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The people respect a security camera. It calms them down.” Khoklov unbuttoned his shirt. A large bandage was taped to his prominent ribs. He dug inside the bandage with one bony finger and produced a cardboard claim chit. “Here you go, my boy.”
    Viktor looked at the ticket numbly. Viktor was wrapped in an Ecstasy rush moment, when the user feels quite superb but has lost all concept of initiative.
    Khoklov scowled. “Don’t drop that claim check! And don’t drop the package either. Go on down there now, hurry. Try to be careful.”
    Viktor scampered down the beach.
    “He’s better when he’s high on the drugs,” Khoklov said in frank despair. “He’s happier. When the boy gets all depressed … Well, you don’t want to see Viktor depressed. Then he gets all poetic.”
    “Kids.” Starlitz grunted. He put his head in his hands.
    The local syndicate had disemboweled their bladder now, and they were dragging the shipment into the swarming light of handheld lamps. Starlitz could smell the unholy weight of the packaged white powder: the bone-warping gravity of smack. The almighty presence of the world’s most fiercely sought commodity. Cordite for the weltanschauung. Whole kilograms of fiercely concentrated damage. Reality had a new lacquer on it suddenly: the cold blue shimmer of junk sickness. The consumer God of Pain and Fear from the red-hot spoon, scourge of and from the century’s boards, syndicates and governments, filthy deals consummated in a million lavatories, the needle people the insect people the vegetable people,hi-fi junk note metal fixes on a twentieth-century nod-out.…
    Khoklov looked at Starlitz in surprised concern. “You understand about children, eh, Lekhi? You have a child of your own.” Khoklov was struggling to achieve some sense of human engagement. “How is she? Tell me, how is your little girl?”
    “I have no idea,” Starlitz said, lifting his sick head with an effort. “I don’t hear much lately, out of Mom One and Mom Two. It’s kind of a bad scene there, over in New Age Lesbian Land.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that.” Khoklov drew a deep breath and winced. “That’s a shame for you. Life is hard.”
    “Well, there’s always some kind of trouble, ace. Only people out of time have no troubles. But, hell, life doesn’t have to be so hard.” Gathering strength, Starlitz straightened. “Because I’ve got a major revenue stream with backing at the highest levels of the Turkish government! It’s taken me three years to develop this thing, but it’s the sweetest scam I’ve ever pulled. I’m living large, pal. I’m so rich right now, it’s almost legal.”
    Khoklov was astonished. “You’re telling me you’re
rich
, Lekhi?”
    “Yeah, that’s the story line, man. I got a full-time accountant and thirty employees.”
    Khoklov’s threadbare eyebrows buckled on his sunburnt forehead. “That’s interesting news. I hadn’t expected that from you.”
    “I’ll tell you all about it. See, I finally wised up. We had it all wrong in the past. You don’t make a big commercial success by engaging in all kinds of underground intrigue and taking big brave risks.”
    “No?”
    “No! You don’t even
want
to be the cool guy in on the heavy spy action. That’s all for kids and suckers! You don’t want to be exciting. You don’t want to be a man of mystery or a front-line hero. You just
make people want things
, and then you
give them what they want
. That’s the secret, man. That’s the secret of success.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “It’s as simple as that, ace. You create demand, and you supply it. Then people give you a truckload of money, and they’re proud and happy to do it. They love you for it. They want you to have a car, and a house, and a girl. They want you to be on the city council, they want you to be a congressman. They’ll powder your ass and publicly kiss it. It’s amazing.”
    “So you became a big commercial