puzzled. "I felt sure we'd have
him."

Bey-ag-Akhamouk entered. He grunted his disappointment. "What happened,
anyway? That girl Isobel said a sniper took some shots at you and you
figure it must've been somebody at the meeting."

"Somebody at the meeting?" Abe said blankly. "What kind of jazz is that?
You flipping, man?"

Homer looked at him strangely.

"Who else could it be, Abe? We've never operated this far south. None of
the inhabitants in this area even know us, and it certainly couldn't
have been an attempt at robbery."

"There were some cats at that meeting didn't appreciate our ideas, man,
but I can't see that old preacher or Doc Smythe trying to put the slug
on you."

Kenny Ballalou came in on the double, gun in hand, his face anxious.

Abe said sarcastically, "Man, we'd all be dead if we had to wait on
you."

"That girl Isobel. She said somebody took a shot at the chief."

Homer explained it, sourly. A sniper had taken a few shots at him, then
managed to get away.

Isobel entered, breathless, followed by Jake Armstrong.

Abe grunted, "Let's hold another convention. This is like old home town
week."

Her eyes went from one of them to the other. "You're not hurt?"

"Nobody hurt, but the cat did all the shooting got away," Abe said
unhappily.

Jake said, and his voice was worried, "Isobel told me what happened. It
sounds insane."

They discussed it for a while and got exactly nowhere. Their
conversation was interrupted by a clicking at Homer Crawford's wrist. He
looked down at the tiny portable radio.

"Excuse me for a moment," he said to the others and went off a dozen
steps or so to the side.

They looked after him.

Elmer Allen said sourly, "Another assignment. What we need is a union."

Abe adopted the idea. "Man! Time and a half for overtime."

"With a special cost of living clause--" Kenny Ballalou added.

"And housing and dependents allotment!" Abe crowed.

They all looked at him.

Bey tried to imitate the other's beatnik patter. "Like, you got any
dependents, man?"

Abe made a mark in the sand on the mosque's floor with the toe of his
shoe, like a schoolboy up before the principal for an infraction of
rules, and registered embarrassment. "Well, there's that cute little
Tuareg girl up north."

"Ha!" Isobel said. "And all these years you've been leading me on."

Homer Crawford returned and his face was serious. "That does it," he
muttered disgustedly. "The fat's in the