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you are. Even if it’s true that Lurton Sands  . . .’
    ‘Don’t say "even if". He’s a fanatic and you know it; he identifies so fully with his public image as a savior of lives that he’s simply had to make a psychological break with reality. Probably he started in a small way, with what he told himself was a unique situation, an exception; he had to have a particular organ and he took it. And the next time  . . .’ She shrugged. ‘It was easier. And so on.’
    ‘I see,’ Tito said.
    ‘I think I see what we’re going to have to do,’ Myra said. ‘What you’re going to have to do. Get started on this. Find out from your contact at the UN exactly what organ the bank lacks at this time. Then deliberately set up another emergency situation; have someone in a hospital somewhere apply to Lurton for that particular transplant. I realize that it’ll cost one hell of a lot of money, but I’m willing to underwrite the expense. Do you see?’
    ‘I see,’ Tito said. In other words, trap Lurton Sands. Play on the man’s determination to save the life of a dying person  . . . make his humanitarianism the instrument of his destruction. What a way to earn a living, Tito thought to himself. Another day, another dollar  . . . it’s hardly that. Not when you get involved in something like this.
    ‘I know you can arrange it,’ Myra said to him fervently. ‘You’re good; you’re experienced. Aren’t you?’
    ‘Yes, Mrs Sands,’ Tito said. ‘I’m experienced. Yes, possibly I can trap the guy. Lead him by the nose. It shouldn’t be too hard.’
    ‘Make sure your "patient" offers him plenty,’ Myra said in a bitter, taut voice. ‘Lurton will bite if he senses a good financial return; that’s what interests him—in spite of what you and the darn public may or may not imagine. I ought to know; I’ve lived with him a good many years, shared his most intimate thoughts.’ She smiled, briefly. ‘It seems a shame I have to tell you how to go about your business, but obviously I have to.’ Her smile returned, cold and exceedingly hard.
    ‘I appreciate your assistance,’ Tito said woodenly.
    ‘No you don’t. You think I’m trying to do something wicked. Something out of mere spite.’
    Tito said, ‘I don’t think anything; I’m just hungry. Maybe you don’t eat until eight-thirty or nine, but I have pyloric spasms and I have to eat by seven. Will you excuse me?’ He rose to his feet, pushing his desk chair back. ‘I want to close up shop.’ He did not renew his offer to take her out to dinner.
    Gathering up her coat and purse, Myra Sands said, ‘Have you located Cally Vale and if so where?’
    ‘No luck,’ Tito said, and felt uncomfortable.
    Staring at him, Myra said, ‘But why can’t you locate her? She must be somewhere!’ She looked as if she could not believe her ears.
    ‘The court process servers can’t find her either,’ Tito pointed out. ‘But I’m sure she’ll turn up by trial time.’ He, too, had been wondering why his staff had been unable to locate Lurton Sands’ mistress; after all, there were only a limited number of places a person could hide, and detection and tracing devices, especially during the last two decades, had improved to an almost supernatural accuracy.
    Myra said, ‘I’m beginning to think you’re just not any good. I wonder if I shouldn’t put my business in somebody else’s hands.’
    ‘That’s your privilege,’ Tito said. His stomach ached, a series of spasms of his pyloric valve. He wondered if he was ever going to get an opportunity to eat tonight.
    ‘You must find Miss Vale,’ Myra said. ‘She knows all the details of his activity; that’s why he’s got her hidden—in fact she’s pumping blood with a heart he procured for her.’
    ‘Okay, Mrs Sands,’ Tito agreed, and inwardly winced at the growing pain  . . .

FOUR
    The black-haired, extremely dark youth said shyly, ‘We came to you, Mrs Sands, because we read about you in the