"I'll back you for director, of course," Lennox said. "And I think I've got the lever you can use to pry Sachs loose." He told him about Robin's adventure. "All she has to do is report that to her union and Sachs is through. It's your ace in the hole. My contribution to the conspiracy, but don't expect anything more. I've got these letters and threats hanging over me." "You're not alone," Bacon said. "Why didn't you holler down the rainbarrel? I know the gimpster score. Let's hear all about it." He heard about it, then drawled with a cynical expression: "Yep. Yep. We did it last year on 'The People Against--' I know every angle. This is how we broke the case." He instructed Lennox and Jake listened patiently to little known facts about blood sugar that could turn a normal man into a sex maniac, or perhaps it was the other way around. "I got that from a police toxicologist," Bacon confided. "We went to the theater together and he sat there and diagnosed everybody on the stage. Just called the shots. Diabetic. Cancer prone. Tubercular. Multiple Sclerotic...." "Just by looking at them from his seat? I don't believe it." "Jake," Bacon said kindly. "Come back from the Reichenbach Falls. There's a new thing they invented called medicine. Dr. Watson'll tell you all about it." Again Lennox submitted patiently. He permitted Bacon to instruct him on the iniquities of The Marketplace and to educate him from the bonded warehouse of Bacon's profound experience. At the end of an hour, little Bacon felt two inches taller than Lennox and their cordial relationship was once more restored. * * * * * Between twelve and twenty, most boys have a fantasy of the kind of life they would like to lead when they become independent. It's composed of equal parts of Alexander Dumas, Richard Harding Davis and Mickey Spillane. Some of us outgrow this romantic vision. The ones that don't come roving to The Rock to turn the fantasy into reality. That's why life here is half crystallized adolescence. Oliver Stacy had a penthouse in a converted brownstone in the east sixties. He was waiting for Lennox at the top of the stairs, dark, hollow-cheeked, romantic in black slacks, black silk shirt and black cummerbund. He looked like an illustration from a historical novel. He gave Lennox the strong, silent hand-clasp and took him into his apartment. Lennox looked around wistfully. He was transported back to the daydreams of his own boyhood. The floor was polished oak, the walls creamy, the ceiling beamed and lost in shadows. There was a half finished canvas on an easel before the bay window, a self-portrait of Stacy as an officer in the French Foreign Legion. Alongside it was a lay figure on which was draped a uniform cape and a kepi. Stacy thrust a finger through a hole in the shoulder of the cape. "Nine millimeter Mauser," he murmured. "The toughest thing we had to buck in the desert."