From the central clearing came a staccato increase in the tempo of the drumming. Spotwood swiveled around, listening, while Koven continued to scowl dismally at the floor. Spotwood snagged a light coat from the corner and slipped into it. "They'll be starting in a minute. Come on." Once again he managed to grin. "You don't want to miss Chemin. They call the dance a shango. I often wince when I think what a pastor would call it." Koven followed Spotwood from the shanty, and they trudged down the blue-lit street toward the swaying mob in the clearing. Koven quickly outlined a few facts to his companion. They must pretend not to notice the surprise on the face of Bruschloss, which would certainly be present when Koven turned up alive. Moreover, Koven made it clear that they should not even look the least suspiciously in The Hog's direction. "Tough order," Spotwood offered. "Bruschloss sees you alive, he knows you probably saw, and killed, the man who tried to get you. He figures you described the killer to me, and also figures I pegged him down for you as one of his assistants." "Still, let's try to bluff it out." They pressed through the edges of the crowd, ignored, for the watchers concentrated upon the figures diving and turning and stamping their feet on the earth in the center of the ring, clad in feathers and little else, skins shining and polished by sweat in the bubbling light of the ghastly blue flares. Spotwood shouldered off to stand a fair distance away, and Koven found a slight break in the crowd and crouched down on his haunches, stabbing a cigarette into his mouth. From the rear of the circle a young girl appeared, very beautiful, with a tuft of feathers at her hip, and her breasts oiled and glowing like metal cones. Koven gathered this was Chemin, for the name passed on many tongues. A circle of male dancers closed around her. Koven kept his head straight front, but moved his eyes in their sockets, so that he could see Bruschloss, backed up by two men with thick shoulders standing directly behind. The trio blurred almost out of sight at the edge of Koven's line of vision. Bruschloss sat bent forward, his rolled belly heaving, and the sweaty, stubbled skin of his face looking rotted in the blue light. He followed each movement of the dancer Chemin with obscene concentration, but Koven, switching his eyes front, had the unpleasant feeling that the two burly companions were scrutinizing him. Chemin's dance became less sexual for a few moments, became the sort of dance you might almost expect to see on a photovision variety hour; a dance without specific meaning. Abruptly the palms of Koven's hands felt wet.