The two remaining thugs dropped, their lights knocked dim by the interruptor beams.

"We've got to get out," a voice behind me whispered.

Suddenly, out was what I wanted to get above all else. I rose up. Determining that I could walk without too much effort, I made tracks for the exit.

The guards seemed too busy to notice me, even though a crook lay dead at their feet and a .45 dangled in my right hand. One of them looked blankly at me, then turned back to the corpse and its snoring partners.

At the doorway, I turned to Blondie saying, "Hey-your chips-"

She was gone.

I scanned the casino for a moment. Not there. I turned to look down the hallway. A silver figure strode unnoticed down the corridor.

"Hey, lady!" I shouted. If she didn't want her chips, I thought, to hell with them. But she deserved some thanks for getting me out of there.

Bullshit.

I was irritated because she hadn't had the decency to thank me for saving her life. Why I ever expected decency from anyone hadn't occurred to me. I jammed the pistol back into my waistband.

Did she think she'd have a gunman at her side every time she needed one?

She heard my shout and turned around to stop dead in her tracks. She stared at me with the queerest expression I'd ever seen on a dame. She looked shocked. If I hadn't seen her up close under the previous circumstances, I would have chalked the look up to simple snootiness. Yet I think she genuinely expected no further notice from me.

She spun about in a swirl of glimmering silver and walked away, her haughtiness losing some of its cutting edge. She glanced back just before turning a corner, stared at me again, and vanished out of view.

I shrugged and headed for the exit from Auberge. Security was lax, as usual. The exit guards probably didn't even know that something had happened inside one of the casinos. They patrolled the corridors, leaving internal affairs to the owners of each establishment.

The redhead at the cloakroom had been replaced by a lovely black woman in a topaz-hued harem outfit. I retrieved my coat and strolled out into the night air.

Walking down Hope Street toward Flower, my thoughts drifted back to the blonde. Who was she, to watch one man kill another and take it in stride?

Ah hell, I thought, maybe she figured I worked for the club or something. Considering how handily she won those chips, maybe she didn't want to stick around to retrieve them, let alone carry on small talk.

I jammed my hands into my pockets and headed back to my office. The night air was warm for the end of October. I let it waft around me and carry my worries away. Before I knew it, I had reached the tower and climbed to my floor.

Lights glowed in the waiting room.

Normally, I leave my office door locked and my waiting room open. I find that I get more business that way. Sometimes, I just get Bennie the Dipso curled up on the couch.

This time, I had company.

He stood as I entered. Not more than an inch or two taller, he towered over me in that psychologically intimidating manner that marked him as a hustler of vast experience. I decided to counter by playing it tough.

"Mr. Dell Ammo, I presume?" He wore the most well-tailored suit of the finest beige material I'd ever seen. His dark brown hair exploded around his head in a loose shag style. Even though he was in his mid-forties, the style suited him. Everything about him fit to perfection. Even the soft brown eyes suited him. In body, clothes, manner, and self-assurance, he radiated perfection.

I disliked him already.

"So maybe you know me. And maybe I know the Reverend Emil Zacharias." Some name-it sounded as fake as the one I'd picked for myself. I opened up the office door and pocketed my keys. He followed me in after I'd switched on the lights.

"I seem to have a reputation that precedes me."

"I watch the news. Your breakdown got a lot of airplay. Not many other evangelists announce on live television that the earth is occupied territory and challenge God to meet him in battle to take it back."

"It was a momentary lapse, I assure you." He looked about my office with amused disdain. "Are you trying to create an image with this decor?"

I eased myself into the swivel chair. My bones felt like fragilestemmed roses with the thorns turned inward.

I pointed to the chair across the desk. He preferred to stand, leaning forward on an expensive-looking antique walking stick. It would have suited his image if it housed a sword dipped in curare. He seemed nothing like an evangelist.

"So," he said, turning to look me in the eye. "We both know each other. Perhaps you can guess why I'm here."

I leaned back and frowned. "It's not my business to guess."

He sat down, laying the stick against one leg. He folded his arms and took a deep breath.

"I understand, Mr. Ammo, that in the past you have provided solutions to rather, ah, difficult problems."

"That's what the brochures say."

"Yes." He fiddled with his walking stick, tapping it against one of the less worn spots on the rug. He seemed enormously troubled. Every trace of self-assurance dissolved in the midst of some internal battle. His words caught in his throat like fishhooks.

He stared directly at me. "I want someone…" He hesitated. The same look of struggle ran across him. I knew what word he wanted. I refrained from supplying it. He eventually realized that I wouldn't write his script for him and said, "Killed. I want someone killed, more or less. I want someone out of the way." With that, his confidence returned and he relaxed.

"Sorry," I said, "I don't operate in that field. I'm just a gumshoe."

"Oh?" He pulled a cigarette from a polished ebony case, tapped it, and stuck it between his lips. His motions employed a practiced slowness intended to hold my attention. He replaced the case in his pocket and raised both hands to his cigarette.

I didn't see what sort of lighter he had hidden in his fist, but the flame it put out danced red and yellow at the tip of the coffin nail. He inhaled deeply, then let a cloud of smoke escape through his mouth and nose.

"I have the ability to pay very well. The job will entail great difficulties, but the reward will be commensurate, I assure you."

"Out of the pocketbooks of the faithful, I suppose?" Before he could get too insulted, I continued. I was too conscious of my age, my health, and my emotions.

"Sorry, Zack. I'm not able to take on any clients, regardless of price. I'm taking an extended vacation. Maybe if you came back in a year-"

"That would be too late!"

Wouldn't it, though. "I'm sorry." I opened the last bag of whiskey I had in the office.

"Well." Emil stood, holding his walking stick loosely. "Perhaps I may leave you with something to think about during the next few days."

I automatically rose to shake his hand. His grasp was firm, not fishy as I'd expected.

"Thanks, but I don't accept advance considerations. Makes for misunderstandings. Good evening." I sat back down and clomped my feet on the desk.

"As you wish. However, I still think you shall find my offer foremost in your thoughts in days to come. Good night." He turned and walked out of my office.

I didn't like him. I didn't like his confidence, his total faith that I could be bent to his way of thought.

I didn't like getting drunk, either. It was preferable to thinking about him, though. I loosened my shoes and foulard and poured a glassful of the bourbon.

Halfway through my drunk, I staggered up to shut off the blower. I figured the ventilation system had screwed up again. I fell asleep with the distinct impression that the place smelled like an oil refinery.

I woke up in the same position in which I'd fallen asleep-feet on the desk, hands in my lap, my chair leaning against the stacks of books behind me.