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her first training class on
voluntarily entering theta state via meditation. Before dinner, both of them packed
travel bags.
    Her second night was about the same
as the first—pointless and boring. The surfer was away on a Hawaiian vacation,
so Daniel only visited seven people: a prison minister, an encyclopedia
salesman, a dentist, a gambler, a cancer surgeon, a commodity trader, and a
funeral-home director. The funeral home had definite links to the Fossils, and
appeared to be disposing of extra bodies. Everything went into the report. To
pass the time, Jez listened to a Nora Roberts book on CD while she plotted target
points on a map.
    Just before quitting time, she had
almost eight hundred red dots on the paper, and several, hundred-mile-radius
circles etched to group them. Daniel eventually asked, “What is that?”
    She showed him the map. “It’s just
a cluster analysis of the targets remaining. Using this grouping, I can raise
your average to just over fourteen dives a night.” Below the map were some
calculations.
    Daniel was awed. “This is some
advanced math. Dirt Bag said you didn’t get past high school.”
    “I didn’t finish my degree,
but I was four years into a math major at the University of Nevada. I made the Dean’s List,” she snorted. “Let me finish this hand plot and send a memo to
Dirt Bag.”
    “This is great!” he laughed. “But
you’re wasting your time.”
    Jez frowned. “You don’t think he’ll
change the search strategy? I thought we wanted to work smarter, not harder.”
    Daniel raised a finger. “I’m not
telling you to stop. On the contrary, I’m telling you that your brain is too
valuable to waste with grunt work like this. Plotting this will take you weeks.
We pay other people to do this for us. Scan what you already have to Buddy, and
write a one-paragraph explanation. Let him sneak it through channels; he’s good
at that sort of thing. Wow, you’re smart!”
    Jez pretended to be offended. “Don’t
sound so surprised. Even people from trailer parks can have brains. My mom
earned a degree in engineering before she married Dad, got pregnant, and became
a widow.”
    “I’m no Olive, Jez,” he said,
referring to her ex-fiancé’s evil sister. “I knew you were special, but this .
What were you doing in show business?”
    Jez explained, “I danced to pay for
school, and Chance told me a hit magic show could make more in the first year
than I could earn in five as an actuary. It was simple math; I dropped out and
never looked back.”
    He finished packing his gear as
they talked. “See what other improvements you can think of, but delegate the
legwork. I’ll meet you on the bus at bedtime. By tonight we’ll be in Santa Fe.”
    ****
    Sounding pleased, Benny called
Daniel’s cell during the five o’clock meal. “How’s it going?”
    Daniel complained, “She’s killing
me with this exercise stuff. Now, she says I can eat whatever I want, but the
meal has to have a vegetable that’s not fried. Who made her Mom?”
    “She wanted to substitute V8 for
your Mountain Dew. The vegetables were a compromise.” Benny replied.
    “Cruel and unusual. It’s not right,”
the teenager groaned.
    “Take it like a man,” Jez jeered.
Around the table, the guards and driver snickered.
    “I ran this clustering idea of
yours past a few people at the insurance company DB owns, and they claim it’ll
work like a charm. It’s tremendous. I’m going to see to it you get a raise.”
    Daniel said, “Give Jez the raise;
it was all her idea. Besides, I inherited more money from my parents than I’ll
ever use.”
    There was silence for a long time. “Give
the phone to Miss Johnson.”
    Daniel did so, and the others tuned
out a long discussion about the benefits of different analysis models and
distribution assumptions. Then Jez dropped the bombshell. “However, I decided
none of that really matters. We’re so understaffed compared to the Fossils that
we don’t stand a