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chatter of voices and the clink of ice-cubes. Waiting to be attacked when the president of the company joined them (he had promised to show at one sharp) was a table laden with expensive food: hard-boiled eggs, shells intact so that it could be seen they were brown, free-range, rich in carotene; lettuces whose outer leaves had been rasped by slugs; apples and pears wearing their maggot-marks like dueling scars, in this case presumably genuine ones though it had been known for fruit growers to fake them with red-hot wires in areas where insects were no longer found; whole hams, very lean, proud of their immunity from antibiotics and copper sulphate; scrawny chickens; bread as coarse as sandstone, dark as mud and nubbled with wheat grains…
    "Hmm! Looks as though someone bought out the local branch of Puritan!" a voice said within Chalmers's hearing, and he was pleased.
    He was moving from House to House, measuring a precise three minutes at each stop. Virgo: no women were present apart from Felice with whom he was having an affair and the two girls serving at the bar.
    In pursuance of its progressive image Angel City had tried appointing female area managers, but of the first two such one had married and quit and the other had suffered a nervous breakdown. Occasionally he had wondered whether Felice slept with him in the hope of climbing that far up the corporation totem-pole.
    The policy, however, had been reviewed.
    Libra: "Now me, I'd go straight into scrap-reclamation and sewage-plant construction. They're the growth industries of the eighties.
    You'll see your investment double in next to no time."
    Scorpio: "Rats? No, we have a terrier and a tomcat and keep them hungry. But the ants! I spent two thousand on proofing the kitchen and they still got in. So we fell back on-uh-the old reliable. By the way, if you need any, I have a good discreet source of supply."
    Sagittarius: "Yes, up our way we've established a modus vivendi with the Syndicate. Their interest in Puritan, of course. Very strong around our base. Anyone tries to put in a false claim gets a dusty answer straight away."
    No one at Capricorn.
    Aquarius: "No ice, thanks-hey! I said NO ICE! Don't you understand plain English? Doctor's orders. Mustn't touch anything but canned mineral water. I lose more working time thanks to digestive trouble…"
    Pisces: "Why don't we make acceptance of a life proposal conditional on installing an approved water purifier in the guy's home, like we insist on an approved precipitator in his car? I've sounded out a couple of the big firms, and they show every interest in cooperating."
    No one at Aries.
    Taurus: "If we're going to expand into the cattle states we must have solid documentation on the natural incidence of deformed births in domestic animals. I managed to hold his claim down to a refund of the stud fee, but even that came to five thousand, and he insisted the value of this mare that died in foal was twice as much. I had to drop very heavy hints about the cost of litigation before he accepted the settlement."
    Gemini: "I've had a rash of demands lately for insurance against egg-bundle fetus. Can't help wondering whether there may not be something behind the scare. Maybe a leak from a research lab?"
    No one at Cancer…naturally.
    Leo: "Yes, the reason I was delayed-this crazy spade…"
    Chalmers clucked sympathy when he had heard Philip out, and switched instantly to a less depressing subject. "By the way! Tania and I will be in Colorado over the holiday. Get in some skiing."
    "Ah-hah? Where you aiming for-Aspen?"
    "Oh, Aspen's full of people who read about it in Playboy. No, your own stamping ground. Towerhill?"
    "Never! Well, call us up! Maybe you could stop by with us and like have lunch?"
    Sweating slightly from the Playboy putdown.
    The conclusion of Chalmers's meticulously timed peregrination brought him within arm's reach of Grey at five to one.
    "The man from Denver," Grey said. "Philip Mason."
    "What about him?"