2.
Bullfinch's Mythology

"No!"

Shenda Moore burst the shackles of her bad dream with an actual effort of will. There was nothing involuntary or accidental about her escape. No built-in handy mental trapdoor opened automatically, no cluster of ancient guardian neurons on the alert triggered its patented wake-up! subroutine. No, it was all Shenda's own doing. The disengagement from the horrifying scenario, the refusal to participate in her subconscious's fear-trip, the determination to leave the grasping fantasies of sleep behind for the larger consensual illusion called reality-- It was all attributable to the force of Shenda's character.

Really, everyone who knew her would have said, So typical of the girl!

Sometimes Shenda wished she were different. Not so driven, so in-charge, so capable. Sure, mostly she was grateful every minute of every day to Titi Yaya for bringing her up so. Shenda liked who she was.

But being responsible for everything was really so much work! An endless roster of sweaty jobs: mopping up messes, straightening crooked lives, building and repairing, shoring up, tearing down, kissing all the boo-boos better. Mwah! And now: stop yer sobbin'.

Dancing with the Tarbaby, Shenda called it.

And there was no stopping allowed.

Especially now--with Karuna, Inc., taking off and demanding so much of her time--Shenda awoke most mornings with a hierarchical tree of chores arrayed neatly in her head, a tree where any free time hung like forbidden fruit at the farthest unreachable branch tips.

But even coming online to such a formidable task-array was better than waking like this.

Shenda's heart was still pounding like a conga, her shouted denial still bouncing around the bedroom walls. She clicked on a table lamp and swung her slim and muscular caramel legs out from under the sheets, sitting upright in her cotton Hanro nightshirt. She massaged each temple with two fingers for a while, lustrous and wavy black hair waterfalling around her lowered face, while contemplating the nightmare.

It was not the first time she had had the nightmare.

She was on a flat graveled rooftop in broad daylight, level with the upper stories of many surrounding buildings. Tin-walled elevator-shaft shack, a satellite dish, door to a stairwell, whirling vents, a couple of planters and deckchairs. Highly plausible, except that she had never been in such a place.

With her was Bullfinch.

In her hand, Shenda suddenly realized she clutched a tennis ball.

Bullfinch capered around her, leaping up for the Holy Grail of the ragged green ball, begging her to throw it.

So she threw, sidearm, expert and strong. Wildly, without care or forethought.

The ball sailed through the air, Bullfinch in hot pursuit, claws raking the gravel.

Over the parapet the ball sailed.

With a majestic leap, Bullfinch madly, blithely followed, sailing off into deadly space.

In the dream, Shenda screamed her denial.

Now she merely murmured, "No...."

The "meaning" of the dream was plain enough: her duties were getting to her, the weight of her responsibilities to those she loved was making her imagine she might easily fuck up.

Hell, she knew she was gonna fuck up sooner or later. It was inevitable. Everyone fucked up continuously. That could almost be a definition of human existence. The 24-7 fuck-up. She didn't need any dream to remind her of that.

All she prayed was that she wouldn't fuck up too bad. Be left with enough of her faculties to pick up the pieces and start again.

Luck came into this somewhere.

And luck was one of the things beyond her control.

Her heart had calmed. Rising determinedly to her bare feet (the purple paint on her toenails was all chipped--she'd have to make time to see SinSin for a pedicure--not that she had, like, any man in her life these days to appreciate such details), Shenda went about getting ready for her day.

Her first instinctive action after the nightfright was to check on Bullfinch.

She found the dog snoring in the dining room.

Disdaining his very expensive catalog-ordered puffy cushion bed, Bullfinch had made himself a nest.

Somehow he had reached a corner of Titi Yaya's antique linen cloth (remnant of old high times in Havana) where it hung down from the tabletop. He had dragged the cloth down, bringing two brass candlesticks with it. (God, she must have been dead to the world!) Then he had chewed the irreplaceable cloth to the shredded state most suitably evocative of some genetic memory of an African grass lair.

"Oh, Bully! Whatever is Titi going to say!"

Bullfinch swallowed a final snore in a gurgle, then awoke. His wattled, enfolded face peered innocently up at her. Breaking into an ingratiating, tongue-lolling smile, he wagged his stubby tail.

Shenda found her anger instantly dissipating.

Most empathetic people found it impossible to stay mad at bulldogs for long, as they were so mild mannered and goofy looking.

Especially one colored like a canary.

The employee at the animal shelter--a bearded, spectacled fellow with some kind of East European accent and a nametag reading JAN CLUJ--walked Shenda back among the cages so that she could make her choice. Ambling down the wet cement aisle, she found herself wanting to take every one of the abandoned yelping mutts home. But it was not until she saw the bright yellow occupant of one cage that she stopped decisively.

"What's the story with this one?"

"To my eyes, which are admittedly not of the most expert, our friend is the variety of English Bulldog. Was picked up on Kindred Street, near the college. Of tags, none. Meeting his maker in--" Jan Cluj checked the page slipped into a galvanized frame wired to the cage "--five more days."

"But what about that color?"

Jan Cluj shrugged, as if the matter were of little interest. "It is unnatural. Most assuredly obtained chemically. I accuse some likely college boys. They are insufficiently studious and given to madcaps."

Crouching, Shenda extended her fingers through the wire separating her and the yellow dog. He snuffled her fingers eagerly and sloppily. She stood.

"There's no roots showing, or normal-colored patches the dye job would've missed."

Exasperatedly: "Dear lady, the dog is as you see him, fit and active by medical ukase, most normal save for his hue. Explanations are superfluous. Will you have him?"

"I will have him."

After signing the relevant forms, Shenda took the happy bounding yellow dog straight to a grooming salon known as Kanine Klips (recommended by Pepsi, who had her poodle, French Fry, done there regularly), where she had the anomalous bulldog dipped and clipped.

Then she waited for his normally colored fur to grow out.

Three years later, she was still waiting.

The dog was some kind of genetic sport. His naturally unnatural coloration was a shade most commonly associated with avian life forms.

Shenda had resisted naming the bulldog until he assumed his true form. Called him "Hey, you!" and "Here, doggie!" for weeks, out of some kind of feeling that to name him wrongly would be to warp his personality. But when the true state of his freakish coat became evident, there was no other possible name for such a specimen.

"Bullfinch," said Shenda with weary patience, "get up off that tablecloth please. It's time for you to go out and do your business."

Bullfinch obeyed. He arose and trotted over to the back door of the house. Shenda opened it and the dog went outside into her small fenced yard.

While the criminally destructive canine was busy outside, Shenda gathered up the precious tatters, surveyed them mournfully, estimating possibilities of repair, then, clucking her tongue, chucked the rags into the trash.

Bullfinch re-entered the house. Promptly, the dog went over to the wastebasket and dragged the ruined fabric out and over to his bed. With great care and exactitude, employing paws and muzzle, he arranged the cloth atop the puffy cushion to his liking. He plopped his rear haunches down on his new dog blanket, and sat regarding his mistress.

Shenda gave up. "I don't have time to play no tug-of-war with you, Bullyboy. My day is fuller than usual. And it starts now."

As if to say, Mine too! Bullfinch nodded his weighty corrugated head several times, then lowered his forequarters and was soon asleep.

Shenda showered and groomed. Those toenails had to go! In a robe, towelling her hair dry, she flipped on the bedroom radio automatically, thinking to catch the news, but then hardly listened. She put her panties on ass-backwards, caught herself, swore, and re-donned them correctly.

Dressed in baggy Gap jeans and a green silk shirt, she ate a chocolate Pop Tart standing up at the sink, washing it down with a tumbler of chocolate milk. Her face was blank, as if her mind were vacationing in a more alluring country than her body.

"--cell-u-licious!" declaimed the radio.

Shenda snapped out of her fugue, looked at the clock, and exclaimed, "Louie Kablooie! Bully, I've got to run! You got plenty of kibbles, and tonight I'll bring you a real treat. Promise!" She scuffled on a pair of open-toed Candies, grabbed up a courier-style satchel and her car keys.

The door slammed behind her. Bullfinch opened one eye, then the other. Seeing nothing that needed his attention, he closed them and returned to sleep.

He could fly. He really could. And that airborne tennis ball was no problem.

No dreams, pleasant or otherwise, but rather a mechanical device, awoke Marmaduke Twigg from his Midas-golden slumbers.

Like every other member of the Phineas Gage League, Twigg was physiologically incapable of dreaming. The relevant circuitry, along with much else, had been chemically and surgically excised from Twigg's altered brain.

As a consequence, he was radically insane. And in the worst possible way.

The mania didn't show, didn't impede his daily functioning. Indeed, Twigg's brand of insanity increased his cunning, ingenuity, deftness, manipulative social skills and will to power. Minute to grasping minute, hour to scheming hour, day to conquering day, he appeared to himself and others as a single-minded superman, apparently a paragon of efficient, rational action. Perched on the very uppermost rungs of the social ladder, Twigg seemingly owed all his accomplishments to the secret devastations willingly wrought on his grey matter.

Yet it was as if a dam had been erected in the brains of Twigg and his compatriots, a dam behind which fetid black waters were continually massing.

A dam which must one day give way, taking not only the well-deserving Twigg and his peers to their vivid destruction, but countless others, the more or less innocent and the less or more complicit.

Right now, of course, such a fate seemed vastly improbable.

Twigg thought--rather, knew--that he was a new and improved breed of human, superior to anyone not a League member.

He knew that the world was his oyster.

The only thing left to determine was at precisely which angle one should work the knife into the hapless stubborn bivalve, and how best to twist the sharp instrument properly.

Crack!

The shell halves fell apart.

And the raw meat was sucked greedily, gleefully down.

Twigg lay sleeping on his back in the exact center of the mattress of his enormous four-postered canopied bed. His chest-folded arms were clad in ebony silk salted with white dots. Beneath his crossed arms, crimson satin sheets and a crest-embroidered white duvet were drawn up in unwrinkled swaths. (The crest on the coverlet depicted a heraldic shield enclosing crossed iron rods with a superimposed eye, and the Gothic initials PGL.) Resting in the middle of a softer-than-down pillow, Twigg's unlined face seemed the ivory mask of one of the lesser pharaohs.

Suddenly, without visible stimulation, Twigg's pebbly eyes snapped open like rollershades, and he was instantly alert.

Twigg could feel the small unit consisting of pump and segmented reservoirs implanted inside him stop its gentle whirring. The same device (which regulated many hormonal functions previously so crudely performed by now missing grey matter) had sent him efficiently to sleep exactly four hours ago, during which time he had not stirred a limb.

He knew that most of his servants--especially those who had the least personal contact with him, knowing his peculiarities only through rumor--jokingly referred to him as one of the undead. But Twigg cared not.

All the lesser cattle were the true phantoms, without substance, ineffectual. Only he and his kind were truly alive.

Twigg's breakfast would soon arrive, carried to him by his loyal factotum, Paternoster. In the meantime, he flew the jetcraft of his mind over the varied terrain of his day.

Meetings, public and private: legislators, aides, ambassadors, presidents, CEOs, media slaves. Acquisitions and sales: companies, divisions, patents, real estate, souls. Phone calls: conferenced and one-on-one. Presentations: from scientists, PR experts, lawyers, brokers, military strategists. Wedged into the interstices: meals and an intensively crafted scientific workout.

All of it absolutely necessary, absolutely vital to keeping all the delicately balanced plates of Isoterm's myriad businesses spinning.

Yet all of it absolutely tedious.

But tonight. Tonight would make up for all the boredom.

For tonight was the monthly meeting of the Phineas Gage League.

Twigg smiled at the thought.

His smile appeared like fire burning a hole in the paper of his face.

Memories of his own entrance into the League trickled over his interior dam. These were not so pleasant. The initiation rituals were stringent. Had to be. No whiners or losers or weaklings allowed. Cull out the sick cattle right at the head of the chute. Still, the shock and the pain--

Twigg reflectively fingered a small puckered scar on his right temple. His smile had disappeared.

To recover his anticipation of this night's pleasures, Twigg reached up to stroke one of his bed's four canopy supports.

At each corner of the enormous imperial bed stood a life-sized naked woman, arms upstretched over her head, thus pulling her breasts high and flat. Each woman supported one corner of the heavy wooden frame that held the brocaded fabric canopy.

These caryatids were each one unique, sculpted with absolute realism, down to the finest hair and wrinkle. They were colored a uniform alabaster. Their surfaces were absolutely marmoreal, as unyielding as ice. Twigg's hand, lasciviously molding the butt of one woman statue, neither dented nor jiggled the realistic curves. Rather, his hand slid over the human rondures as if they were curiously frictionless.

The door to Twigg's bedroom, half a hundred feet away, opened. A man entered, bearing a domed tray. He crossed the carpet with measured elderly steps.

Twigg bounded out of bed lithely.

His black pajamas, it was now revealed, were embroidered with hundreds of identical white termites.

"Ah, Paternoster! Well done! On the table if you please!"

The old and crabbed servant--longish hair the shade of old celluloid--set his burden down.

The table was a large piece of gold-rimmed glass borne aloft on the backs of two kneeling naked men arranged parallel. One of the humaniform trestles was a middle-aged paunchy type; the other young and lean.

Twigg moved to an antique desk of normal construction, where a high-end computer incongruously sat. He powered it up, eager to begin his day of bending and shaping, betrayal and coercion. Simultaneously, with seeming unconcern, he questioned his servant.

"Birthday this week, Paternoster? Am I correct?"

"As always, sir."

"Not thinking of retirement yet, are you?"

A fearful tremor passed over Paternoster's worn features. "No, sir! Of course not! I served your father for his whole life, and his father before him! How could I even think of retiring!"

"Very good!" Twigg ceased his typing. As if pondering a different topic, he said, "I must find a hassock for this room! Well, I'll get around to it some day."

The servant seemed on the verge of fainting. "Any--anything else, sir?"

"No, Paternoster, you may go."

Twigg's braying laughter escorted Paternoster out.

Whipping the silver cover off the tray, Twigg disclosed his breakfast.

It was a single uncapped bottle of sinisterly effervescent Zingo, whose label featured the famous lightning-bolt Z.

Twigg grabbed the bottle and downed its bright Cool Mint Listerine-colored contents.

Cell-u-licious!

Setting the empty bottle down, the man picked up a device off the table. It resembled a standard remote-control unit.

Pivoting, Twigg raised the unit and pointed across the vast room.

On the far side of the interior acreage stood a full-sized statue of a Siberian tiger, absolutely lifelike save for its unvarying artificial whiteness. The beast's face was frozen open in a toothy snarl, every ridge of its pallid gullet delineated; one mammoth paw was lifted in midgesture. Separate from the statue, strapped around its neck, was a collar and small box.

Twigg pressed a button.

The tiger's anguished roar filled the room, its striped face a Kabuki mask of rage. Like an orange, white and black express train, it raced at its tormentor. Twigg stood like a statue himself.

Several yards distant from its infuriating quarry, the tiger leaped, its maw a slick red cavern, claws extended.

At the last possible moment Twigg pressed another button.

The stasis-transfigured tiger, now vanilla white, fell with a heavy thud to the deep carpet, nearly at Twigg's bare feet.

"Yes!" said Twigg gleefully. "Like to see even that cool bastard Durchfreude do better."

Naming the Dark Intercessor aloud seemed to cast a shadow on Twigg's pleasure.

The man was a valuable nuisance. Every use of his talents simultaneously decreased his utility and increased the liability he represented.

One day the balance would tip decisively on the side of liability.

And then, Twigg grimly suspected, it would take more than the easy press of a button to put Kraft Durchfreude away.

The wide, welcoming, windowed wood door to the Karuna Koffeehouse had its own unique method of announcing customers.

Mounted inside above the entrance was a Laff Bag: one of those innocuous sacks that contained a device to play tinny mechanical maniacal laughter. Every passage through the door pulled the string that triggered the abridged five-second recording.

Making a pompous entrance into the gaily-painted Karuna was practically impossible.

Not that there weren't folks who still tried.

Fuquan Fletcher for one.

Thurman had just arrived that morning, setting off his own personally impersonal gale of guffaws. This early, he had found his favorite table empty, the one by the moisture-misted south window. Taking a seat, he unclipped the cylindrical foam bolster from his cane and arranged it against the small of his back.

The fragrant atmosphere of the Koffeehouse was filled with the gurgles and chortles of various brewing devices, the chatter of the trio of workers on duty, the savoring sipping sounds of sleepy humans gradually coming up to full mental speed with the aid of friendly plant derivatives. The ceiling-mounted speakers suddenly crackled alive with the sounds of Respighi. A wide-mouthed toaster noisily ejected its crisped bagel passengers.

All was right with the world.

If not with Thurman himself.

Lining up his various prescriptions on the tabletop, Thurman tried not to feel too sorry for himself. An attitude that didn't do any good, he knew from the recent bitter years, though surely easy enough to fall into.

Looking up from his chesslike array of bottles, Thurman saw one of the baristas approaching.

Normal service at the Karuna involved placing one's order while standing at the long, oaken, display-case-dotted counter separating customers from the employees and the exotic tools of their trade, and then maneuvering with the expeditiously filled order through the crush toward an empty or friend-occupied table. The baristas generally ventured out only to clear tables of post-java debris and swab them down. (And even these incursions into the customer area were infrequent, thanks to the unusual self-policing neatness of most Karuna patrons.)

But for Thurman--and anyone else who obviously needed special attention--exceptions were easily made.

Just part of the thoughtful charm that found expression in the Karuna's motto:

The place to come when even home isn't kind enough.

The phrase Thurman always involuntarily associated with the young female barista named Verity Freestone was "pocket-sized." Pixie-cut black hair topping a seventy-five pound package of cheerful myopia.

Today Verity wore a striped shirt that exposed her pierced-navel belly, brown corduroy pants that would've fit Thurman's twelve-year-old nephew, Raggle, and a pair of Birkenstocks. Verity filled her pants, however, in a more interesting--to lonely Thurman--fashion.

Verity pushed her thick glasses up on a mildly sweaty snub nose. "Hi, Thur. The usual?"

"Um, sure. Except maybe just wave the beans over the cappuccino, okay? The old stomach--"

"Thurman, you look wicked peaked. Are you okay?"

"As okay as I'll ever get."

Verity eyed the pill vials ranked before Thurman and frowned. "All those unnatural chemicals can't be good for you. Haven't you tried any alternative healing methods? Maybe get the old chi flowing. What about vitamins? You take any vitamins?"

Thurman waved the advice away. "Verity, really--I appreciate your concern. But I can't change any part of my medical care right now. Strict doctor's orders. I'm barely holding on as it is."

Verity's expression changed from faintly hectoring to triumphantly assured. "I know just what you need, Thur."

This was more than Thurman himself knew. "And what might that be?"

"Some espresso eggs! They're not on the menu. We--the help, that is--we make them just for ourselves. But I'm gonna fix you up some special!"

The treat sounded nauseating to Thurman. "Verity, I don't know if I can take any espresso in my eggs--"

"Oh, they don't have any coffee in them. We just call them that because we make them using the espresso machine steamjet."

"Well, if they're mild--"

"Mild don't even come close!"

Before Thurman could object any further, Verity clomped determinedly off.

Thurman plucked the rumpled morning newspaper from the adjacent window ledge and unfolded it. A headline caught his attention:

He made an effort to focus on the smaller print.

Just then the door laughed.

Fuquan Fletcher was the Karuna's coffee-bean roaster. A master at his craft, he was indispensable to the quality of the Karuna's drinks, and thus responsible for much of its success.

That single and singular virtue failed to compensate for the fact that he was an utter prick.

At least in Thurman's eyes. But not, he suspected, in his alone.

Always dapperly dressed and impeccably groomed, the trim mustachioed Black man had no admirers more fervent and appreciative of his immense hypothetical charms than himself. He was a loud walking arrogant billboard for his own athletic, sexual, financial and terpsichorean prowess.

"Ladies!" bellowed Fuquan from the door. "Show me a hot oven, and I'll get right down to some sweaty work!"

Returning to Thurman's table, an unfazed Verity passed by her coworker. "Morning, Fuquan."

The man made as if to embrace her, a move Verity deftly eluded with a twist and a skip, all without spilling a drop of the drink on her tray.

"Freestone! I got you pegged, girl! You're one of them sex elves like I seen in a comic once! Show the world your pointy ears, girl! Let them puppies out to play! Then you and me will go into your fantasy world!"

Thurman was highly embarrassed by this display. For the nth time, he pondered putting Fuquan in his place. Once he would have done it automatically. Visceral memories of R&R barroom brawls tweaked his flaccid muscles. But now he had neither the energy nor the ability.

Verity was unfazed by the familiar routine. "Fuquan, you'd better cut the talk and get to work. We're running low on Jamaican."

"One day you're gonna give me some of your good stuff, Miss Peanut."

"Don't count on it. Thurman, here's those eggs I was talking about."

Moving irrepressibly on to other equally futile love conquests and bouts of braggadocio, Fuquan went behind the counter where Thurman could see him donning a neck-to-knee apron.

"Don't you ever get sick of him?"

"Oh, he's harmless. It's the ones who don't say anything you have to watch out for."

Thurman instantly felt that perhaps he was one of those suspiciously quiet ones, and fumbled for some sort of conversational tidbit, as Verity disburdened her tray onto the table.

"Uh, how's your dog doing?"

Verity owned a long-haired dachshund (referred to by Fuquan as, of course, "Hairy Weenie"). "Slinky Dog is just fine. He goes out to stud next week. Slinky makes his girlfriends happy, and I make a little extra cash."

The mention of even canine stud duty saddened and embarrassed the unstudly afflicted Thurman. "Um, great, I guess...."

"Now, try these, Thur, and tell me what you think."

Before him, fluffy white-flecked yellow clouds of whipped and steam-cooked eggs seemed to float an inch off their plate. Thurman had never seen such ethereal scrambled eggs. Plainly, there was a component of antigravity to their recipe.

Thurman forked some up and delivered them to his taste buds.

There was not even any sensation of them resting on his tongue. The sweet creamy taste of the eggs seemed to suffuse directly into his bloodstream. Chewing was definitely superfluous.

"These--these are the best eggs I've ever had!"

Verity smiled and patted his shoulder. "Part of your regular order from now on, Thurman. We'll get a little flesh back on those bones."

Thurman finished his eggs with gusto, as well as his usual plain bagel half and cappuccino (oh, all right: weakly flavored hot sugary milk). Feeling better than he had in months, he settled back to absorb the busy evolving scene around him.

People-watching was Thurman's main recreational activity these days. Cost nothing, and took little strength.

Odd Vibe came in. A quiet and generally unsmiling Norwegian who bore the unfortunately twistable name of Otto Wibe, he was the Karuna's baker.

Thurman could hear Fuquan greet his backroom coworker.

"Odd Vibe, my man! You sleep in those clothes or roll a bum and strip him?"

"Fletcher, you go and sit on a biscotti, by gosh!"

"Oh, sharp one, Oddy! We'll have you playing the dozens yet!"

Around eleven, Tibor "Chug'em" Gruntpat made his daily appearance. Chug'em was a sanitation worker, fiftyish and gnarled, just coming off shift. He had been up since about 3:00 A.M. Without a word, Buddy Cheetah--drummer for a struggling band called the Beagle Boys, who was working the counter with Verity--lined up four double-mochaccinnos in front of the grey-haired muscular man, who knocked them back in a total of sixteen seconds. Then Chug'em left to sleep through the day.

Others less and more memorable came and went, the latter category featuring SinSin Bang and Pepsi Scattergood from the Kwik Kuts salon three doors down the block. As usual, the brace of beauticians were impeccably trigged out. The Misses Mode O'Day. And, natch, their hairstyles had changed since last week.

Nelumbo Nucifera, good-looking Italo-American boy who kept all the females happy with his tight T-shirts, came out from behind the counter to clear Thurman's dish and refill his cup.

"Thanks, Nello."

"Hey, want to hear a joke, man? This guy walks into a bar with an alligator on a leash...."

In the buttery sunlight after Nello's departure, Thurman began to grow sleepy.

And then the door's chortles, sounding somehow lighter and more vibrant, announced Shenda Moore.

Her arrival had the same effect on Thurman's nerves as a Scud missile intersecting the Aegis defense system. He came instantly awake, his heart thumping to a salsa beat.

Wasn't she just so achingly damn beautiful?

And wow!

Peeking out of her open-toed shoes--

Those Easter-egg nails!

The Tarbaby wanted to tango today!

Shenda's hasty departure from her apartment had set the tone for the rest of her morning. From one appointment to another she had raced. Suppliers and building contractors, City Hall and DEM, office supply stores and printshops, the homes of employees out on long-term sick leave. The odometer on her little green Jetta seemed to revolve madly like one of those movie time-machine displays as the decades whipped by. Shenda's Day-Timer was thick as a slice of Sequoia, stuffed with loose business cards that took flight at the slightest provocation, making her feel like an utter idiot as she stooped to recover them under the noses of leering sneering straight-edge white guys in suits!

(Whenever Shenda heard this putdown tone in her mental monologue, she would automatically pause, disengage the gears on the aggression machinery, and try to radiate a little human warmth, the way Titi Yaya had taught her when she was a little girl. The practice had been hard at first, gotten easier over the years--although the mental trick never ceased to be something she must consciously invoke as a counterweight to natural human impatience. This refusal to hate or impose false separations lay at the heart of Shenda's personal MO, and at the heart of her vision for Karuna, Inc.)

As she dashed about town, attending to all the daily hassles associated with running the expanding set of enterprises loosely linked under the umbrella of Karuna, Inc., Shenda felt a twinge of irreducible guilt.

She had not taken Bullfinch for a walk in days. (That dream--) The dog was uncomplaining, but Shenda knew that he missed the exercise. Hell, so did she!

If walking with Bullfinch pleased them both, then why hadn't they done it in too long?

Was her life becoming the kind of White Queen's Race she had always derided in others?

Was she forgetting what was really important in life?

She hoped not. Natural optimism made her ascribe this unnaturally busy and stressful period to the fact that now, after three hard years, Karuna, Inc., was really taking off.

Maybe soon now she could even hire a helper!

Stopped at the traffic light at the corner of Perimeter and Santa Barbara Streets, Shenda looked idly to her left and saw a big truck emblazoned with some kind of insect logo.

Must be exterminators....

The light went green. Shenda wheeled right on Perimeter toward her final two stops before lunch. (Both stops had been planned to mix pleasure and business, one of Shenda's survival tactics. At Kwik Kuts, she'd get her pedicure and instead of dishing dirt, discuss business. Then, at the Karuna, she'd lunch after tending to their affairs.)

As she expertly threaded the traffic, she thought back to the beginnings of this whole unlikely scheme.

Three years ago, she had been a business major fresh out of the university, temping in a series of dead-end jobs, unsure of the path before her. The what and why of her life were plain enough, but the how was shrouded in mystery. Then Titi Yaya had phoned, a day in advance of her standard weekly call.

"Shen-Shen, dear." Only Titi Yaya called her that old childhood name anymore. "You remember Titi Luce?"

"Of course, of course. I saw her once when I was six. She visiting from Miami?"

"Not anymore, dear. She's dead. Nine days ago. I just got back."

"Oh boy. ... Sorry to hear it, Titi."

"I know you are, dear. Now, pay attention. I can't get out of the house today. Too much to make ready. So I need you to pick up a few things for the oro Ilé-Olofi ceremonies tonight. Seven white candles, a pigeon, eight coconuts, some cascarilla, Florida Water...."

Shenda scribbled dutifully, although she was not truthfully looking forward to attending the oro Ilé-Olofi. Titi Yaya and the other santeras would ask when she was at least going to take the Necklaces, embrace the Warriors--never mind making the saint!--and they would press upon her protective bracelets at the very least--the idé--which she would have to refuse, saying that she didn't follow the Religion anymore, had never really done so since reaching adulthood. Unpleasantness would result.

Titi Yaya finished her list. "And be here sharply at nine, dear. Oh, by the way: Luce left you a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Goodbye till nine."

The connection was severed on Titi Yaya's end but not on Shenda's, as she held the phone stupidly in her hand until the recorded operator's voice came on.

The first thing Shenda did was press the disconnect button on the handset, then dial the temp agency and resign.

The second thing she did was walk (no car then) to the Karuna, where she could sit and have a coffee and think.

In those days, the Karuna looked nothing like its current self. Didn't even have the same name, but was known instead as the Corona Coffeehouse. Drab, dirty, dusty and disagreeable, it was mismanaged by absentee tax-finagling owners and patronized by shady types, the yuppies they preyed on, and a clique of arty poseurs.

Liars and strivers and bores, oh my!

Only a handful of the employees redeemed the joint. Folks glad to have a job and trying their best to overcome bad conditions.

Sitting with a cup of acidic, burnt coffee, thinking alternately of the nameless yellow adopted dog back home in her tiny walk-up and the bequest so cavalierly dropped in her lap by her ever-surprising aunts, Shenda tried to imagine what she might do with the money, how best to put it to work.

There came an unbidden moment then--a moment most incommensurate with the tawdry surroundings, a self-catalyzing timeless nanosecond Shenda would never forget--when the whole world seemed to blossom, to split open like a fruit, revealing the seeds of her whole future.

Shenda was at the bank the next day.

Depositing the bequest and using it as collateral, she took out a loan. With that money, she bought the Corona from owners eager to dump it cheap and write off the loss.

Rechristening the place was easy. Somehow the sound-a-like new name surfaced, recalled from a college philosophy class.

Shenda wasn't quite sure what the exact definition of "karuna" was. But it had something to do with warmth and spaciousness, and it sounded suitably exotic. Plus, anyone who went looking for the old "Corona" would likely end up at the new "Karuna."

Firing the incompetent and surly employees had been positively pleasant. Shenda was not one to flinch from necessary triage. The girl could be positively brutal when brutal was called for. (She would have made a good nurse or general, and had in fact become a mixture of both.)

Once the Karuna was running on a steady footing (about six months; guess those business courses were worth something after all), Shenda incorporated a holding company that also utilized the Karuna name.

This parent company had but one purpose. Its short prospectus was perhaps unique in the history of capitalism. Shenda was very proud of it. She had written all of it herself.

"Karuna, Inc., is a cooperative overseeing entity whose sole purpose is to facilitate and maximize the functioning of its subsidiaries through any ethical means available, including but not limited to group purchasing agreements; joint bargaining and sales forces; intersubsidiary loans and personnel exchanges; healthcare coordination; shared management, training and education; pooled charitable donations and grants; mutual information sharing; etc., etc.

"A company wishing to become a subsidiary of Karuna, Inc., must first redefine its sole business mission to be the creation of environmentally responsible, non-exploitive, domestic-based, maximally creative jobs to be filled without prejudice or favoritism. The performance of all employees shall be regularly evaluated, partially on accomplishment of defined goals and partially on native abilities and attitudes of employees, with the latter considerations outweighing the former in cases requiring arbitration. While maximum product and service quality are to be always striven for, the primary goal of the subsidiaries shall always be the full employment of all workers meeting the qualifications of goodwill and exertion of individual levels of competence. It is to be hoped that the delivery of high-quality goods and services will be a by-product of such treatment.

"Upon demonstration of such a redesign, a company will be admitted as a subsidiary, with all rights and obligations pertaining thereto, upon a positive vote of the Karuna, Inc., board.

"Profit making is naturally encouraged. Each subsidiary shall pay a tenth of its profits to the parent corporation for the furtherance of the shared mission as outlined above.

"All owners of subsidiaries become members of the board of Karuna, Inc., and at regular meetings--open also to all subsidiary employees and their relatives, as vested shareholders--the board members shall vote to determine any future corporate actions outside the stated scope of this document, or amendments thereto. A simple majority shall carry all votes. In the case of ties, the vote of the President (Shenda Moore, undersigned) shall be called on. The President may also veto any board decision in the best interests of Karuna, Inc."

Shenda wavered a little over that last bit. It sounded kinda dictatorial. (Especially since she really had two votes: one as the owner of the Karuna Koffeehouse, the first subsidiary, and one as president.)

Hell! It was her idea, her money and her effort!

Let anybody who wasn't satisfied stage a coup!

Smith and Hawken. Ben and Jerry's. Tom's of Maine. The Body Shop. Sure, they all tried to live up to some of the same principles Shenda had outlined in the formation of her company. But none of these others had as their primary mission the simple creation and sustainment of good jobs for those who needed them. (Perhaps the national figure who came closest to Shenda's conception of how to treat people was Aaron Feuerstein, the owner of the fire-destroyed Malden Mills in Massachusetts, who had maintained his idled help on a full payroll throughout reconstruction.)

In each of those other companies, the ultimate emphasis was on the product, on making and selling it, grabbing market share. Whatever the company rhetoric, when push came to shove, the workers drew the short straw.

"Doing well by doing good" was their motto.

"Doing good and maybe doing well" was Shenda's.

It was a real, although subtle, difference.

(And in the end, there didn't even seem to be any maybe about it. Loan paid off, house and car bought, the Karuna turning a nice monthly profit. Louie Kablooie! What more could you ask of a business plan?)

Shenda didn't really give a flying fuck about product. People were drowning in products, they bought too much too cheaply anyway. It didn't take a genius to turn out quality goods. That part was simple.

What took skill and talent and vision and general resourcefulness--qualities Shenda was a little surprised to find out she had in abundance--was promoting conditions that opened up satisfying, decent-paying vocational niches for everyone. Getting people into a harness that didn't bind and having them all pull together, for the common good.

General Shenda, jetting in her Jetta toward a pedicure and lunch.

Never thought being a general might someday mean having to fight an actual war.

Marmaduke Twigg adjusted the bib of his black rubber apron, smoothing the cord where it passed around the collar of his five-thousand-dollar suit. The long, butcher-style garment bore the PGL crest in the middle of the chest.

Unlike the Masons and their aprons, the Phineas Gage League had adopted theirs for strictly practical reasons.

The lovely expensive fabrics favored by the League members reacted so poorly to bloodstains!

Confident he was looking his best, Twigg walked forward to the clustered PGL members who had arrived before him.

They stood on a subway platform, lit by a single scanty light. The dusty station was a deserted one, off the maps, reachable only through a certain subbasement's concealed door.

Of course, a League member owned the building that included that subbasement.

Empty for over ninety years, the station possessed a certain Victorian feel to it, wonderfully consistent with the period of the League's founding. Twigg could almost believe that he had traveled back in time, back to that romantic age of the great industrialist Robber Barons: Carnegie, DuPont, Rockefeller, Getty, Rothschild, Hearst, Krupp--

Not that he would have traded places with any of those legendary figures. Sure, they had had a few nice perks. No inflation, no taxes, no government regulations. Truly classy playgrounds like Newport and Saratoga and Baden-Baden. Half the world's resources and population subjugated as colonies under their boots. The respect and ass-kissing admiration of society.

But taken all in all, the present offered so much more!

The assembled members--eleven, Twigg quickly counted, making him the last to arrive--hailed him with varying degrees of civility and enthusiasm. Here were important personages--competitors and rivals--who would, upon receiving any news of Twigg's painful demise, lose not a minute in popping their finest champagne, toasting his anticipated afterlife roasting, and pissing the metabolically transformed fluid on his grave. Yet they were constrained by the rules of the League from doing more to his person now, or elsewhen, than uttering a mildly cutting bon mot.

Such was the strength of the bond between them.

The League members were a motley assortment of international figures, most of whose faces would be instantly recognizable to the average newspaper reader or television viewer, all leaders of enormous, globe-girdling enterprises, media talking-head sources of quotes and advice.

Twigg catalogued his peers.

Sasha Kapok, of Kalpagni, Ltd.

Ernest Firgower, of Stonecipher Industries.

Isabelle Fistule, of Burnes Sloan Hardin Hades.

Jack Burrows-White, of Crumbee Products.

Nick Potash, of Harrow & Wither.

Edouard Ensor, of Somnifax et Cie.

Alba Cumberbatch, of Asura Refineries.

Osada Sarakin, of Preta-Loka Entertainments.

Abruptio Placentae, of Culex, SA.

Cooper Stopford, of Brasher Investments, Plc.

Klaus Kunzi-Fuchs, of Rudrakonig, GmbH.

Lastly, of course, came the nervous-looking new recruit, Samuel Stanes, of LD-100 Pharmaceuticals, whose initiation would bring the League up to its full strength of thirteen.

After greeting his compatriots, Twigg moved to the absolute edge of the platform and looked down the tunnel for the train. Not seeing it, he made a dismissive noise and stepped back, joining the rest.

Like a group of commuting meat cutters, they waited silently.

At last the train arrived.

Not modern subway cars, nor even antique carriages, but rather primitive open mining cars like riveted iron buckets with seats, pulled by a tough little engine, at the helm of which sat the Dark Intercessor.

Kraft Durchfreude.

Durchfreude was one of the League's rare failures. Something had gone wrong in the procedure that would have made him a full-fledged League member. A portion of his higher individualism and initiative had been unfortunately excised. The team and head surgeon responsible for the screw-up had soon come to wish they had never seen a scalpel. Durchfreude himself had been declared officially dead, and his corporate empire had devolved to a son, who knew nothing of his father's actual fate, nor of the League.

Yet a use and further half-life had been found for Durchfreude. Unwaveringly loyal and obedient, he made an excellent cat's-paw, a unique tool, disposable if need be, rotating his services among the League's initiates as requested.

And in fact, if no one had a more pressing need for Durchfreude's services, Twigg himself intended to borrow the creature soon for a short and simple private assignment on behalf of Isoterm.

Stepping carefully, the PGL'ers filtered into the various cars, except for the caboose.

That car was filled with bound unconscious bodies.

Men, women, children. Some animals.

Once they were all aboard, Durchfreude rang a little mechanical bell (with what mix of sardonicism and actual childlike glee, Twigg could not discern in the dimness), and the train chugged off, its single kerosene lamp the only illumination.

Not far beyond the station, the tracks began to slope to a non-negligible degree. Soon, the train's brakes were squealing, the engine's gears in low, as they dropped into the earth's depths, torturing rasping shrieks from the rails.

After a time, the tracks leveled out. A light at the end of the tunnel appeared after they rounded a bend.

The train emerged into a cavernous room hewn from the living rock, and stopped. Naked flames from bracketed torches illuminated the rough clammy walls. Hidden vents created slight air currents that caused the flames to jump and lick like hungry tongues. Thick Persian rugs--stained despite the best cleaning attempts--softened the hard floor.

Durchfreude leaped down and hustled carpeted wooden steps up to the cars so that the thirteen passengers could dismount.

The room was furnished with various comfortable chairs and couches--as well as shrouded equipment whose shapes implied a more sinister nature. Scattered tables were laden with fine gourmet food and vintage drink, as well as various recreational pills and needles. Full sanitary and ablutionary facilities were half-visible behind a folding screen.

At one end of the room was a kind of dais supporting a lectern. On the wall behind the podium hung a large reproduction of the PGL crest as well as a framed portrait. The painting depicted a mustachioed white man with the looks typical of the mid-1800s. There was, however, a curious deformity to a portion of his skull.

The members dispersed among the furniture, helping themselves to the refreshments, making small talk. After unloading the unconscious cargo, stacking the hogtied bodies like cordwood, Durchfreude had vanished somewhere, down the tunnel or behind the screen.

When the men and women of the League had settled down, business began.

As the oldest member, Ernest Firgower ascended the dais to conduct the meeting. Behind the podium, not much of the short elderly man was visible save for his vigorous shock of silver hair towering over his wrinkled brow (where that same small scar, which Twigg and the others shared, leered obscenely), and his green eyes shining like the tips of poisoned stakes. Twigg fancied that his countryman resembled Bertrand Russell, had that philosopher ever included in his CV the management of, say, a concentration camp.

Firgower coughed, began to speak in a reedy voice. "Fellows of the Rod, let us commence our business. The first matter on the docket is the division of Zairian natural resources--"

Twigg listened with only half his attention. The rest was focused on a blonde woman sprawled atop the pile of warm and gently respiring bodies. Her immaculate features and contorted limbs evoked the air of a Renaissance martyr portrait.

Twigg sucked in her delicious helplessness, tuning Firgower out. Twigg was a man who believed firmly in granting business and pleasure equal status.

At last the humdrum League affairs had all been dealt with. Twigg suppressed a yawn. It was hours before his normal sleep period. Was his onboard pump working as well as it should? He made a mental note to have it checked.

Now Firgower had begun the ritual preface to the initiation of Samuel Stanes, the last duty before they could all cut loose in that hot red festival that was a simultaneous abandonment and affirmation of their unique privilege.

Twigg perked up in his seat and listened. The old story never failed to enthrall.

"We are gathered together tonight in honor of our symbolic founder, the hapless yet lucky Phineas Gage. While he did not literally lay the first bricks of our organization--that honor belongs to the farsighted entrepreneurial visionaries of our great-grandparents' generation--Gage provided the actual inspiration for our magnificent accomplishments.

"Phineas Gage was a simple untutored manual laborer during the middle of the last century. At the time of his remarkable transformation, he was helping to construct a railroad. The blasting of interfering rock ledges was underway. Gage was assigned to make sure the explosive charges were well in place. Taking his tamping rod, he went to work."

Firgower waved a thin arm backward at the crossed bars of the PGL crest, then almost toppled. He righted himself and continued.

"Gage performed his task a trifle too enthusiastically. At one drill hole in the stone, he created sparks and ignited the powder charge.

"The iron rod was sent rocketing upward, out of the channel as out of the barrel of a gun, through Gage's right eye, blazing a trail of gorgeous destruction across his lobes, and emerging in its entirety out the top of his cranium.

"Let us leap ahead, over the confusion attendant on this accident and the subsequent primitive medical treatment. Gage survived his wonderful injury. But as all his old friends attested, he was utterly changed. From an easygoing, laughing, careless sort, he turned moody and unpredictable and demanding. He seemed to be without the normal constraints of civilization. Regard for his fellow humans, he had none. Completely self-centered, his actions--reprehensible to an ignorant milksop society--led to a life of ostracism and despair.

"We now know, of course, that along with much needless peripheral damage, Gage was the first man to undergo the removal of his brain's ethical nucleus. Or, as some of the more old-fashioned among us refer to it, his conscience.

"Lacking all power, occupying the wrong social stratum, Gage never benefited from his inadvertent surgery. He could not fully make use of the miraculous ease and fluidity of action which one who is blessed with the destruction of one's conscience experiences. Never to doubt, never to allow pusillanimous sentiments for human cattle to interfere with one's own self-interest, never to waste a moment of one's precious time in introspection. To see clearly the quickest path to one's own ascension. Such is the legacy given to those of us who have undergone the perfected operation."

Firgower stepped out from behind the lectern. "And now, Samuel Stanes, we of the Phineas Gage League invite you to join our ranks. What sayest thou?"

Stanes stood on visibly weak knees. "I--I accept!"

Durchfreude had appeared from nowhere.

"The Dark Intercessor will administer the sacrament," intoned Firgower.

Twigg watched as Durchfreude fastened a stasis box to Stanes's wrist. The leader of Isoterm found his finger straying almost of its own accord to his own temple, and restrained the traitorous digit with an act of will. Someone else flicked a wall-mounted switch, and the hissing of an electric-powered air compressor resounded.

Sweat like an oily evil dew spontaneously broke out on Stanes's brow. He closed his eyes.

Durchfreude brought into view a heavy-duty carpenter's nail gun, its tumescent hose trailing. He placed the muzzle against Stanes's right temporal ridge and squeezed the trigger.

The pop of the gun was followed by the crunching sound of the short nail driving through flesh, striking and partially penetrating the skull.

Stanes turned then into a rigid snowy sculpture of himself, as the stasis box was activated by the control in Firgower's veined hand.

Durchfreude caught the unstable toppling figure, hoisted it and loaded it into the train. Mounting the engineer's seat, he drove Stanes off to the awaiting surgery.

No ride home for the others would be needed for hours.

For now the fun commenced. Already, as planned, the victims were waking up.

Twigg moved swiftly to claim the blonde.

But he need not have rushed. There were plenty of subjects to go around.

When Twigg next looked up amidst the screams and howls and guttural roars--the animals sounding human, the humans animal--he saw Cumberbatch with her mouth incarnadined, a wide red clownlike smear, Ensor holding a fluid-darkened saw, Sarakin pulling tight a noose, Fistule with her arm imbrued, buried inside a dog's split mortal shell.

Not jealous in the least, the superman returned to his own pleasures.

Alert, almost vibrating, Thurman watched the regal and youthfully glamorous Shenda Moore stride swiftly across the Karuna's polished floorboards and pass behind the counter. She set her courier's case down with visible relief.

Verity eagerly started up a conversation with the Karuna's owner, of which Thurman caught only the opening.

"That sleazy new distributor came to the delivery door again, Shenda. This time he had a couple of greaseballs with him. Heavy muscle. Thought I'd be scared or something. Huh! I told them to go fuck themselves--"

Shenda's face darkened into a scowl. Thurman thought her intense and concentrated protective wrath was nearly as attractive as her general wide-focus warmth. She opened her mouth to speak, but her reply (beyond a prefatory "Those bastards--") was lost to Thurman in a sudden swell of noise: kitchen clatter, door laughter, street traffic, patron hooting. By the time things had quieted somewhat, Shenda had disappeared into the rear of the shop.

Thurman slumped down in his seat, cut off from the source of his momentary invigoration. For a moment, he had actually forgot his illness, succeeded in imagining himself whole again.

What he wouldn't give to get a little closer to this intriguing woman! He envisioned the way their conversation would swiftly flow, from easy early friendliness to gradual whispered intimacy. And then, in some quiet, private setting--

At that moment Thurman began to cough. Not a polite, out-in-public cough either, but one of his regularly occurring TB-victim-in-the-isolation-ward, lung-ripping, throat-searing gaspers. Clutching a sheaf of napkins for the expected expectoration, he tried to turn his body toward the window, away from the other customers. His knee jerked involuntarily, bumping the small table and sending his pill vials tumbling to the floor.

In the midst of his agony, Thurman felt waves of searing humiliation.

Nothing could make his embarrassment any worse.

Nothing?

A soft yet strong hand descended on his shoulder, followed by a familiar voice.

"Are you all right? What can we do?"

Oh, Sweet Mary!

It was her!

Thurman struggled to get his body under control. He finished gagging into the napkin wad, then instinctively stuck the filthy mass of tissue (paper) and tissue (cellular) into the pocket of his sweatpants. Trying to compose his mottled features into a semblance of normality, Thurman turned to face a standing Shenda Moore.

A sweet floral scent wafted off her. She clutched half a bite-rimmed sandwich unselfconsciously in one hand. Her exquisitely planed Afro-Caribbean face, framed in lax layered Fibonacci curves of thick hair, was a blend of alarm and curiosity, her taut body poised for whatever action might prove necessary.

Weakly, Thurman found a joke. "I--there was a fly in my coffee."

Shenda laughed. The sound was like temple bells. In a bold tone she completed the old joke: "Well, don't spread the word around, or everyone will want one!"

Then, just when Thurman expected the Karuna's proprietor to turn and walk off, she pulled up a chair and sat down beside him. Now she spoke in more confidential tones, and the watchers attracted by Thurman's discomfort turned back to their own business.

"Do you mind if I finish my lunch here?"

"No, never! I mean, sure, why not? It's your place."

This hardly sounded the note of gracious invitation Thurman intended. But Shenda seemed not to take offense. She waved over Nello.

"Nello, I'll have a Mango-Cherry, please. And--what's your name?"

This information was not immediately retrievable. After a dedicated search, however, involving all his processing power, a few syllables surfaced. "Thurman. Thurman Swan."

"Get Mister Swan whatever he wants."

Thurman had never tried any of the many Tantra-brand juices available at the Karuna. "Um, I'll have the same."

Nello left. Shenda took a bite out of her sandwich, meditatively studied Thurman while she chewed. Their juices arrived. Shenda uncapped hers and drank straight from the bottle, her lovely throat pulsing. Thurman took a tentative sip, cautious as always when introducing new acquaintances to his hermit stomach. Not bad.

Shenda finished her sandwich with deliberation and obvious enjoyment, washing it down with the rest of the sweet juice. She set the empty bottle decisively down. Still, she said nothing. Thurman was dying.

But when she finally spoke, he almost wished she hadn't.

"What's wrong with you?"

Of course. She wouldn't have been human if she hadn't zeroed in on his obvious sickly condition. Still, Hunchback Thurman had hoped the pretty gypsy girl could have avoided the touchy subject.

He wearily started to recount his sad and baffling tale with its lack of a clear conclusion or moral.

"Well, you see, I was in the Gulf War--"

Shenda impatiently waved his words away. "I don't care about that shit! That's old shit, kiddo! I assume you got a doctor for whatever happened to you there. Maybe not the best doctor or the best kind of treatment. That's something you gotta look into some more maybe. But what I want to know is, what's wrong with you?"

His mouth hanging open, Thurman couldn't answer.

Shenda leaned closer, drilling him with her unwavering gaze. "Look. I see you in here every day of the week, any hour I come in. Now, I certainly don't bitch about anybody taking up space without spending a lot. Hell, that's one of the things this place is for! And I'm flattered that you find this joint so attractive. But no one should be so desperate or lonely or unimaginative that they've only got one place to go! I mean, like Groucho said, 'I love my cigar, but even I take it out of my mouth sometimes!' "

Thurman struggled to recover himself. "Well sure, I agree, if you were talking about a normal person--"

Shenda banged her hand flat down on the table, raising a gunshot report. "Where's your tail? You got a tail? Show me your tail! Or maybe you're hiding a third eye somewhere?"

Shenda pressed a finger into his brow.

"Ouch!"

"No, I didn't think so. Thurman, you are normal. Maybe a struggling kind of normal, but who isn't? No, you've let your spirit get a kink in it, Thurman. You've been dealt a lousy hand, but you're still supposed to play it. Instead, you're down a well of apathy without a bucket to piss in! You need to get out and around, my friend."

The word "friend" was like a life raft. "I--what could I do?"

"How about a job?"

"A job? What kind of job could I possibly handle?"

"There's a job for everyone. Wait right here."

Shenda got up and walked to the counter, where she retrieved her bag. She strode briskly back, dropped down, and removed her appointment book from within the satchel. A single business card shot out under its own volition onto the tabletop. Shenda picked it up and read it.

"Perfect! Go to this address today. This very afternoon, do you hear me? Tell Vance I sent you and said for him to put you to work."

Shenda stood then, extended her hand. "Welcome to the Karuna family, Thurman."

Thurman found himself standing somehow without reliance on his cane. He took Shenda's hand. Her grip was a pleasant pain.

When she was halfway across the room, Thurman impulsively called out, "Shenda Moore!"

She stopped and whirled. "Yes!"

"I like your toenails!"

Shenda eyed Thurman with new interest. Coyly angling one foot like a model, she said, "Me too!"

And then she was out of the Koffeehouse, force of nature dissolving in a burst of laffs.

Thurman sank back down gratefully into his seat, feeling his face flushing. He was almost glad she was gone.

Now that he had gotten some small fraction of his crazy wish fulfilled, however unpredictably, he wasn't sure how much of Shenda Moore's intense company he could take!

Someone else was now standing by his table.

Fuquan Fletcher was smiling. But the smile was not pleasant, nor meant to be.

"Big man. Likes the lady's toenails! Gonna let the world know it!"

"Fuquan, what's your problem?"

"You my problem, man, you try to move in on Shenda Moore. That girl is mine! She got her nose open for me!"

"Is that so? You sure she feels that way?"

"Sure? I'll show you sure, man!" The irate coffee roaster jabbed a finger into Thurman's chest.

This was the second time Thurman had been poked in the space of a few minutes. Unlike the first educational prodding, this poke made him mad. So--after he did not respond with immediate belligerence, causing Fuquan to laugh coarsely and turn to leave--Thurman felt completely justified in using his cane to hook one of the Black man's ankles and pull his foot out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor.

Fuquan was up and heading with bunched fists for a risen shaky Thurman when Buddy and Nello and Verity intervened, referee baristas holding the opponents apart.

"Hey, c'mon, guys, who started this?"

Neither antagonist said anything. After a tense moment, Fuquan brushed himself off and stalked into the back.

Gathering up his pills and accoutrements, feeling that his life was becoming more interesting by the second, Thurman departed the Karuna.

Outside, he studied the business card.

KUSTOM KARS AND KANVASES

VANCE VON JOLLY, ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

"HOUSE OF THE WINGED HEART"

1616 ROTHFINK BOULEVARD

Thurman checked his wallet. Not a lot of green. But hey--he had a job now!

In the cab, Thurman speculated on what he would find at the end of the ride.

Disembarking, he discovered the wan products of his imagination to be a pale shadow of reality.

He stood facing an old garage: four cinderblock bays flanked by an office space. The entire nondescript structure, however, had been studded with brightly colored glazed ceramic objects in bas-relief, executed in a zippy cartoon style. Animals, trees, people, cars, toys, musical notes.

Above the office door was the biggest piece of pottery, big as a sofa: an anatomically correct heart sprouting white-feathered angel wings.

Thurman entered the cluttered office. No one home. He moved into the bays.

The first three were occupied by exotic cars: hotrods in various stages of being gaudily decorated. The last bay was filled with easels and wall-leaning stacks of canvases, also in various stages of completion. The paintings exhibited the same daffy sensibility as the outdoor ceramics. A beat-up workbench held brushes, tubes of color, tins of thinner and crusty rags. A tatty couch with mussed blankets, a metal-topped kitchen table and a small refrigerator seemed to hint at regular overnight human occupancy.

A toilet flushed. Through an opening door--whose frosted glass bore the calligraphic legend INSPIRATION: TEN CENTS--walked a very pale muscular man with a trendy arrangement of dark facial hair offset by a thinning on top. One earlobe, his left, was studded with segments of a severed silver snake, like the colonial DON'T TREAD ON ME. He was concentrating on tucking his paint-splattered green mechanic's shirt into his Swiss Army-surplus wool pants, and so did not immediately notice Thurman. Lacking sleeves, his abbreviated shirt revealed several tattoos, including a winged heart.

"Er, Vance?"

The guy stopped and looked up with neither welcome nor discouragement. "Who're you?"

Thurman, growing more and more doubtful, volunteered his name. Then: "I was sent by Shenda Moore. She said you'd have a regular job for me ... ?"

"You know kandy-flake? Or striping? I could use some help striping. How about bodywork? Can you do bodywork?"

"Well, I'm good with tools, and I picked up a lot of special skills in the Army."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Well, basically I was a demolition expert. But I can learn new things quick."

Vance von Jolly had gotten his shirt stuck in the zipper of his pants, and was now struggling mightily to restore his apparel to its proper functioning. Thurman wondered if he should offer to help.

"Jesus! That Shenda! She drives me nuts! All right, I suppose you can start by washing brushes. Any thumb-fingered idiot can wash brushes."

Thurman was hurt. "Wait just a minute now--"

"Oh, did I mention I can't work with anyone who gets pissed off at my dumb mouth?"

"No. Unless that was the warning just now."

Unable to free his shirt from the toothy tangle, Vance ceased struggling and moved to the workbench. Buttoning his waistband, he found an alligator clip and pinched shut the upper open portion of his fly. The clip projected outward like a small groin antenna.

"It was. Okay, let's start by showing you where everything is."

Thurman had one question. "Vance--will I be working with a lot of chemicals? I've had some bad luck with chemicals in the past."

Vance seemed to see Thurman and his condition for the first time. He shook his head ruefully. "Man, someone really fucked you up, didn't they?"

"I guess you could say that."

The painter moved to Thurman's side, hanging an arm over his shoulder. A complex odor of sweat, garlic and solvents wafted off the man.

"Thurman, my pal, I want to let you in on a little secret. The Army made you handle the chemicals of death! But here we work with the chemicals of life!"

"What's the difference? Chemicals are chemicals, aren't they?"

Vance von Jolly merely tapped a finger against his head and winked.

Sun like a fusion-powered pomegranate in a pristine blueberry sky. Whipped cream clouds. Breezes holding kites and balloons aloft and trying to tug high women's skirts and slither up men's pants legs. Acres of open lawn green as celery, with shaded patches the color of new money. Shouts and squeals of running playing wild children. Over-the-top, can't-stand-myself canine pack yelping. Bee-buzz adult chatter: gossip, business, philosophy and seduction. Teenage odd-stressed argot in the perpetual search for cool. Pointillistic laughter. Competing music from half a dozen boomboxes, holding the sonic fort until the Beagle Boys finished their cable-laying, equipment-stacking preparations underway 'neath a Sgt. Pepper bandstand. Smell of mesquite burning down to perfect grilling coals, and aromatic dope leaves combusting.

Just another partially organized, partially spontaneous monthly shareholders' meeting of Karuna, Inc.

Shenda thought back to a poetry class.

Rip those boardroom doors from their jambs, rip the executive jambs from the walls, then rip down the corporate walls!

You go, Walt!

Amidst and amongst the several hundred people and several score dogs assembled in Morley Adams Park, Shenda circulated happily, Dame Kind with her flock.

Mama! These festivities always made her high!

Every face smiled to see her, every adult hand juggled drinks or spatulas or books or tapes or purses or babies in order to clasp hers. Children hurled themselves at her as if she were some natural feature of the landscape placed here for their rightful pleasure: a tree, a mountain, a beach. Shenda caught them up, whirled them and set them down. Fur and tongue and tail foamed around her like breakers, then raced away.

A splash of lemon yellow, a flash of jell-o wattles: Bullfinch scampered to keep up with his fleeter cousins.

This was what Shenda lived for. Not all the petty details of running her brainchild, the squabbling altruistic quasi-corporation known as Karuna, Inc. Certainly not all the hourly, daily, weekly headaches and stress. They all faded like phantoms in the sunshine of this assemblage. Here, under her watchful, beneficent gaze, she could gauge the actual good she had accomplished, count all the people she had helped and observe how that help had spread--was continually spreading--outward in circles of big-heart, wide-mind action.

Shenda really wanted nothing else. (A man, a mate, hell--a date? Well, perhaps....) This gathering was her total and complete yardstick of satisfaction.

This very day would have been perfect, in fact, if not for one matter.

Zingo, that cell-u-licious horsepiss.

The actual owner of Maraplan Importing--this brashly illegitimate distributor new to their city--had visited the Karuna Koffeehouse several times since that day Verity had told his men unequivocally to fuck off. At last managing to snare Shenda, he had delivered one final classic performance of intimidation and blustering. Ignorantly self-assured, crudely sly and warthog-aggressive, he refused to take Shenda's "Blow me!" reply-in-kind for an answer.

"Little lady," said Faro Mealey in their ultimate interview, rasping a simian hand across his chin stubble, "you are not being very smart."

Shenda was a little scared at this confrontation. But stronger emotions were a sense of the scene's absurdity, and utter infuriation at the nerve of this guy!

"On the contrary, Mister Mealey. It's you who's acting like a juvenile dumbshit schoolyard thug! You come in here and practically order me to drop my old distributor and replace him with you. Then you tell me that I'll have to take just as many cases of that poisonous antifreeze you call soda as you decide is good for me. Moreover, I'm not the only business you're trying to pull this scam on. You've been to some of my friends, as well as dozens of unrelated concerns throughout the city. Does the word 'shakedown' hold any meaning for you, Mister Mealey? Do you know what would happen to you if I went to the cops?"

Mealey unsealed a sporadically gold-capped grin. "Not a fucking thing, babe, I assure you."

Shenda looked the man up and down. Clad like a cheap racetrack tout, Faro Mealey seemed an unlikely type to actually command the clout he now boasted of. Still, Shenda probed for more information.

"Oh, yeah? Who's gonna come bail your ass out? The International Brotherhood of Slimeballs?"

"Very funny. I like broads with a sense of humor. They're always good in bed. No, my business has some important backers. Let's just say that the makers of Zingo take a big interest in insuring their product gets top placement in the marketplace. Now, why doncha think about my proposition for a few days? I should warn you that our terms in the future might not be so generous."

"Mister Mealey, you can take a fucking Zingo enema. Now, get the hell out of here!"

Over the next few days, Shenda had done a little financial-pages, web-searching, library-stack sleuthing, following a not-too-shadowy paper trail.

The company that perpetrated Zingo was owned by another. And that one was owned by yet another. But beyond that level, the path seemed to lead conclusively to something called Isoterm. Who or what motivated them, Shenda had been unable yet to learn.

A Nerf football hit Shenda in the side of the head.

"Sorry!" called out little Tara Vadeboncoeur, her face a mix of horrified chagrin and stifled delight.

"No malo, chica! That's what I get for daydreaming in a rowdy crowd!" Shenda lofted the ball back, and moved on.

She stopped and talked with Joe Ramos of Kan-do Konstruction for a while. His firm planned to bid on part of the new Westside highway job. Shenda gave him a rundown on what she had picked up on his likely competitors through the grapevine. After a gleeful handshake, she left Ramos crunching numbers on a calculator.

Mona Condeluccio staggered by under the weight of two aluminum pans, each as big as an unfolded Monopoly board and deep as a footbath. Shenda quickly relieved her of one, and peeked beneath the foil lid.

"Mmm-mm! Potato salad!"

"And this one's macaroni. I got six more in the truck!"

Mona ran Kozmic Katering. She was providing about half the food for today's bash, partially in lieu of her tithe. The rest was all deliciously homemade. Oh, except for the donuts from Krishna Murphy's Krispy Kreme franchise.

Following Mona toward the picnic tables, Shenda said, "Louie Kablooie, I wish the business part of the day was over already!"

After a few spectacular failures, Shenda had mandated that Karuna, Inc., finish discussing all its outstanding business matters prior to falling like wolves and vultures and savages on the food and alcoholic beverages. Otherwise, not a hell of a lot got done. And also, while Shenda didn't mind being heckled, she found that the intellectual quality of the catcalls and witticisms was higher when the audience was sober.

The women deposited their burdens on the groaning buffet. Shenda grabbed the first teenager to fall within her reach. "You, Haley Sweets! What you thinking, standing there like a goofball statue when there's work to be done? Help Mona! Right now!"

Haley Sweets--acne like strawberry fields--gazed at Shenda with besotted puppy love. He gulped, sending a hypertrophied Adam's apple yo-yoing, said without satire, "Yes sir!"--then trotted obediently off.

Shenda laughed silently. Boy--we got to find you a woman!

And then she saw Thurman Swan.

Thurman sat on a folding plastic-basketweave lawn chair, his cane hung from the armrest. If his seat had been a gold throne in a Byzantine palace, his enjoyment would obviously not have been increased one iota.

On either side of him stood the gorgeously decorative SinSin Bang and Pepsi Scattergood, owner-beauticians of Kwik Kuts. SinSin was half-Vietnamese, half-Chinese, one of the few good things to come out of the last border war between those two countries. Pepsi was a Nordic-Anglo mix who--Shenda had always privately observed to herself--resembled no one so much as that infamous comix icon, Cherry Poptart.

The two women were fussing inordinately over Thurman. All they lacked for their role of houris were giant palm fronds to fan him with.

"Can I get you some more juice, Thurman?"

"Would you like another cushion, Thurman?"

"Is that sun too much for you?"

"Have some potato chips, Thurman! They're fresh!"

A burst of jealousy ignited like a Roman candle in Shenda's chest. What did those two think they were doing!

Ever since Shenda had told Pepsi and SinSin that Thurman had admired her pedicure--Shenda's footwork their handiwork--they had taken a silly fancy to him.

"You know how rare it is for a man to notice something like that, Shenda?"

"And then to say it out loud in a public place!"

"Wow!"

Additionally, Thurman's sickly condition had sent their unfulfilled maternal nursing instincts into overdrive.

It was all very innocent and probably good for them all.

But somehow, today, it made Shenda's blood percolate!

Shenda marched over.

When Thurman spotted her, he got guiltily to his feet.

"Un, hi, Shen--"

Shenda cut off the feeble greeting. "You, Swan--come with me!"

"I'll be right back--"

"No, you won't! Hurry up!"

Shenda stalked off, leaving Thurman to stump after her.

When they were some distance away, Shenda stopped under the semiconcealing foliage of a willow. Fronds whispered at her passage. Thurman caught up and leaned gratefully against the trunk, out of breath.

"Do you know what those two are?" demanded Shenda. Without waiting for an answer, she spat, "They're lovers! Lesbians! Lipstick lesbians!"

Thurman looked puzzled. "So what? I can't be friends with them? It's not like I want babies or anything."

Shenda's ire deflated. She lowered her head and pinched her brow. "Oh my god, what am I saying? They're my friends too. I don't care they're lesbians. I never even thought twice about it before! I swear it! That's not me!"

Thurman moved next to Shenda. Cane in his right hand, he took her left in his. He didn't press any advantage that her confusion provided, but simply said, "Don't worry about it, Shenda. You must have a lot on your mind."

Shenda felt immense gratitude for the sympathy. The same tactical pause she employed not to prejudge others, she now used to forgive herself. "I do, I do! In fact--" she consulted her watch "--I've got a meeting to call to order that's already late!"

"Let's go then."

People were already gathering expectantly about the central focus of the bandstand, growing quiet and alert. The crowd parted for Shenda, and she found Thurman somehow still behind her, his face drained from the small exertions.

"Oh, shit, I am so sorry I dragged you around like this!"

"I--I wouldn't have missed it for anything."

"Listen--you can't stand for the whole time, and the only seat is up there with me. Do you mind?"

"Nuh-no," panted Thurman.

They ascended the three stairs, finding themselves amid the band's equipment and instruments. Thurman collapsed onto Buddy Cheetah's drumset stool. Shenda picked up the microphone and tested it. It was on. With a backward glance to make sure Thurman was okay, she shifted into business mode and began.

"This meeting of Karuna, Inc., is now officially underway. Can I have the minutes of the last meeting, please? Ellen Woodrose, are you out there?"

Business was conducted. People ascended the stage as called. Officers read reports. Motions were proposed. Yays and nays were tallied. People were praised or confronted. Plans were debated and modified. Arguments expired in compromise. Agreements were reached. No blood was spilled.

At last Shenda was able to utter one of her favorite sentences. "If there is no more business, then this meeting is adjourned--"

Chef Mona called loudly out from the mass of people. "Shenda, I got a shortage of help and grill space today! Which should I cook first? The veggie burgers or the meat?"

The crowd went into noisy spasms. "The meat, the meat!" "No, the falafel first!"

Then an anonymous voice called out: "Let the dogs vote!"

The whole crowd took up the absurd chant: "Let the dogs vote! Let the dogs vote!"

Children ran off screaming to herd the romping packs up to the tables. Like a madman's cattle drive, the dogs were chivvied toward the food tables.

Shenda knew them all by sight. Spaniels, briards, whippets, shepherds, Scotties, terriers, Great Danes, greyhounds, sheep dogs and many a miscegenetic mongrel. Hounds and lapdogs, hunters and retrievers. Ten thousand years of human-inspired breeding. There was French Fry, Slinky Dog, Muzzletuff, Oftenbark, E. Collie, Dogberry, Wagstaff, Nixon, Tuff Gong, Gromit, G-Spot, Snake, Whiskey, Deedles, Subwoofer--and dozens more.

And of course, sticking out like a bright bouncy beachball, the resplendent Bullfinch.

The kids had succeeded in massing the dogs around Chef Mona. In her hands, she held two patties: one meat, one bean. The crowd fell still as Arctic night.

Strangely, the dogs too had grown calm and composed. They seemed aware of the responsibility that had devolved on them.

Mona bent and offered the patties.

Not a single dog moved forward out of the ring. Instead, they seemed to consult with muted growls and ear prickings among themselves.

Then one animal emerged from the pack as if nominated by the rest, strutting with immense dignity right up to his own personal canine Judgment of Paris.

Bullfinch.

And without a second's hesitation he chose the falafel.

Half the crowd applauded, half booed, before dissolving into a disorganized surge toward the buffet.

On the stage Shenda turned to Thurman, whose face was wreathed in amazement.

"And that's how we do things por la Karuna!"

In his vast, statue-littered bedroom, before his official busy day began, Marmaduke Twigg sought to fortify himself for his off-the-record meeting with Kraft Durchfreude. The guiding black light of Isoterm lifted his silken pajama top, revealing a small titanium port like a robot's nipple implanted in his side. He attached a transparent feedline leading to an IV sac hanging on a stand. Triggered by the connection, his inner pump began to hum. Blue fluid flowed directly into his veins.

No time to get the Zingo through his slow digestive tract now! Durchfreude would be here any moment.

Twigg dreaded the meeting. All he could picture was Durchfreude holding the nail gun and firing into Stanes's head. The expression on the creature's face! Something not present at previous initiations--a trace of deadly disengagement, of schizoid withdrawal--had crawled beneath the tightly held surface of the Dark Intercessor's face.

Twigg suspected that Durchfreude's unstable brain was finally fractionating. As when a glacier meets the sea, parts were calving off, achieving or struggling for autonomy. The jigsaw pieces of Durchfreude's mind were twitching with a life of their own, hopping out of their former plane of alignment.

Of course, this made the cat's-paw of the PGL highly unreliable--dangerous in fact--and subject to immediate termination.

Still, Twigg hoped to get just one more assignment out of him. A simple one, to be sure, but necessary.

As the IV bag collapsed with an accompanying mechanical sucking sound from Twigg's thorax, he felt a twinge of regret at Durchfreude's disintegration and imminent demolition. None of this had been the man's own fault, of course. Why, Twigg remembered when Kraft Durchfreude had been the ultra-competent head of Squamous Securities, a legend in the world of cutthroat business dealings. And even after the surgical bungle he had lived a useful life, performing with eclat and brio the dirtiest tasks the PGL members could dredge up for him. Why, even as far back as six or seven years ago, when Twigg had sent the Dark Intercessor to the Persian Gulf, the monster had still been at the top of his form. Look how ingeniously he had raked Isoterm's nuts from the fire, destroying all evidence of the company's sales to Iraq of CBW materiel. Even the highly over-rated CIA had been unable to prevent Durchfreude's access to pertinent records of theirs, which had forever after gone conveniently missing....

But now--now was a different story.

After this job, Twigg would present his suspicions and proofs to the godsons and goddaughters of Phineas Gage. Surely they all must have noticed the falling-off in Durchfreude's performance, the strains in his behavior, and would agree on his lethal disposition, despite any temporary inconveniences.

Twigg suspected that only one real issue, never made explicit, had stayed their hands thus far.

Where would they ever find a successor with Durchfreude's exquisite taste in kidnap victims for the monthly rites?

The bedroom door opened as Twigg was unsnapping his feed. A quivering Paternoster ushered in the bald and skeletal Kraft Durchfreude, then hastily backed out, as if from the vicinity of a cobra.

Dropping his pajama shirt, Twigg manufactured affability out of unease. "Kraft, my good man! Come right in. I hope they fed you well downstairs."

The thing's voice was as uncontoured as a worm. "I ate."

"Wonderful! Never conduct negotiations on an empty stomach, that's my rule. Makes one too eager to have them over! Not that we're performing what one might term negotiations, of course."

"No."

Unnervingly, Durchfreude's popeyed gaze never strayed from Twigg's mouth, as if the Dark Intercessor were contemplating cruel refinements in the form and function of that organ. Twigg stammered, "Yes, well, be that as it may." He tried to project authority. "Here is your assignment. I have recently encountered several nuclei of resistance across the nation, holdouts fighting the introduction of a new Isoterm product. Zingo, a soft drink. I'd like you to visit each of these sites and insure that they are permanently removed as sources of opposition. You should start with one in particular, more organized than most. It's at the head of the list. You'll find the specifics in these papers."

Twigg handed over a file folder. "Is everything clear?"

"Why?"

The simple word stopped Twigg like a wall. He couldn't recall Durchfreude ever uttering that syllable before. Further sign of his slide into mental chaos.

"'Why?' What do you mean?"

The monster struggled to cloak nebulous thoughts in the proper words. "Why must--why must you go where you aren't wanted? Can't you purchase those who would be purchased, and--and leave the others alone?"

"Kraft, my good fellow, surely you jest! It is my absolute nature to flow into all available niches, to drive out and break all competition, to smash and burn and crush, to grind the faces of the conquered into the dust, until only I alone am left standing, regnant over all I survey, even if that should be a smoking wasteland of my own devising! My categorical imperative is that all my actions must conduce toward the magnification of my supreme presence. Why, had I infinite time and infinite space to fill, it would still not be enough to hold my tremendous vitality! It's not that I particularly want to sell soda pop! Great Satan, no! And there is nothing sinister about Zingo, no addictive properties or brainwashing qualities. In fact, the drink is a not completely unhealthful, if nasty tasting mix of electrolytes, Olestra, Nutrasweet, and some artificial flavors and coloring. Good for keeping the masses fit for the assembly line. And of course, the money is trivial. No, it's simply a matter of not allowing my will, however arbitrary and capricious, to be thwarted."

"I--I see."

Twigg clapped a hand on Durchfreude's shoulder. "Of course you see. You may do no other."

Twigg's shifted line of vision now encompassed the stasis-control device on the tabletop. On a powerful whim, he picked it up, aimed and brought his tiger nemesis instantly to life. At the same time he stepped behind Durchfreude as a screen, so that the tiger would spot that man first.

The enraged wild tormented beast rocketed toward Durchfreude. But the Dark Intercessor never so much as flinched.

Twigg froze the big cat only when its whiskers were nearly touching Durchfreude, who--only upon seeing the threat neutralized--stepped deftly aside to allow it to crash to the carpet.

Durchfreude regarded his employer emotionlessly. Then he turned and left.

Twigg sensed then that he should have let the Siberian finish the job.

But now it was really rather too late.

Thurman really could not think of much he would want to change right now in his life, except of course for the state of his health, the less-than-optimal condition of his tainted organs and flesh and bones. A collection of mismatched parts barely holding together (although seemingly, thankfully, not getting worse).

And yet--even with that grim toe-stepping partner, Miss Function, he was learning to dance, to shuffle gamely around life's ballroom.

After all, as Shenda had said, his problems were old shit.

He was really getting his act together at last, after the disastrous end to his Army career. Coming out of his shell, turning over a new leaf, climbing every mountain, and a raft of other natural metaphors.

Why, one day it seemed possible he might even own a dog!

Things looked sweet.

Every morning he arose early after a semidecent night's sleep. (His joints still pained him, his stomach still often rebelled against supper, but somehow his mind was more at ease, and that helped a lot.) Dressed, he measuredly walked the ten blocks to the Karuna Koffeehouse and through the laffing door, where he was treated to Verity-whipped espresso eggs and the latest creation of that baking genius, Odd Vibe: a buttery, cheddary croissant with fractal flaking layers.

"You eat good now, Tor-man, you betcha!"

"Very good, Odd Vibe. Thanks!"

The familiar faces and repeated rituals of the place soothed him. There resounded Chug'em's fourth long slurp, here came Nello with his latest dirty joke, there was Buddy executing intricate rhythms on the countertop with two wooden spoons.

Even the mean scowl and mimed expressions of distaste directed his way each day by Fuquan Fletcher (who had never again verbally or physically accosted Thurman) were an integral part of his daily routine.

The place to come when even home isn't kind enough.

Indeed, indeed.

At a quarter to nine, the taxi from Kall-a-Kab would pull up and beep for him, and he'd ride to his job.

Vance von Jolly had proved to be a decent boss. Any sternness or disdain exhibited by the man was a tartness solely in service to his art, and would just as likely be turned toward himself.

"Thurman, I ask you--have you ever seen such a pitifully derivative waste of canvas? If Big Daddy or the ol' Kootchie-Koo hisself could see this sad excuse for a painting, they'd break all my brushes in half and throw my ass out on the street. Scrape it down, will you, before I barf. I'm gonna go sand down that T-bird."

Having no artistic talent or insight, Thurman simply did as he was told. (When working with potentially noxious chemicals, he wore full protective duds: respirator, gloves, smock. The proximity to pigments and sprays and solvents seemed not to be worsening his ailments anyhow.) His natural obedience and alacrity, modified by his body's limits, seemed to suffice. For the past two weeks he had collected a more than generous paycheck.

And many times a week, he got to see Shenda Moore.

The vibrant, seemingly inexhaustible leader of the Kompassionate Konglomerate (as Thurman had mentally dubbed Karuna, Inc., inspired by its treatment of himself and all others) blew into the garage like an hourglass-shaped twister at unpredictable intervals, bearing directives, advice, questions, checks, official forms, gifts of food and flowers. And she always offered up a personal comment or two, out of that massive Rolodex concealed in her pretty head.

Whenever she wasn't around, Thurman thought he had no illusions about Shenda ever being more to him than a not-too-intimate friend. That moment of connection under the willow tree had been a fluke, never referred to again.

But when her warm and radiant body and blithe spirit actually occupied the same room as Thurman, he was convinced he loved her and always would.

Maybe all he needed was another opening....

Early Saturday evening in Morley Adams Park. Dusk calls of birds, skybowl purpling, lawns releasing their night odors, stone wall still warm against his back, planks of the bench rough under his butt. Hands folded in his lap, Thurman contemplated the foot-gouged trough of dirt at his feet.

What had brought him here? Usually he was abed by now, watching TV or listening to the radio. Hoping to recapture some of that magic willow-shrouded day perhaps....

A tennis ball rolled up to nestle between his V-angled sneakers.

Then a beautifully ugly jonquil dogface appeared, tongue lolling out to drip approximately a pint of slobber on Thurman's Nikes.

"Hey, Thurman, what's up?"

Shenda dropped down beside Thurman. If a transdimensional imp had materialized and hauled a giant cartoon moneybag out of some fold of hyperspace and offered it to him, Thurman could not have been more stunned.

Shenda ignored his blank amazement. "Me and Bully are out for the first time in days! I could kick myself sometimes! Get so involved in the biz, you know. And what's it all for, if not minutes like this?"

"I agree. Minutes. Just like this."

Shenda said nothing for a time. Thurman recalled the silence she had cultivated prior to blasting his psyche apart, and inwardly flinched. But when she spoke, her words were mild.

"How're SinSin and Pepsi and you getting on these days?"

"Oh, them! Great, fine. They're very nice to me. They even took me to the beach the other day. I don't remember the name of the place, but there was a real big-hair crowd--"

"Uh-huh. Been there once with them myself. You should have seen this one lifeguard. Buff but dim! Well, he just went straight after Pepsi like--"

Shenda's story was long and involved and funny. She rattled on as if she hadn't talked recreationally in too long a time. Thurman had only to nod and interpolate a few monosyllables to keep the narrative flowing. One tale segued into another. Every few minutes one of the humans offhandedly tossed the ball for Bullfinch. When it became too dark for the dog to see anything, he lay beneath the bench and began to snore.

Thurman began to talk a little about himself. Presently he found that their roles had flipped, with Shenda doing most of the listening and nodding.

Around ten-thirty, Shenda jumped up. "Louie Kablooie! I have to make my rounds!"

"Your rounds? At this hour?"

"Before I can sleep, I go around to all our businesses and make sure they're locked up safe. The Koffeehouse is last, at midnight."

Thurman thought this sounded obsessive, but only said, "Even on the weekend?"

"Like maybe thieves don't work weekends?"

"Well, I guess I'll say goodbye then--"

"No, don't! Please. You can keep me company."

"Ride shotgun?"

Shenda made pistol fingers and fired a few imaginary shots into the dust. "Dance, pardner!"

The three of them got into the Jetta, Bullfinch sprawled in the back seat, and were soon circulating down lonesome urban trails.

Their small sedate city was winding down by the time they pulled up to the Karuna.

All dark, save for a lone light still on in the kitchen.

"That's probably Fuquan, getting the beans ready for tomorrow so he can sleep in late. He's got a key."

Emboldened by this time spent together, Thurman was about to inquire just what, if anything, Shenda felt for that obnoxious guy.

Then a gunshot sounded, plain as a million dollar vase shattering.

From inside the Karuna.

"No!" yelled Shenda.

The woman and the dog were out of the car before Thurman could even get the unfamiliar door open. Damn, where was the handle--!

All hell arrived, with bells on.

An enormous CRUMP!, followed by a WHOOSH!, and the Karuna burst into flames, sending glass flying like deadly stars into the street.

A stick figure in a business suit emerged from the storeside alley like a demon stepping from an inferno. He walked calmly away from the blazing structure, gun hanging down by his side.

Shenda hesitated, but Bullfinch did not.

The dog raced across the street and catapulted himself at the man.

The living skeleton's reaction was out of all proportion to the unarmed assault. As if facing some supernatural creature, the arsonist-killer dropped his gun, screamed, threw up his arms and tottered backward.

Bullfinch impacted, sending the man over completely to bounce his head off the curb.

By the time Thurman made his lame way over, Shenda was kicking the unconscious man in the side and screaming.

"Bastard! You fucking killer bastard!"

Thurman pulled her back. "Shenda, stop!"

Shenda collapsed like a string-and-bead toy whose pushed button releases the tension that sustains it. Thurman kneeled to hold her up. A migraine was flowering behind his eyes.

And then he saw the killer's face.

Furnace skies. Sand lacquered with blood. Greasy, roilsome black clouds....

And to his instant horror, Thurman knew he knew him.

Nothing would ever, ever be the same.

And Shenda Moore was the one to blame.

This sad couplet ran and ran in Shenda's brain. Like a mean virus of found poetry self-assembled from fridge-magnet vocabulary. As towers and spurts of crackling fire illuminated her dog and the two men and her own crumpled self on the oil-slicked macadam, Shenda realized with absolute certainty that what she had long awaited and pretended not to fear--like a child whistling in Oya's graveyard--had now found her. The unraveling of all her careful labors. The major fuck-up. The explosion of chaos you're lucky to walk away from. The shitstorm that takes innocent bystanders and chews them up like pumpkin seeds.

Innocents like Fuquan Fletcher.

Poor Fuquan!

And despite all prior pretense of equanimity, the disaster scared her.

Scared the piss out of her--

And made her fighting mad!

Some sick and evil motherfucker was going to pay.

Sirens began to wail like delighted banshees. Shenda leaped to her feet.

"In the car with this pig. Quick!"

Thurman's expression revealed major perplexity. "But the police--"

"The police are whores! They know this man and his bosses! They suck at the same hindteat! Believe me!"

Thurman bent and lifted the unconscious killer's arms. Shenda saw the crippled Swan try to hide a wince and grunt.

"Oh, Thurman, I forgot. Can you do it?"

"I can do it--"

Between them they hustled the guy into the back seat of the Jetta. Shenda lashed his arms and legs together with rope from the trunk. Bullfinch leaped in and sat atop the man's chest, proudly on guard. Shenda and Thurman piled in. They tore off in the direction opposite from the hastening firetrucks just a block away.

"Where are we going?"

"To my aunt's house."

Shenda hadn't known the answer to Thurman's question until he asked it. But as soon as she opened her mouth, their destination was obvious.

Only Titi Yaya could help her now.

As she drove, Shenda filled Thurman in on the shakedown moves being directed at the Karuna and other businesses in town.

"This has to be Maraplan's doing. Mealey and his f