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tickets to survival did not start getting scattered around out of all control.
    A furious rain came lashing down, bombarding us with great pellets of water. Spray obscured visibility. The concrete floor hummed in resonance. Shoppers ran en masse for the exits, while stallkeepers raced to take in their wares.
    In the confusion, the pair ran off and disappeared. There was no time even to call to them to stop. I started to chase after them, squeezing out through the side opening of the stall, when the weight of accumulated rainwater on the canvas roof caused the supports to lean. My foot got caught in the crosspiece, and I fell forward, flat on my face. A sharp pain flashed though my knee like incandescent light. Weak knees are the bane of the very fat.
    Someone helped me up from behind, so near I could smell the sweat in his armpits. It was the insect dealer.
    “Where in hell have you been?”
    “Sorry. I didn’t think it would take so long, but it turned out I had to take a crap too. I’ve had loose bowels off and on for a while. Maybe it’s the weather; who knows?”
    “Go after them. Hurry!”
    “After who?”
    “The shills, of course.” I stood and started to run off ahead of him, but my left leg was rubbery and lacking totally in sensation. I clung to his shoulder, barely managing to keep upright.
    “That woman is a looker, isn’t she?” he enthused. “That face makes me want to take her in my arms. That ass makes me want—”
    “Never mind that. They ran off with my stuff.”
    “What stuff?”
    “The tickets. They swiped them and ran off.”
    “Now why would they want to do a thing like that?” He pulled me back under the canvas, out of the rain. I would have resisted, but my leg wasn’t obeying orders.
    “You wouldn’t take it so lightly if you knew how much those tickets are worth.”
    “How should I know? I’m sure they don’t, either.”
    “Their instincts were better than yours, though.”
    The scanty hair on his big round head looked as if someone had scribbled it on with a ballpoint pen. Water dripped from his earlobes and the point of his chin, as if someone had left the faucet running.
    “Relax,” he said. “I think I know where they went. If you can walk, I’ll let you lean on my shoulder.”
    There was pain like a scattering of broken needles, but normal sensation was beginning to return. I gripped the shoulder of the insect dealer, who carried the suitcase, and we headed toward the exit, getting wet to the skin. The store loudspeakers were announcing closing time to the accompaniment of “Auld Lang Syne.” The man evidently in charge of dismantling stalls came dashing up the emergency stairway, pulled out a crowbar from the toolbag slung around his hips, and set to work, starting in a corner.
    In front of the elevators there was a roofed area some fifteen feet square, filled with a jostling crowd seeking escape from the rain. The overload bell was ringing, and the elevator doors were wide open. No one moved to get out. No one could have—the elevator was packed too tight. Angry shouts … crying children … women’s screams … and the bell, ringing and ringing …
    “Hopeless. Damn!”
    “We’ve got to hurry and find them! The man had a crew cut, and the woman had curly hair. She was wearing a T-shirt printed with some kind of scenery on the front—”
    “Forget it. Take a look at that. No way.”
    “Why not take the stairs?”
    “We’re on the ninth floor, you know.”
    “So? I don’t care.”
    We circled around in back of the elevators till we came to a white steel door. On it was a wooden sign marked EMERGENCY EXIT. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

4
    MY BIOLOGICAL FATHER
IS CALLED INOTOTSU
    The door swung open to a noise like the buzzing of ten thousand horseflies—the hum of motors reverberating down the pit of the stairwell. It was a steep, strictly-business stairway, a world away from the gaudy bustle of the store interior. The walls were of plain concrete,