Boyd shrugged. “God knows,” he said. “But it’s sure confusing as all hell.” “And now,” Malone said, “with all that going on—” “The Congress of the United States decides to go off its collective rocker,” Boyd finished. “Exactly.” He stared down at his cigarette for a minute with a morose and pensive expression on his face. He looked, Malone thought, like Henry VIII trying to decide what to do about all these here wives. Then he looked up at Malone. “Ken,” he said in a strained voice, “there seem to be a lot of nutty cases lately.” Malone considered. “No,” he said at last. “It’s just that when a nutty one comes along, we get it.” “That’s what I mean,” Boyd said. “I wonder why that is.” Malone shrugged. “It takes a thief to catch a thief,” he said. “But these aren’t thieves,” Boyd said. “I mean, they’re just nutty.” He paused. “Oh,” he said. “And two thieves are better than one,” Malone said. “Anyhow,” Boyd said with a small, gusty sigh, “it’s company.” “Sure,” Malone said. Boyd looked for an ashtray, failed again to find one, and walked over to flip a second cigarette out onto Washington. He came back to his chair, sat down, and said, “What’s our next step, Ken?” Malone considered carefully. “First,” he said finally, “we’ll start assuming something. We’ll start assuming that there is some kind of organization behind all this, behind all the senators’ resignations and everything like that.” “It sounds like a big assumption,” Boyd said. Malone shook his head. “It isn’t really,” he said. “After all, we can’t figure it’s the work of one person: it’s too widespread for that. And it’s silly to assume that everything’s accidental.” “All right,” Boyd said equably. “It’s an organization.” “Trying to subvert the United States,” Malone went on. “Reducing everything to chaos. And that brings in everything else, Tom. That brings in the unions and the gang wars and everything.” Boyd blinked. “How?” he said. “Obvious,” Malone said. “Strife brought on by internal confusion, that’s what’s going on all over. It’s the same pattern. And if we assume an organization trying to jam up the United States, it even makes sense.” He leaned back and beamed. “Sure it makes sense,” Boyd said. “But who’s the organization?” Malone shrugged. “If I were doing the picking,” Boyd said, “I’d pick the Russians. Or the Chinese. Or both. Probably both.” “It’s a possibility,” Malone said. “Anyhow, if it’s sabotage, who else would be interested in sabotaging the United States? There’s some Russian or Chinese organization fouling up Congress, and the unions, and the gangs. Come to think of it, why the gangs? It seems to me that if you left the professional gangsters strong, it would do even more to foul things up.” “Who knows?” Boyd said. “Maybe they’re trying to get rid of American gangsters so they can import some of their own.” “That doesn’t make any sense,” Malone said, “but I’ll think about it. In the meantime, we have one more interesting question.”