obvious cavern served as the entrance to Auberge. Just past the stylized mouth of the cave, a door whirred open to let me in. A knockout redhead smiled from behind a mahogany counter.

"Welcome to Auberge, sir. May I take your coat?"

I surrendered my trench coat and asked for directions to Casino Grande. Though I'd been there a few times in the past-mostly as a guest on business outings-I'd never gotten the hang of the underground's three-dimensional layout.

I listened carefully and set off. Despite her directions, I took what became either the rightest or the wrongest turn in my life.

I hadn't noticed that the crowded, classy joint I'd entered was the Casino of The Angels, not the Grande. To me, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. I just wanted to gamble away my dough.

The blackjack table wiped out half of what I had with me. I took the rest and drifted to a craps table. People milled around. Rich people, mostly. And a good portion of losers, such as yours truly, dressed up and ready to lose even more while feeling like a part of the diamond and dashing crowd.

I watched the game in progress, shifting my weight from leg to leg to ease the dull pains that poked at my bones. It was then that I saw her.

I had just muscled in between two kibitzers who looked as if they wouldn't let go of a dime to bet on the sun setting. The rest of the crowd around the table bet fast and loose. I saw why.

She stood at the head of the table holding the dice in her hand. Blond hair the color of unalloyed gold hung past her shoulders to touch the low-cut back of her silver evening gown. She tapped dark, bloodhued nails against the little green cubes. They rattled in her hand for a moment before being cast forward across the table. They landed near me. A two and a three.

"Bicycle tricycle," the croupier said in a tired voice. He looked as if he had once weighed a few hundred pounds and lost the weight but not the skin. He raked the dice back to the woman.

"Five again," someone marveled. The onlookers, especially the men, applauded. The croupier stoically shoved some chips her way.

She smiled. Not with the smile I usually associate with blondes. If there's one thing worse than the dull, brainless expression I see on most blondes, it's the faked look of intelligence I see on others. There were exceptions, and this lady was one.

She appeared unimpressed by her luck, though not bored-she seemed to be whiling away her time, not really paying attention.

The men, oddly enough, didn't pay much attention to her, either. Sure, the oily gigolos greedily eyed her mountain of chips. An occasional wolf gave lustful notice to the dress that clung skintight to skin that deserved to be clung tight to. And I could tell which of us sitting at the table knew we had no chance with her. We were the few who just stared at her arctic blue eyes and their blizzard gaze that never seemed to touch on anyone. Mostly, though, the crowd behaved as if she weren't much more than a mannequin propped up at the end of the table.

I broke away from watching her long enough to scan the room, and I noticed two interesting occurrences. First, one of the pit bosses appeared from behind a mirrored door to approach the owner of the establishment. He pointed toward the lady in silver.

Second, a trio of nervous weasels with hood written all over them strolled through the main door separately. They reunited as soon as they were inside. Amateurs.

I let my gaze wander back to the gaming floor. The owner and the pit boss were approaching the craps table.

Just before they got there, as if she had eyes in the back of her head, the golden lady scooped up most of her winnings and nodded courteously to the table. She made a straight line for the cashier.

To get there, she had to pass the owner. I braced myself for the quiet scene about to occur. It didn't. Instead, the owner and the pit boss drifted right past her, a sort of glaze coming over their eyes.

Reaching the table, the owner simply glanced around with a dull expression, counted the remaining chips, and quietly berated the pit boss. The fat man ran a hand through his toupee and shrugged. They went their separate ways.

The silver lady glided toward the cashier at about the same rate as the three jittery thugs in monkey suits. I looked around for guards. The only two visible were on the other side of the room taking care of a drunk.

When the unwholesome trinity reached to their waistbands, I knew what had to be done.

I shouldered my way over to the cashier, getting there ahead of Blondie to place my hulk between her and the approaching hit team. A calculated misstep permitted her to collide with me, spilling her chips.

The hoods had their guns out by the time the chips clattered to the floor. They clustered around the cashier, propositioning him. Blondie stooped to recover her goods.

"Next time why don't you watch-"

I crouched down, drawing my auto from its waistband holster.

"Keep down, beautiful, we're in for fun."

One of the little men socked somebody who had stepped up to the booth. A woman screamed, and the crowd surged backward.

The crooks panicked. One whipped about and pointed aimlessly at the bystanders, stark terror showing behind his eyes. Another one joined in, while the third continued to fill a sack with orange paper. The guards tried to push their way forward from the rear without catching the crooks' attention.

They were too busy to notice me, so I drew my aim upward. At about that time, the ugliest, most ill-dressed of the three slowly shifted the aim of his muzzle in my direction. I figured that the cloudy look in his eyes arose from his amateur standing.

Blondie gasped behind me-more in disbelief than in fear.

I fired.

The first creep fell, a bloody gap blooming red like a rose in his lapel. I snapped my aim over to the second squirt just as the guards used my diversion to rush forward and point their neural interruptors.

We were on the fringe of the field effect those things emit. I went numb. I would have been sure it was a heart attack or a stroke if I hadn't known better.