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down when Vee suggested
you take the retainer and run. But no! Bad Garrett has got Morley
Dotes behind him. He can run his mouth like a fool and provoke them
all to hell.”
    “I would have said the same thing if you weren’t
here.”
    He cocked his head and looked at me like a bird looking at a new
kind of bug. “Death wish. Suicidal tendencies. Know what
causes that, Garrett? Diet. That’s right. Your meat-heavy
human diet. You need more roughage. You don’t get enough
roughage, your bowels tighten up. When your bowels tighten up you
get these dangerous, self-destructive mood
swings . . . ”
    “Somebody is going to get his bowels loosened up. You had
to go and throw somebody through my window, didn’t
you?”
    “Will you quit with the damned window?”
    “You know how much that window cost? You got any
idea?”
    “Not a candle to what this job is going to cost you if you
don’t stop complaining. All right! Next time I’ll ask
them pretty please to go out the door like nice little boys. Come
on. Let’s run it off.”
    “Run? Run where? Why?”
    “To work off this nervous energy. To get rid of the combat
juices flowing inside us. Five miles ought to do it.”
    “I’ll tell you how far I’m running. I’m
running all the way over there to my bed. Then I’m not moving
except to breathe.”
    “You’re kidding. The shape you’re in? If you
don’t stretch those muscles, then cool them out right,
you’re going to wake up so stiff you won’t be able to
move.”
    “Tell you what. You run my five miles for me. I’ll
consider forgiving you for the window.” I crashed onto the
bed. “I could use about a gallon of ice-cold beer.”
    Morley didn’t answer me. He was gone.
     
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10
    Bam! Bam! Bam!
    Morning is wonderful. Its only drawback is that it comes at
such an inconvenient time of day. A time when the early birds of
the world are aflame with their mission of bringing the joys of
dawn-watching to the nations. And to me in particular.
    Bam! Bam! Bam!
    Two mornings running. I wondered if I had offered unwitting
insult to the Seven Grand Devils of Modrel.
    I went through all the usual cursing and threatening. None of it
helped.
    Morley would crow when he saw me. I was as stiff as he wanted.
It took me three minutes to put my feet over the side and sit
up.
    The first thing I saw was a mottled green face half a yard wide
staring through the broken window. I said something intelligent
like, “Gleep!”
    The face grinned.
    It was a groll, a hybrid of human, troll, and the Beast That
Talks that is never named in polite company. I grinned back. Grolls
are slow of wit and often quick of temper.
    Its giant toad mouth opened and spilled some of that
hair-raising bass which is their excuse for speech. I did not catch
what it said. It was not meant for me, anyway.
    The banging on the door stopped.
    “Hello yourself,” I croaked, and dragged myself up
onto my feet. I figured I’d better open up before his
patience went and he let himself in through the wall.
    There was another one outside the door. It looked exactly like
the other one—Big, wide, and ugly. I guessed it would stand
twenty feet high in its socks—if it ever wore socks. It
didn’t wear much else, except a loincloth, a utility belt,
and an empty pack harness.
    The loincloth did not do much to preserve modesty.
    So from here on I have to call them both He with a capital H.
Mules would go gibbous with envy.
    Both grolls noted my amazement and grinned. That’s the
sense of humor such creatures have.
    “I’d invite you in if you’d fit,” I
said. One is polite to grolls at all times, irrespective of
one’s prejudices. Otherwise one finds oneself reassessing
one’s attitude while being squished between warty green
toes.
    A short one stepped around the big one. “I expect
I’ll fit,” he said. “And I could use a drink,
actually.”
    “Who the hell are you?”
    “Dojango is the name, actually. These are my brothers,
Marsha and