"Seven," the croupier announced with smug finality. I'd been obliterated. Sort of the way I'd be in a few months.

For the moment, though, I had a hundred friends. The gamblers all loved me. They gathered up their huge winnings and offered to buy me drinks, dinners, women.

The lady in silver laughed, her voice tinkling like small clear ice cubes in a glass of purest crystal.

I smiled at her over the heads and shoulders of the happy crowd. "The old man's had a big night and has to go to bed now." I pocketed what little money I had left.

"Don't fool yourself, Mr. Ammo. You're not quite as old as you think. Take a long hard look at yourself when you get home."

"Yeah, sure, dollface." She would take the opportunity to get away right about then, I thought. And sure as clockwork she turned away. She hesitated, though, like a vixen curious about a strange creature she sees before her.

"I-" She turned back to look at me, a desperate decision forming behind her eyes. "My name is Ann Perrine. I work at the Bautista Corporation on Cordova. If you ever need help, give me a call."

"What makes you think I'll need help?"

Her smile said it all. "I'm in charge of Final Accounts. Extension four-eighteen."

With that, she spun around in a swish of silver and gold. She walked quickly away, leaving me with a snappy reply left unspoken.

I cashed my few chips, found that I'd only just broken even. I retrieved my coat from the cloakroom and stepped into the cool L.A. night.

On the way up to my office, I decided to stop at La Vecque's floor. A puddle of light spilled out from under his door.

I rapped a few knuckles against the rotting wood veneer.

"Who the hell's bothering me at this hour?" He paused. "I've got a shotgun!"

"Relax, Doc. It's me."

"Dell? Get in here." The door unlocked.

I pushed it open and entered to see La Vecque duck into his record room. He emerged a moment later with a plaque and a file folder.

"Take a look at these." He punched the tiny keys on the plaque, calling up two nearly identical body-shaped images. Their only difference lay in their coloring.

"Me, right?" I balanced the plaque on my fingertips.

"Right. Last month's scan and today's. Notice the changes in coloration where your bones are? And the changes in places such as your intestines and prostate? They correspond to absorptive and transmissive differences in the oscillations of the magnetic waves we used to make the scan."

"Of course," I said with as much authority as I could. He had me stumped. The pictures seemed to be almost exact opposites in coloration.

"Your lab reports show large amounts of cancer cells in your urine and feces. I was sure it meant that the cancer had spread to your vital organs. The scan says otherwise. The incidence of cancer cells in your body has sharply declined. I don't understand the mechanism, but somehow you're excreting your sarcoma."

"What?"

"Damn it, Dell, you're pissing out your cancer. I couldn't be totally sure from the scan, but your lab reports and blood tests show it. You've gone into some kind of spontaneous remission and you're rapidly expelling both your metastatic cancer cells and the osteogenic cells." He ran a spotted hand over his bald, sweat-dappled head and waved his other hand around in helpless circles.

"I don't know what's causing it, I don't understand the transport mechanism, I don't even know if I'm just crazy. You're healing."

"Oh."

"`Oh' is all he can say. Look, Ammo, you're not dying anymore. You're-" He stared up at me and narrowed his eyes. He looked as if he'd seen his mother in a cathouse.

"Your hair!"

My hands shot up by reflex. It felt the same. "What's wrong?" He'd gotten me all fidgety.

"Your roots are black!"

That might have angered a showgirl. I was stunned. I turned to see my reflection in his sink mirror. My mess of grey hair seemed to float a millimeter above my scalp. Peering closer, I saw black roots at the base of the dull, old fibers.

"What is this?" I didn't like surprises.

"Don't ask me, Dell. I never majored in miracles. Give me a million bucks and I might be able to find an answer for you. Or just pay me the fifty you owe me and we'll call it square."

I peeled off a few orange sawbucks and handed them over. He tossed them onto an instrument tray and shut off the plaque. "Thanks. Now get out before scientific curiosity overwhelms me and I decide to vivisect you."

Easing the door shut behind me, I walked down the silent, musty hallway toward the stairs. I decided to perform my own test. The stairs seemed less formidable. I ran up two at a time.

My legs and lungs hardly noticed.

Mystified, I walked toward my office door. It stood halfway open, throwing a trapezoid of light across the cracked linoleum of the corridor.

There are times when the answer to a burning question lurks just beyond a door such as that. This was one of those times. I quietly slid my automatic from its holster. Something clattered inside my waiting room. A pair of feet scuffled about.

I edged closer to the door, keeping an eye on the shadow that flitted about into the hall. One step brought me inside the doorway.

His athletic body neatly filled the light gray suit. His back turned to me, all I could see was a head of brown hair and gloved hands clasping a walking stick.

"Mr. Ammo," he said before turning to see me.

"Reverend Zack." I slipped my pistol away and leaned against the jamb, arms folded.

"I'm expected, then?"

"Like famine after flood." I stood my ground. "What do you want?"

"The project we discussed. You've had time to reconsider my offer."

"The answer's still no."

He looked me up and down. A smile spread across his smooth face. "Nice head of hair you might be getting there."

I knew what he was getting at. I played dumb. Inside, something began to quiver.

"Yeah. So what? Maybe I've read a book on life extension."

"And your aches. Gone?"

"Yeah. Gone. For a while. What of it?" I knew what of it. And I knew what he would say next.

"I told you I'd give you something to help you reconsider my offer. Shall I take it back?"

That was it, then. I'd never before met someone with an offer I couldn't refuse. I was staring at the ultimate Godfather. If that term could be applied. I wasn't going to give in that easily, though.

"Take what back?" I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke arch upward. I put on my best act of calm assurance. Inwardly, I quaked.

"Come on, Dell. We can play ridiculous head games for hours. The truth is you don't want to die, and I'm offering you a way out."

I moved behind my desk to sit down, dousing the cigarette in a coffee cup. "What's the deal, Zack?"

He sat in the easy chair next to the couch. When he lit a cigarette this time, I tried to see exactly how he did it. I wasn't too sure he used a lighter.

"The project involves a single killing. One being." Waving the smoke away from his face, he smiled calmly.

"Being?"

"He is known by many names. Jehovah. Allah. Brahma. The King of Kings. The First Cause. God."

"I see."

"The All-Powerful. The Creator."

"I get you."

"Yahweh. Adonai. El Elion."

"Check."

"The Lord. The Infinite Spirit. The-"

"All right!" I shouted. "I understand. Kapish. Comprendo. You want me to bump off the Big One!"

"Uh-no, not really," he said quickly. "Well, yes."

"Zack-I don't believe in God."

"You don't have to. Just assassinate Him."

"You have flipped out."

"I have not. He exists just as surely as I do. He threatens my control of this spiritual plane. Kill Him."

I lit another coffin nail, whiffing the smoke carefully to make sure I hadn't been slipped anything funny. The chair creaked as I leaned back in it. "Okay. If I buy the premise, I buy the bit. Say He does exist. What happens if I kill Him?"