But that night she shook her head. "I'd better not. I'd have to take the cup of roots again if you wanted me, and I don't want to drink beer and then steer a carpet through rush-hour traffic."

"Okay." I hope I gave in with good grace. If you love somebody not least for having a good head on her shoulders, you'd better not get annoyed when she uses it She went into the bathroom, came back and started to get dressed, then stopped and looked over at me. "Could we try again tonight?"

" Try is probably the operative word." But I was off the bed like a shot and heading for the kitchen. "Woman, you'll run me out of beer and make me go up with the window shade, but you're nice to have around."

"Good," she said, a smile in her voice. Beer in hand, I hurried back toward the bedroom. Her nice, sensible head was not the only reason I loved her. No indeed.

Judy did end up staying the night, because she didn't feel like flying after two rounds of the cup of roots. (In case you're wondering how we did the second time, it's none of your business.) No hanky-panky in the morning, though. We were both up early, her to go back to her place and change before she headed for work, me to to the parchmentwork I'd need to get a warrant from Judge Ruhollah.

After a fast breakfast, I walked her out to her carpet (as I said, I don't live in the best neighborhood), then went back to my own and headed for the Criminal and Magical Courts building downtown.

The commute downtown wasn't too bad, but parking in the heart of Angels City is outrageously expensive, even though they stack carpets up higher than you'd see in a rug merchants' bazaar. I was almost as upset as if I'd had to pay with my own money, not the EPAs.

You want to see every kind of human being any land of God ever made, go the Criminal and Magical Courts building; secular judges in black robes, canon law judges in red ones, bailiffs and constabulary and sheriffs looking more like soldiers than anything else, defendants sometimes looking guilty of everything in the world (regardless of whether they're only charged with flying a carpet too fast) and others who from the outside might be candidates for sainthood, witnesses, doctors, rabbis, wizards… If you like people watching, you won't find better entertainment.

Judge Ruhollah's bailiff was a big Swede named Eric something-or-other - I never can remember his last name, though I'd dealt with him before. He said, "I'm sorry, Inspector Fisher, but the judge won't be able to see you till about eleven. Something's come up."

I sighed, but what could I do about it? I went over to the bank of pay phones across the hall from the courtrooms.

When I told the mouthpiece imp what number I wanted, it Suawked back, "Forty-five coppers, please." I pushed ange into the outstretched hand of the little pay phone demon, which must be descended from Mammon by way of the Gadarene swine. If I'd turned my back on it, I'm sure it would have tried to pick my pocket.

After I called in at the office to say I'd be late, I bought some coffee (and a Danish I didn't really need) and cooled my heels in the cafeteria, looking with one eye at the data I'd be giving the qadi and with the other at people going past.

Two cups and another Danish later (I promised myself I wouldn't eat lunch), it was a quarter to eleven. I threw the parchments back into my briefcase and presented myself to Eric again.

He picked up a phone, spoke into it, then nodded to me.

"Go on in." I went.

How do I describe Judge Ruhollah? If you're Christian (which he wasn't), think of God the Father when He's had a lousy eon. I don't know how old Ruhouah is, not even to the nearest decade. Long white beard, nose like a promontory, eyes that have seen everything and disapproved of most of it If you're up before him and you're innocent, you're all right But if you're even a little bit guilty, you'd better run for cover.

He glowered at me as I approached the bench. Had this been the first time I'd come before him, I'd've been tempted to pack it in as a bad job: either fall on my knees and pray for mercy (not something Maximum Ruhollah handed out in big doses) or else turn around and run for my life (for who's not a little bit guilty of something?). But I knew he glowered most of the time anyhow, so he didn't intimidate me… much.

I began as etiquette prescribed-"May it please your honor"-though I knew it was just a polite phrase in his case.

I set forth the reasons the Environmental Perfection Agency, and I as its representative, wanted to examine the records of the Devonshire Land Management Consortium.

"You have supporting documents to show probable cause?" he asked. He didn't have an old man's voice. He'd been in the Confederation for close to forty years the was expelled from Persia the last time the secularists there seized power for a while), but he'd never lost his accent I passed him the documents. He put on reading glasses to inspect them. Just for a second, he reminded me of the scriptorium spirit at the Thomas Brothers monastery. Before I could even think of smiling, though, his hard old face became so terrible that I wanted to look away. I had a pretty good idea what he'd come across, and I was right He stabbed at the parchment with a forefinger shaking with fury. "It is an abomination before God the Compassionate, the Merciful," he ground out, "the birthing of children without souls. All should have the chance to be judged, to delight with God the great in heaven or to eat offal and drink boiling water forever in hell. This dump is causing the birth of soulless ones?"

That's what we're trying to learn, your honor," I answered. "Finding out just who dumps there - which is what the warrant seeks - will help us determine that."

This cause is worthy and just," Judge Ruhollah declared. "Pursue it wherever it may lead." He inked a quill and wrote out the warrant in his own hand, signing it at the bottom in both our own alphabet and the Arabic pothooks and squiggles he'd grown up with.

I thanked him and got out of there in a hurry; his wrath was frightening to behold. As I went back to where my carpet was parked, I skimmed through the document he'd given me. When I was finished, I whistled softly under my breath. If I'd wanted to, I could have closed down the Devonshire dump with that warrant. Of course, if I'd tried it, the consortium's lawyers would have descended on me like a flock of vampires and gotten the whole thing thrown out. I didn't want that, so I planned on carrying out the strictly limited search I'd already had in mind.

Bather to my own surprise, I was virtuous enough to slap lunch. I just headed straight for the Valley; the sooner I served the warrant, the sooner I could - I hoped - start finding answers.

Thanks to a stupid publicity stunt, I got stuck in traffic in Hollywood. If you ask me, stunts by the side of the freeway ought to be illegal; it goes slow enough without them. But no. One of the light and magic companies was releasing a spectacular called St. George and the Dragon, so nothing would do but to have one of their tame dragons roast a sword-swinging stunt man right where everybody could stop and stare and ooh and ahh. People who actually had to go someplace - me, for instance - got stuck right along with the rubbernecking fools.

Behind the stunt man in his flame-retardant chain mail stood a blonde who wasn't wearing enough to retard flames.

The dragon was well trained; he didn't breathe fire anywhere near her. Even so, I wondered what she was doing there. She wasn't the sort of maiden I pictured Sfc George rescuing. If they'd been making Perseus and Andromeda, maybe - but St George?

Well, that's Hollywood for you.

I made good time after I finally put dragon, stunt man, and bimbo behind me. I parked in the lot across from the Devonshire dump I'd used the day before. This time the security guard was on the phone before I got across the street He came out of his cage, started wheeling back the gate. "Mr. Sudakis is expecting you, sir," he said.