artist with dice in the whole damned country!"

Simonetti leaned against the desk. He drew a zipper open in his fancy
blouse, dragged out the Bull Durham and started to roll his own. They
watch too much TV. It makes terrible hams of them all. He spat on the
floor.

"A living doll," I said. I took a better look at this honey. Face it, he
was an oily snake, cleaned up as much as possible, but not enough. No
amount of dude ranch duds, gold spurs or Indian jewelry could hide his
stiletto mentality. He was just a Tenderloin hoodlum with some of the
scum scraped off. Well, I should know. So was I.

Simonetti finished licking the seam of his roach. He came forward as he
lit it and blew too much smoke in my face. "What you doing here?" he
said in a husky voice. "I told Rose no dice. We need another TK like we
need a hole in the head."

"You think I _want_ to be in this trap?" I snapped at him. "Say the
word, Tex, and I'm gone."

"You're fired," he said huskily. "Scram!"

I started for the door, glad to be rid of the lot of them. Peno Rose
beat me to it. He showed me several rows of teeth, the way sharks will.
"Half of this joint is mine," he snarled, holding a hand lightly against
my chest. He knew me better than to push. "_My_ half is hiring you."

The whiff of garlic over my shoulder told me that Simonetti had followed
me, too. He didn't have any reservations about grabbing me and twisting
me around and giving me a real face-full.

"If you know what's good for you, you'll get out of here."

"Freak?" I said, laying it on his mitral valve. After his heart had
missed about eight beats, he started to sink, and I quit the lift. "Be
polite, Simonetti," I said to the panic in his yellowish face. "Next
time I'll pinch down tight. The coroner will call it heart failure.
Tough."

He wanted his stiletto. He needed it. He was sorry he had ever quit
carrying it. A couple seconds of reflection told him I was too tough for
him. He went for his partner, his face darkening with rage now that his
heart could get some blood to it. He had his hands out, for Rose's
throat, I guess. For my dough it took guts to put fingers that close to
all those teeth. But he never got a chance to try it. An ashtray, one of
those things with a shot-loaded cloth bag under it, flew off a desk,
smacked him in the back of the head, and dropped to the floor with a
thump.

It wasn't a hard blow, but an upsetting one. Fowler Smythe grinned at
him from whe