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small elevator that ran between the shop proper and the living quarters above. “The day I can’t climb a single flight of stairs,” she remonstrated, “is the day you can have me embalmed, stuffed, and put in the window at a curio sale.” To demonstrate her determination, she proceeded at once to walk the short stairway on all fours.
    No one knew how old Mother Mastiff was and she wasn’t telling. Nor would she consent to submit to the extensive cosmetic surgeries Flinx could now afford, or to utilize any other artificial age-reduction device. “I’ve spent too long and too much effort preparin’ for the role of an aged crone, and I’m not about to give up on it now,” she told him. “Besides, the more pitiful and decrepit I look, the more polite and sympathetic the suck—the customers are.”
    Not surprisingly, the shop prospered. For one thing, many of the better craftsmen in Drallar had come from equally humble origins, and they enjoyed selling their better products to her.
    As Flinx rounded the corner, he saw she was waiting for him at the rear entrance. “Out all night again. I don’t suppose you’ve been anywhere as healthy as the Pink Palace or Sinnyville. D’you want your throat cut before you make eighteen?” she admonished, wagging a warning finger.
    “Not much chance of that, Mother.” He brushed past her, but—not to be put off—she followed him into the little storeroom behind the shopfront.
    “And that flyin’ gargoyle of yours won’t save you every time, y’ know. Not in a city like this, where everyone has a handshake for you with one palm and a knife for your back in the other. Keep walkin’ about at the depths of the night like this, boy, and one day they’ll be bringin’ you back t’ me pale and empty of juice. And I warn you,” she continued, her voice rising, “it’s a cheap funeral you’ll be gettin’, because I’m not workin’ my fingers to the quick to pay for a fancy send-off for a fool!”
    A sharp buzz interrupted the tirade. “So I’ll tell you for the last time, boy . . .”
    “Didn’t you hear the door, Mother?” He grinned. “First customer of the morn.”
    She peered through the beads in the doorway. “Huh. Tourists, by the look of ‘em. You should see the tanzanite on the woman’s ring.” She hesitated, torn between the need to satisfy affection and avarice simultaneously. “But what’s a couple of customers when . . .” another hesitation, “still, that’s twelve carats at least in the one stone. Their clothes mark ‘em as Terrans maybe, too.” She finally threw up her hands in confusion and disgust. “It’s my punishment. You’re a visitation for the sins of my youth. Get out of my sight, boy. Upstairs and wash yourself, and mind the disinfectant. You smell of the gutter. Dry yourself well, mind . . . you’re not too big or old for me to blush your bottom.” She slipped through the screen and a radical metamorphosis took place.
    “Ah sir, madam,” an oily voice cooed soothingly, the voice of everyone’s favorite grandmama, “you honor my small shop. I would have been out sooner but I was tending to my poor grandson who is desperately ill and in need of much expensive treatment. The doctors fear that unless the operation is performed soon, he will lose the power of sight, and—”
    Her slick spiel was cut off as the elevator door slid shut behind Flinx. Unlike Mother Mastiff, he had no compunction about using modern conveniences—certainly not now, as tired as he was from the experiences of the night before. As he stepped into the upstairs quarters he did wonder how such disparate tones could issue from the same wrinkled throat.
    Later, over the evening meal (prepared by him, since Mother Mastiff had been occupied with customers all day), he began to explain what had happened. For a change, she neither harangued nor chastised him, merely listened politely until he had finished.
    “So you’re bound to go after him