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DeAnne's parents' basement while the IRS auctioned off everything they owned.
    And still it felt pretty good to be walking toward the door in Cowboy Bob's office.
    "Wait a minute, Step," said Cowboy Bob.
    Step turned around. The vice-president of finance was reaching into a drawer of his desk and pulling out another paper. "Since you didn't like that first one, try this one before you walk out on us and we have to sue you for breach."
    Step came back and took the paper out of his hand. He read it without sitting down. To his disbelief, it was a version of the agreement that could only have been written for him- it excluded prior software, it excluded programming on computers for which Eight Bits Inc. was not publishing software, and the non-competition clause was for exactly one year.
    "You already had this written," said Step.
    "Yep," said Cowboy Bob.
    "So why did you show me that other?"
    "Because you might've signed it." Cowboy Bob grinned. "This is business, Step."
    Step stood there looking at him, debating inside himself whether he wanted even to live on the same planet with this guy, let alone work with him.
    "We've met every one of your objections, Step," Cowboy Bob prodded him.
    "I'm just wondering whether there's another paper in that drawer."
    "There is. It has our lawyer's phone number on it. How do I put this kindly, Step? Sign or be sued."
    "Gee, Bob, is this the way you talk to all the boys?"
    "Look at it this way, Step. You won't be working with me. The only thing you'll know about me is that I sign your paycheck, and after you get a few of those you'll like me just fine. You're pissed off now, but that'll pass, and in six months maybe we'll have a couple of beers together and laugh about how mad you were this first day."
    "I don't drink," said Step.
    "Yeah, I forgot, you're a Mormon," said Cowboy Bob. "Well, then, that's out. Because looking at you, I'd say you could never forgive me without a couple of beers in you."
    He said it with such a twinkle in his eye that Step couldn't help but smile. So Cowboy Bob knew he was a son-of-a-bitch, and didn't particularly mind. Well, Bob, I know you're a son-of-a-bitch, and I guess I don't mind that much either.
    Step laid the paper down on the desk, signed it, and walked out.
    It was nearly noon, and even though he was probably sup posed to go find Dicky and ask where his office was, Step needed to stand outside this building for a minute and decide whether to scream or cry or laugh.
    On the way to the staff meeting he had seen a back corridor that led to a door on the north side of the building-Dicky had told him in passing that everybody in the staff used that door, since that's where the parking lot was. That's where Step headed now.
    The scenery wasn't all that pretty outside just a narrow parking lot, a high chain- link fence with barbed wire on the top, and then an overgrown pasture where the only things still grazing were old tires and a rusting refrigerator with the door off. Ray's Mercedes was in the only assigned parking place in the lot, directly across from the north door. Step felt a sudden urge to go pee on the tires like a dog, but he was satisfied just to imagine doing it.
    I've been a free man for the past five years, he said to himself, not working for anybody. Living on student loans, I taught myself programming on the Atari just to get history out of my mind, and I ended up creating a program that gave some pleasure to a lot of people and it made me about a hundred thousand dollars in a year and a half. All that money is gone, I owe taxes on it that I can't pay, and I've just signed a contract to work for a company with byzantine internal politics, an owner on a power trip, a vice-president of finance who thinks that being in business means screwing anybody who'll let you screw him, and a supervisor who's so incompetent that they want me to clean up after him without letting him know I'm doing it. All for thirty thousand dollars a year. Twenty- five