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before.”
    “Mm-hm. All right, Lots, take him in the Blue Room and keep him there till Dingus gets back.”
     
    Lots wasn’t unfriendly, Howson found; he dropped enough hints to make it clear that if the news he’d brought was true, it would plug a gap in The Snake’s monopoly of some illegal goods or other—exactly what, Howson didn’t ask. He fancied it might be drugs. His reaction of disgust against alcohol carried over to drugs, and he preferred not to pursue that line of thought. All he cared about was being momentarily of importance.
    He sat with Lots in the Blue Room—decorated with a midnight blue ceiling and a heavy blue carpet—and told himself that it was only sense on the part of The Snake to make sure before he acted. Desultorily, he answered questions.
    “What’s your trouble from, Crooky?” Lots inquired. “Hurt in an accident?”
    “Born like it,” Howson said. Then the idea occurred to him that Lots was trying to be sympathetic, and he added in a tone of apology, “I don’t talk about it much.”
    “Mm-hah.” Lots yawned and stretched his legs straight out. “Drink? Or that meal The Snake said you were to have?”
    “I don’t drink,” Howson said. Again he felt the rare impulse to explain. “It isn’t easy to walk when I’m sober, if you see what I mean.”
    Lots stared at him. After a moment he laughed harshly. “I don’t guess I could make a crack like that, with your problem. OK, take a cola or something. I’m buzzing for gin.”
     
    There were crawling hours. Talk ceased after the food was brought. Lots proposed a game of stud, offered to teach the rules to him, changed his mind on seeing that Howson’s awkward fingers couldn’t cope with the task of dealing one card at a time. Embarrassed, Howson suggested chess or checkers, but Lots wasn’t interested in either.
    Eventually the door swung open and Dingus put his head in.
    “Move it, Lots!” he exclaimed. “The guy checks out clean so far as we can tell. We’re going to Black Wharf now.”
    Automatically Howson made to pull himself to his feet. With a sharp gesture Dingus stopped him.
    “You still wait, Crooky!” he snapped. “Mr. Hampton’s a hard man to satisfy, and there’s a while yet till two a.m.”
    It felt more like an age dragging by when he was alone. At last, sometime after midnight, he dozed off in his chair. He had no idea how long he had slept when he was jolted awake by the door opening again. His bleary eyes focused on The Snake, and Lots and Dingus and Collar following him into the room. But the instant he saw them he knew his gamble had succeeded.
    “You earned your pay, Crooky,” The Snake said softly. “You surely did. Which leaves only one question.”
    Howson’s mind, still sleep-fogged, groped for it. Would it be: how much did he want? The guess was wrong. The Snake continued, “And that is, are you an honest politician?”
    Howson made a noncommittal noise. His mouth was dry with excitement again. The Snake looked him over thoughtfully for long seconds, and reached his decision. He snapped his fingers at Collar.
    “Make it five hundred!” he instructed. “And—listening, Crooky?—remember that half of that is for the next time, if there is one. Lots, book out a car and take him home.”
    The shock of being given more money than he had ever held in his hand at one time before broke the barrier separating Howson’s fantasies from reality; he barely absorbed the impressions of the next half hour—the car, the journey to his rooming house—because of the swarming visions that filled his mind. Not just next time: a time after that, and another and another, piecing gossip together into news, being paid, being (which was infinitely more important) praised and eventually regarded as valuable. That was what he wanted most in all the world. He had achieved what to almost anyone else would be a minor ambition; he had done something for someone which was not made work, offered out of