"Let's go." Ann shook her hair back and crammed the last few chips into the bag. She turned to go, only to bump up against the arm of a slender black man. He reacted as though nothing more than a breeze had wafted by.

A few men and women glanced at Ann as we waded through the crowds toward the casino exit. Their gaze would light on her, then wander, their expressions growing blank.

My last view of George was of him being escorted to the security office by three gentlemen in nicely tailored black tuxes. He looked as if he'd been deflated and hung on a coathook.

"You rolled him like a drunk," I said.

She shrugged. "Poker is a lot like assassination, Dell. Sometimes someone gets wiped out."

"And assassination is a lot like poker-you've got to understand the minds of all the players." I spoke quietly, waiting for her to convert her winnings at the cashier. "What I've been trying to figure out all along is your part in this. A little roughing up by a priest wouldn't drive most people to such efforts."

She said nothing. The cashier calmly wrote out a chit. He might have been playing with the money all by himself for all the notice he gave Ann. You'd think they had women shot at every night.

She deposited the chit in her handbag. When she looked at me, it was with a flush of excitement. The light in her eyes warmed, like fire seen dimly through ice.

"I've got a lot more than that to get even with, Dell. A lot more than a little pushing around."

I stepped out of the casino with her at my side. "Let me guess," I said. "Your parents were Bible-beating fundamentalists, right?"

She grimaced. "Hardly."

"Then you possess the ultimate Electra complex, which you try to sublimate by helping to murder your heavenly Father."

She laughed. Her laughter grew louder and higher until it cracked.

"Not exactly," she said after a moment. All humor had drained from her face, as if someone had slugged her. She said nothing more until we separated to go to our hotel rooms.

The next day we visited my rocket factory.

STRATODYNE CORPORATION, INC.ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMSNO TRESPASSING!

"They don't encourage much walk-in trade, do they?" I stared at the peeling sign on the rust-stained gate. The cyclone fencing could have been torn apart with a buttonhook. A formidable padlock connected the two ends of a chain that could have been cut in half with a pair of scissors.

Ann reached over to the steering wheel to honk the horn.

"Not much need for security out here," she said. "But they try."

A faded guardhouse stood beyond the gate. A bent old black man in a grey uniform stepped out, unlocked the gate, and stepped over to my side of the Chrysler.

"We called," Ann said. "This is Mr. Ammo."

The old man nodded. "That's right. That's right." He walked back to the gate to open it all the way.

"Sort of lonely out here, isn't it?" I said.

The old man pointed at his guard shack. "That thing's full of a mess of books. Time to read's what I got. I'm seein' the world." He waved us through as if in a dream. "Seein' the world."

The path to the factory was unpaved. We kicked up enough dirt to signal our movement for miles. We wouldn't have to worry about that, though. Clouds darkened the sky overhead. The streets in Claremont a few miles back had been slick from morning rain.

A drop of water spattered against the windshield like an angry bug. A few more droplets descended from the sky to hit the car or make little dust explosions on the road. A starling hopped out of our way, cursing the twin intrusions of car and rain.

We drove into a narrow canyon that widened around a bend, revealing the vast StratoDyne manufacturing empire. A decaying assembly building covered an acre or so of real estate. Another acre of unpaved parking lot abutted its south side. A sloping concrete wall about a mile away separated the building from a circular concrete launching pad.

One lone thirty-year-old Buick, wearing more rust than paint, snuggled up close to the building. A crow cawed wearily, circling about the facility dodging raindrops. It landed on the roof of the building to seek sanctuary under a girder.

I drove down an incline toward the Buick. The rain had already begun to drag the road dust down the shoulders in little rivulets.

I parked in front of the other car. After a quick sprint, we reached a door marked General Office, standing halfway open. A fluorescent lamp flickered inside. The rain fell around the building like a collapsing world.

Ann pulled the door shut. Her khaki jumpsuit looked like a leopard's spotted hide. The brass buttons and buckles that served as functional accents glinted in the unsteady pulsations of the indoor light.

The office was empty. The intermittent buzz of the lamp could not compete with the sound of the rain outside.

I looked around. Vacant chairs faced naked typewriters. Paper trays squatted on desks like starving animals, waiting to be filled. The wall clock was an hour and a half slow. Someone had once tossed sharpened pencils at a poster of a NASA space shuttle, where they still remained stuck. The words Good Riddance had been scrawled across the poster. I wondered whether they referred to the abortive NASA fiasco or whether a disgruntled employee had fired a parting shot. I suppose it didn't matter in either case.

Somewhere amidst the noise of the downpour, the sound of a radio faintly drifted into the room. It played a forgotten tune by an obscure rock band.

I glanced at Ann.

She shrugged. "Follow the music?"

I nodded.

The wet bottoms of my gum-soled shoes made annoying squeaking sounds against the cement floor. Ann's boot-heels clicked in pleasant contrast. Neither of us could have sneaked up on anyone.

I felt like an explorer in a haunted tomb.

I preceded Blondie through the rear door of the office. It led directly to the main assembly room. Almost an acre of open space spread before us under a vaulted roof. It would have made an impressive indoor tennis court, though I'd seen larger ones.

Partitions hung here and there, obstructing our forward view. Looking up at the ceiling was the only way to see the entire span of the place. We weaved past several of the barriers. Then we saw it.

It lay there on its landing gear-white and gleaming and smooth and graceful. Like a giant dove, its wings were swept back in anticipation of flight. The cockpit stood twenty feet above us-a multifaceted gem inlaid against sleek pearl.

"It's beautiful," Ann whispered.

A deep voice behind us said, "It's a piece of junk."

We turned to see a tall man in a pair of greasy red coveralls. He was young, with the usual vague tan that typified nearly everyone from L.A. He sat next to the radio, legs outstretched, leaning against a pile of titanium struts. His fingers were interlaced behind his head.

"Junk?" My shoes squeaked with my turn.

He stood. "Old man Geislinger had a good idea, building low-cost space shuttles. Only problem was, NASA didn't want anyone competing with their overpriced jalopies."

I put a foot up on a crate. "They didn't like that, I suppose."

"No, sir! The Federal Trade Commission nearly drove the old man to ruin. The only money he made was in the countereconomy. When he finally ad astraed, the company went up for grabs, and George Turner tried greenmailing a leveraged buyout to drive the stock price up."

"Doesn't seem to have worked," said Ann, surveying the remains of the factory.

"No, ma'am. George was never much of a businessman. The greenmail blew up in his face. The management revolted and unfurled their golden parachutes. He wound up stuck with a gutted company and no one to run it. Then the Hudson Phoenix shot the cost of spaceflight through the floor."