"Cancel the contract."

He sat on my hotel room bed, his black shoes on the bedcovers, his cane by his side. Even lying down, his evening clothes didn't show a wrinkle. He gazed at me with mild, friendly eyes. Their appearance was deceptive-the glance felt about as affable as a knife pointed at my throat.

I threw my jacket on the bed and closed the door behind me.

"What's wrong, Zack? Can't find any more virgins?" Ann had gone to her room with the kid for a moment. At least he'd caught me alone.

He folded his hands behind his head and lay back. "Let's not go into that. Let's just say that I've changed my mind."

I sidled up to the nightstand drawer to pull out a sack of bourbon. "Did I mess up your plans, Zack?"

"Thoroughly." He stopped trying to look amiable. "You don't have to go through with this. Just tell me you're canceling the contract."

I slugged down a good jolt of the sour mash. It warmed me. "Zack," I said, "I've been thinking a lot about God lately, thanks to you. I was never a fan of Hallelujah House, but you've still managed to get my soul thinking about the Almighty. He seems to have screwed this world up fairly well, so I don't see any reason not to have Him deposed. I may even have the M.O. figured out. Everyone's been remarkably helpful."

"Keep the money. I'll even give you a termination bonus."

"Sorry," I said. "If I cancel the contract, I die."

"I guarantee that you won't."

"How do I know that isn't a Princely lie?"

He stiffened. "Cancel it, Ammo. Save yourself a lot of heartache."

"I'm no stranger to heartache, Zacharias." I eyed him from behind my glass of bourbon. "I take it you can't cancel the contract unilaterally." It was a wild guess, but from the way he tightened his jaw, I knew I'd hit home. "You can't even break your own promises. What a laugh!"

"The contract must be dissolved by mutual agreement, of course. You have nothing to gain by continuing this pointless endeavor."

"I'll have to think it over."

"There are powerful forces combining to stop you, Mr. Ammo. Do not add me to their legion."

I said nothing. For a long moment we stared at each other. He slowly moved a hand from behind his head.

"I sent a warning to you via an old man. Your lady left it behind." He quickly pulled something from behind the pillow and tossed it on the bed. He stood.

"I don't know how you two located each other," he said. "Suffice it to say that such treachery is unforgivable."

"I'll worry about forgiveness from the other guy, Zack." I glanced at the thing on the bed. It looked exactly like the flame dagger Ann had pulled out of the mutant. The hilt was still intact. The blade, though, had corroded as if it had lain underwater for a century. Rust flakes sprinkled the bedcovers in an oval around where it landed.

Zacharias opened the door.

"As I said once before, I do not tolerate betrayal."

The door slammed.

I picked up the dagger and looked it over for a few moments. Something had done a number on it. The blade very nearly crumbled in my hand. I filed it in the wastebasket.

So my client suddenly wants me off the case and needs my consent to do so. That put me in a predicament. I was moving on my own momentum now. I'd been sapped, drugged, kidnapped, and generally mishandled in the last few days, all in the name of God.

If He was anything like His followers, it wouldn't be murder. It would be pesticide. As far as I was concerned, this contract terminated with God.

Or me.

I withdrew what revalued money I had out of my various bank accounts and relocated to an office in the old Union Bank Building. It stood northwest of Arco Tower and had been protected from the bomb blast in South Tower by the bulk of North Tower's mass. I snuck back into my old office at night to remove everything I needed.

The next couple of days were spent in the new office overlooking the decaying ruin of Old Downtown. I sat by the window, thinking.

There had to be a way to kill God even if there was no corpus Domini before or after the act. If God didn't exist in some real, tangible way, then what was I up against? An idea, as Golding and Corbin both implied? Could an idea be so powerful as to rule the minds of men for a hundred centuries?

I shrugged. If people can believe in "just wars" and "honest politicians," they can believe in an all-powerful, all-seeing, totally benevolent God who permits suffering and evil to exist. When you begin with false premises, you can get any conclusion you want. True or false.

If God did exist, regardless of how He was perceived, perhaps He could be flushed out into the open by the same sort of tactics I'd use if He were only an idea. Maybe God isn't dead-but He's not at all well. How powerful is a God who-in spite of Biblical warnings-is mocked, and mocked repeatedly with every disaster that's labeled an Act of God, our supposed protector?

How alive is a God that everyone laughs at? Or ignores? Or forgets?

This was giving me a headache. I switched on the TV plaque and flipped through the channels with the remote.

Channel 3 was running the fourteenth chapter of Nixon: A Giant Betrayed. I'd seen it. Channel 4 had a commercial for a licorice-flavored cereal called Krunchy Molas. Kids stuck black-stained tongues at the screen while a chorus sang the jingle.

I switched before I lost my breakfast cereal.

I flipped right past a rerun episode of The Bold Bureaucrats without stopping. Channel 7 was screening a double feature in its Appropriate Billing series. They were running this duo under their combined titles: Conduct Unbecoming… An Officer and a Gentleman. That was better than last week's coupling: On the Beach… Where the Boys Are.

I flipped to UHF. On Channel 23, piped in from Disney County, was one of the most odious talk shows on the air. It was also one of the most popular.

"Ladies and gentlemen," snarled a vicious announcer, "and all you welfare bums and draft-dodging slimeballs-it's time for"-a drum rolled, a flank of bugles sounded-"the most moral show on television, Ad Hominem Attack! With your host-a paragon of virtue who never lets a guest escape unscathed-`Beaver' Lenny!"

The audience cheered as if it were Superbowl Sunday. "Beaver" Lenny strode onscreen like a president on inauguration day. The camera angle was such that he looked taller than any mortal. He had silver hair, even though he was only thirty-five. The suit he wore was Wall Street Traditional. He smiled like a college kid and spoke with as much animated enthusiasm.

"All right!" he shouted, his dark eyes glaring at the camera with feral glee. "How do you feel tonight?"

"Morally outraged!" the studio audience cheered.

I was ready to find another station when he yelled back at them.

"Great! Stoke that rage, because tonight on Ad Hominem Attack we've got a real scumbucket for you. His name's Thomas Russell, and he's from a gang of degenerates called the St. Judas Church of Holy Tribulation and Tax Evasion."

My brain went numb with an odd panic. Was this another coincidence? Another meaningful coincidence? All my thoughts evaporated. This show might prove interesting.

"Beaver" Lenny stepped toward his audience, the camera pulling back to give a wide angle shot.

"St. Judas," he hollered. "I can understand the tax evasion partthat's as American as unregistered handguns. But blasphemy?" He grinned. "Well, fellow righteously indignant, how many bodyguards do I want for this creep?"

"Eight!" someone from the audience shouted.

"Come on," Lenny hollered. "You can do better than that!"

"Five!" a dozen or so shot back.

The host bounded around the stage like a teenager in heat. "C'mon, c'mon. He's a threat to our American values. He's trying to undermine our faith, our morals, and our philosophical underpinnings!"