don't know. P'raps I should put in a call to our friend PC McGivens. He
already thinks you're a dreadful tosser -- if you've reason to avoid the law,
McGivens'd be bad news indeed. And the police pay very well for the right
information. I'm a little financially embarrassed, me, just at this moment."

"All right," Art said. "Fine. How about this: I will pay you 800 Euros, which I
will withdraw from an InstaBank once I've got my ticket for the Chunnel train to
Calais in hand and am ready to get onto the platform. I've got all of fifteen
quid in my pocket right now. Take my wallet and you'll have cabfare home.
Accompany me to the train and you'll get a month's rent, which is more than the
police'll give you."

"Oh, you're a villain, you are. What is it that the police will want to talk to
you about, then? I wouldn't want to be aiding and abetting a real criminal --
could mean trouble."

"I beat the piss out of my coworker, Lester. Now, can we go? There's a plane in
Paris I'm hoping to catch."

31.

I have a brand-new translucent Sony Veddic, a series 12. I bought it on credit
-- not mine, mine's sunk; six months of living on plastic and kiting
balance-payments with new cards while getting the patents filed on the eight new
gizmos that constitute HumanCare's sole asset has blackened my good name with
the credit bureaus.

I bought it with the company credit card. The *company credit card*. Our local
Baby Amex rep dropped it off himself after Doc Szandor faxed over the signed
contract from the Bureau of Health. Half a million bucks for a proof-of-concept
install at the very same Route 128 nuthatch where I'd been "treated." If that
works, we'll be rolling out a dozen more installs over the next year: smart
doors, public drug-prescription stats, locator bracelets that let "clients" --
I've been learning the nuthouse jargon, and have forcibly removed "patient" from
my vocabulary -- discover other clients with similar treatment regimens on the
ward, bells and whistles galore.

I am cruising the MassPike with HumanCare's first-ever employee, who is, in
turn, holding onto HumanCare's first-ever paycheck. Caitlin's husband has been
very patient over the past six months as she worked days fixing the ailing
machinery at the sanitarium and nights prototyping my designs. He's been
likewise patient with my presence on his sagging living-room sofa, where I've
had my nightly ten-hour repose faithfully since my release. Caitlin and I