"Knock off the displays, little boy," I said. "I've been worked over by professionals-L.A. cops."

"I love all of you, and you've all turned your backs on Me."

"According to Your supporters," I shouted across the gap, "You gave us the ability to do so!"

"You stole it from the Tree!"

"Why didn't you take it back, Omnipotent One?"

"You didn't have to use it!" He put the squeeze on again.

When the fingers released, I said, "You're supposed to be all-powerful, yet You didn't remove the knowledge of good and evil from us. You could have easily corrected the Original Sin, yet a third of the angels turned against You. Why are the creations of a perfect God so flawed? Is there something we've overlooked?"

"Mocking me. You've always mocked me. I created the world for your happiness-"

"Yeah," I said, seeing an opening, "and filled it with storms and earthquakes and famines and wars and suffering when you could have made it a paradise."

"I had!" His voice thundered like a thousand Hiroshimas. "You broke the rules, and I had to throw you out!"

"You gave us the ability to break the rules."

"I didn't want mindless automata, I wanted free minds-"

"Then why," I screamed, "do You threaten us with punishment in Hell for exercising that freedom? You could have turned us into robots, but You didn't. Why can't You accept the consequences of Your actions?"

"I wanted you to choose Me freely, out of love for Me."

"Freely? Under threat of eternal suffering? Out of love? For a God that obliterates civilizations, murders infants, punishes the slightest deviation with brimstone and hellfire? On earth we have a term for that-protection racketeering."

"It's your fault, not Mine. You were bad."

I gazed around at the blood and guts smeared across the mountainous ridges of His fingerprint. "We only questioned Your authority."

"You disobeyed a direct command! You became one-in-yourselves. You became divine in your own right and left Me with nothing. Nothing!" Thunderclouds formed around His one visible eye. Lightning flashed in His gaze. A hot blue bolt of energy sizzled a few inches to my right.

"It was She," He said. It was the first acknowledgement He had made-I wouldn't let it be the last. "It was all the work of the Woman. She conspired with the Horned One to ruin My Paradise. I sent My Son to destroy Her works."

"That reminds me," I shouted, desperate to find some sort of leverage. "When a God such as Jove or Jehovah impregnates a human, is it rape, incest, or bestiality?"

"Your mockery damns you!"

"Then take away our power to mock! Don't keep killing and maiming, expecting to coerce us into loving You in self-defense. We're too tough to knuckle under!"

"Her doing. She tempts you back into sin, forcing Me to discipline you."

"Forget it, pal. I take the rap myself. As long as I have free will, I reject You. Don't pretend You're giving us a choice when the wrong choice results in eternal torture. You're giving us rules-rules for slaves."

He snarled. "You must obey your God!"

"Why?" I asked. It was an ancient child's game, but it just might work.

"Because I created you."

"Why?"

He stiffened up-millions of miles up. He towered over me until I shuddered from terror.

"Because I wanted to recreate My own image."

"Why?"

"So you would obey Me!" His voice rolled like the sea.

I wasn't going to get back into the whole free will contradiction again-He seemed rather impervious to logic. I gathered together all my resolve, half-expecting the result.

"Why?" I asked.

" BECAUSE I'M BIGGER THAN YOU! "

His breath blew me off His finger with the force of a stellar nova. I clung to as much of me as I could, falling and tumbling and twisting and spinning until I fell into a brilliant red light. It enveloped me, warm and revitalizing.

I sat at a card game (rather low in the chair). Other players sat beside me. At my right elbow (which lay on the table to my left, along with a section of one of my legs) quivered my pile of savaged flesh.

The other players bid portions of their own mounds as the betting progressed. I must have had beginner's luck. I won a piece of Martin Cann and the left lobe of Donovan's brain. I also won a chunk from somebody's buttock. I gave it back and left the game. I wasn't like Ann-I couldn't stand to see a poker player lose his ass.

For an hour or so, I sat at a table putting myself back together. I had nearly finished when a Stranger sat down beside me. He was tall and lean and dressed to riverboat-gambler's perfection. Long white hair flipped inward at the nape of His neck.

The Stranger pulled three cards from His vest pocket. He started to toss them about-face down on the table. Each one had a single perfect, sharp crease down the midline.

"Do you trust Me?" He asked casually.

I tried to follow the motions of His hands. His fingers crossed over one another at times, so I couldn't quite follow the cards. I shrugged and looked at Him.

"Why should I trust You? You've never shown Yourself before. You've given me no cause to trust You."

He nodded amiably, though still aloof. "You don't have cause to mistrust Me then, either." He flipped over a card. King of clubs.

"I've played this game for a long time," He continued. Another card flipped over-king of diamonds. "I win, I lose. Mostly I win." He eyed me with a noncommittal gaze. "You look good enough to beat Me. But you've got to trust Me. Otherwise, you don't stand a chance of winning."

"If the game is straight," I said, "what would it matter whether I trusted You or not?" I tapped the last bit of skin into place on my body and leaned the whole patchwork mess back in the chair.

"If you don't trust Me, you lose."

"And if I trust You, I win?"

He smiled. "I didn't say that." He took another calculating glance of me. "I only said that you can't win if you don't."

"And if I refuse to play the game?"

He flipped over another card. The ace of spades.

"Then," He said, "I'm afraid you still lose."

"Sounds like a sweet racket."

The Stranger shrugged. "It's kept Me going. And it keeps My boys in chips." His fingers danced around the cards as He nodded at the men behind Him.

Half a dozen of His boys stood along the bar, grinning at me. They wore gamblers' clothes, all right, but their faces were all familiar.

The Ecclesia.

"It's a healthy game to play," the Stranger continued. "But you've simply got to trust Me." The cards sped over one another at an increasingly blinding rate. He flipped one card over to show me the ace. Following the card was useless-He pointed to it, turned it over, revealed the king of clubs.

"Don't try to follow the game," He counseled. "Just trust Me. I wouldn't cheat you. Trust is the basis of the most sublime relationships." The Ace popped up again, got moved around, and became the King of Diamonds.

I tried to concentrate.

"Just pick a card," He said, the soft shuffling sound on the green felt blending hypnotically with His voice. "Just pick a card and trust Me. There is no other game. There is nothing else."

Something intruded, though. A pair of delicate hands rested upon my shoulders. A scent of patchouli lightly caressed my nostrils. I could feel Her warmth.

"Take a walk, sister" the Stranger said. His gaze never deviated from me. "You never trusted Me."

"That's because he cheats," She whispered in my ear. "That's simple enough reason not to trust him. Ask for proof of his honesty."

I stuck my hand out like a department store dummy. "May I see the cards?"

He scooped them up off the table. "No one can see all three! You've got to trust Me!"

"Why?"