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tired of that and want to be a gigolo, I can promise you steady work.”
    “I’d probably have to get my nose straightened,” I said, “and brush up on my fox-trot. But while I’m doing that, could we get an appointment with your finance officer?”
    Agnes started to say something and stopped and looked over my shoulder. I turned, and Roger Hammond was there with three security guards in uniform.
    “You are not welcome here,” Hammond said to Candy.
    Agnes opened her eyes very wide. “Roger,” she said, “the media-”
    “She is not welcome,” Hammond said harder, looking at Agnes.
    “What are you afraid we’ll find out?” Candy said.
    “This is my studio. You are an unhealthy intrusion. Either you leave, or I’ll have you removed.”
    The security guard closest to Hammond was wearing sergeant stripes on his uniform. He was a fortyish black man with graying hair and a lot of scar tissue around his eyes. He was looking at me. I looked back. He had big hands, the knuckles enlarged some, and thick wrists. As he looked at me he licked his lips thoughtfully, the tip of his tongue just showing under a thick gray-speckled mustache.
    I looked at the other two guards. They were white, kids no more than twenty-two, and scrawny-looking. One had port-wine birthstains on his right cheek and neck. I could ignore them.
    The black man would be trouble.
    We looked at each other and he smiled slowly. Candy was saying to Hammond something about freedom of the press. Hammond was saying, “I want you out, I want you out.” Agnes had moved back slightly from the table and was watching it all, trying to edge around so she’d be standing with Hammond. She kept looking at me and at the black guard and back at me. Her eyes were shiny.
    Most of the people in the commissary were turning now and looking over. Hammond turned to the black man and said, “Ray, escort them out.”
    Ray asked, “Him too?”
    “Of course.”
    “He ain’t no TV guy,” Ray said.
    “I know that,” Hammond said.
    “If he don’t want to go, I’m going to have to break things,” Ray said.
    “For heaven’s sake, Ray. There’s three of you,” Hammond said.
    Ray looked briefly at the other two guards. He looked at me. “They can take the woman,” he said. He stood easily, his hands relaxed, palms cupped slightly, one foot slightly forward of the other. I was still sitting. I said to Candy, “Are we going to resist?”
    She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’m in the business of discovering news and reporting it. I do not wish to make it.”
    Agnes said to me, “You’re not in TV?”
    The black guard chuckled softly. Hammond said, “He’s a hired bodyguard, Agnes. A strong-arm man.”
    “Strong arm,” I said to the black man.
    “I don’t doubt it,” he said. “We all going?”
    “Roger, we’d better talk about this,” Agnes said. “Can I stop by your office?”
    “No,” Hammond said. He pointed a finger at Candy Sloan and then pointed the same finger at the commissary door. Dramatic. You could tell he was creative. Candy nodded at me. I got up slowly and as I did Ray moved just out of jab range with a small economical shuffle that made the movement barely noticeable. A waiter hovered uncertainly around us with a bill. Hammond took it and put it in his pocket, and the waiter ducked back and disappeared. We began to walk toward the door, Candy in front, then me, Ray beside me, the two guards behind him.
    “See that they leave the grounds,” Hammond said. “And see that they don’t come back.”
    “We’ll have to go dwell in the plains,” I said to Candy. “East of Eden.”
    “Sure,” she said. She didn’t look amused.
    We left the commissary. “You parked where?” Ray said.
    Candy told him.
    “You ever fight on the Coast?” Ray said to me.
    “Not this one,” I said.
    He nodded. “Figured you wasn’t local,” he said. “I never got East.”
    When we got to Candy’s MG, I held the door for her while she slid