"You shall have eternal life. As long as you wish. Youth, health, vigor-"

"I've heard about your tricks. You'd welch somehow. Turn me into a young, healthy, vigorous grasshopper or something."

"No monkey's paws, Mr. Ammo. I promise you."

I had to laugh. "Why should I trust you? Aren't you called the Prince of Lies?"

It was his turn to laugh. "You listen too much to my detractors. Propaganda always paints the enemy as a hideous monster while whitewashing the favored side. I could tell you stories about the last few Creations that would make your hair sizzle."

I poured a final trickle of whiskey from the sack in the drawer, took a deep sip, and considered.

The whole thing stank. He could simply be an agent involved in some intricate scheme that included faked medical reports, mimetic drugs, spying, squealing-and a hell of a lot of gall.

"I doubt that there's anything you can do to convince me that any of this is real. But let's assume it is. What happens if I don't agree to kill Him?"

He stared at me coolly. "You'll be very painfully dead within three months."

"I could always kill myself before then."

"In the opinion of some theologians, that would send you right to me."

"Would it?"

He smiled and tapped his cane against the floor. "Far be it from me to disparage any religion. I'm the Prince of Lies, aren't I?"

I stood and rammed my fists against the desktop. "Listen, Zacharias, you're the one who doesn't want to play head games. Here it is straight. First you have a nervous breakdown on TV and declare yourself Earth's master. Then you come to me and tell me to kill God. You don't even ask. It's practically an order. You-or someone-is playing poison with my body. You know damn well that I want to live, so you threaten me with death. You want me to kill something I don't even believe exists. As far as I'm concerned, this is either some trick or you're psycho. But you're a rich psycho. I know what sort of bucks the evangelical racket brings in."

I paused for effect. I didn't have any. He just stared at me with a distant, aloof gaze.

"My fees on the case will be five hundred a day, plus expenses. And I mean five hundred grams of gold. To be deposited in the Casino Grande vault. I'm not taking chances with paper money again."

He calmly said, "Four hundred."

"You want me to kill God and we're haggling over the price?"

"Oh, all right. Five." He removed his glove and extended his hand. "Shake on it."

"Give it a rest."

His hand stayed up. "Really, Mr. Ammo. It's for your own protection."

I'd heard that from enough shysters in my life. We shook. His touch was hot, his grasp firm.

"No contract? No signing in blood?"

"Mr. Ammo." The corners of his mouth turned up like dead leaves curling. "If it is a sin merely to contemplate a venial or mortal sin, then I assure you that the spoken willingness to commit the one immortal sin is quite enough for my purpose."

"And what is that?"

"An end to sibling rivalry." He turned to leave the office-by ordinary means.

Before he had walked out of my waiting room, I called after him.

"Hey! Wait! Where do I find God?"

His voice trailed behind him as he spoke without turning. "That is a search many have conducted with much less reason than you, Dell Ammo. Good luck."

His footsteps resounded hollowly on the floor of the corridor. The elevator whined into life.

I wondered whether it would stop at any floor or just keep going…

"Jesus Christ," I said, sliding back in my chair. "Son of a bitch."

I had a contract to kill God. And I'd never reneged on a contract before. How hard would it be to kill someone who didn't exist? And how long could I draw pay and expenses before Zack noticed that I hadn't eliminated his imaginary competitor?

I began to understand how seance artists felt about their profession. It's great work while it lasts.

Zacharias intrigued me. He didn't act insane, but then neither did politicians. He just talked crazy. A famous TV evangelist who had preached the word of God for years to the nation via satellite now wanted Him out of the way.

It sounded as if it would be bad for business.

All right. I'd get a cut of it without firing a shot. I had a contract to kill God, and I was going to kill Him.

No matter that it might take years. At five hundred a day.

Plus expenses.

I took a brisk walk the next morning. Down Figueroa to Fifth Street, crossing piles of rubble and shattered glass that spread across the pavement like webbed hands reaching for the opposite sidewalks. The air smelled cleaner, and a smear of blue sky hovered at the zenith. It was a great day to begin my quest.

A couple of blocks down Fifth stood the library. Nearly everyone used the computer plaque for news, information, and entertainment. The same satellites that brought the Right Reverend Emil Zacharias and his Hallelujah House into people's living rooms permitted anyone owning a plaque access to the Smithsonian library computer. Except for the people who liked to collect first editions, or those addicted to the smell of paper and glue, libraries and books were obsolete.

And then there were the old dogs who are slow to change. Count me in. I wouldn't feel as if I were learning anything if I weren't in a library building toting around a stack of ungainly books. It felt cozy.

I had optimistically prepared to spend an afternoon discovering exactly what God was. When I reached the religion section, I realized that I'd underestimated by about three lifetimes.

After an hour of randomly walking about peering at titles, I had a stack of books under either arm that covered each major religion. I felt like a student cramming for finals. I suppose I was.

Hell, I was being paid for it.

The next several hours consisted of reading one definition after another, either totally contradictory or as clear as the La Brea tar pits. Apparently, God is self-surpassing, an unmoved mover, a standard of reality, the supreme reality, the sole reality, temporal, eternal, infinite, finite, infinite-finite, an object of direct experience (that would be just my luck), one with man, apart from man, apart from everything, part of everything, everything. The beginning, the beginingless…

By closing time, my head pounded as if it had been borrowed for a performance of the Anvil Chorus. I left the library knowing less than ever. Before, at least, I'd had some idea of God. He was this hairy thunderer that some people thought was necessary to keep them from bumping into telephone poles. I'd gotten along quite well without Him for fifty-two years. Now I suddenly had to know who He was and the only image I could conjure up was that of some blob of something out somewhere doing somesuch somehow.

Not much to work with. This contract had more false leads than a hooker's smile.

A cold wind from the west blew down Fifth Street, kicking up rubbish and dust. I kept my head down and watched the garbage eddy around my feet with each step.

Kill God.

The idea seemed even more absurd now, away from the calm confidence of Zacharias. Maybe I had been right all along, and this was some sort of plot. Entrapment. Psych warfare. Revenge.

It was all too complicated, though. In my profession, death moved at the speed of a roadster, a bullet, a beam of laser light. No assassin ever received the kindness of an elaborate death scheme, no matter how artistically he conducted his own kills.

No. I knew at the time what I was agreeing to. I hadn't merely sold my soul. Souls he handled like petty cash. I had contracted for the Supreme Patricide.

I should have asked for a thousand a day.