"

"Don't call me Chief," Burris said wearily.

"Anything you say," Malone agreed peacefully. He eyed the Director of
the FBI warily. "After all, it isn't anything new," he went on. "The
country's always been going to hell in a handbasket, one way or
another. Look at Rome."

"Rome?" Burris said.

"Sure," Malone said. "Rome was always going to hell in a handbasket,
and finally it--" He paused. "Finally it did, I guess," he said.

"Exactly," Burris said. "And so are we. Finally." He passed a hand
over his forehead and stared past Malone at a spot on the wall. Malone
turned and looked at the spot, but saw nothing of interest. "Malone,"
Burris said, and the FBI agent whirled around again.

"Yes, Ch--Yes?" he said.

"This time," Burris said, "it isn't the same old story at all. This
time it's different."

"Different?" Malone said.

Burris nodded. "Look at it this way," he said. His eyes returned to
the agent. "Suppose you're a congressman," he went on, "and you find
evidence of inefficiency in the government."

"All right," Malone said agreeably. He had the feeling that if he
waited around a little while everything would make sense, and he was
willing to wait. After all, he wasn't on assignment at the moment, and
there was nothing pressing waiting for him. He was even between
romances.

If he waited long enough, he told himself, Andrew J. Burris might say
something worth hearing. He looked attentive and eager. He considered
leaning over the desk a little, to look even more eager, but decided
against it; Burris might think he looked threatening. There was no
telling.

"You're a congressman," Burris said, "and the government is
inefficient. You find evidence of it. What do you do?"

Malone blinked and thought for a second. It didn't take any longer
than that to come up with the old, old answer. "I start an
investigation," he said. "I get a committee and I talk to a lot of
newspaper editors and magazine editors and maybe I go on television
and talk some more, and my committee has a lot of meetings--"

"Exactly," Burris said.

"And we talk a lot at the meetings," Malone went on, carried away,
"and get a lot of publicity, and we subpoena famous people, just as
famous as we can get, except governors or presidents, because you
can't--they tried that back in the Fifties, and it didn't work very
well--and that gives us some more publicity, and then when we have all
the publicity we can possibly get--"

"You sto