"Underhanded?" Juno banged the silver inlaid table so hard that it jumped and she had to grab at her glass and the bottle. "Why, you two stinkers are so permanently underhanded you couldn't play no game but softball." "Also, I don't like the company you keep," Jack continued. "The Ikeless Joe was bad enough," he said, giving Phil the barest glance before going on to da Silva, "but where between here and Pluto did you ever pick up this silly greaser who can't even talk English?" "This corny gigolo," Cookie added witheringly. Dion, who until this moment had seemed merely interested, put down his glass and frowned at Jack. "No like you," he asserted. "You want kick in face, trample?" Phil winced, visualizing it in the full, rich details. "Do you know who you're talking to?" Cookie demanded of Dion. "Don't brawl, boys," Mary called from the alcove, "at least until I've finished this ticklish part." She was putting some finishing touches on Moe Brimstine's face under the magnifier. "Then I think I'd like to watch you tramp around, Dion man." "Don't anybody worry," Jack said sadly. "I'm not looking for a fight even if I was handed one. I'm too downhearted about this innocent, thoughtless, uneducated wife of mine." "Uneducated?" she exploded. "After being married to you all these years? You got so many rotten ideas you're a whole university. Well, I've graduated. And shut up, now, 'cause I got to tell Phil here where he can find Moe Brimstine and maybe Billig and his cat." Jack whirled toward her. "Juno, you don't know what you're saying. You don't know what you'd be doing. Just come upstairs a minute and I'll explain the whole deal." "Come upstairs!" Juno mocked. "Tell that to the green farm girls trying to break into the wrestling racket. Now look here, Phil. Brimstine...." "Juno!" Jack yelled, "I didn't want to tell you in front of everybody, but there's a million dollars riding on this deal for me and you, if Billig pulls out of his trouble. Which he can do, so long as he has the green cat to trade to the government. And look, Juno, Billig's lost all his bodyguards and power and everything--he's got to depend on Brimstine and me and Cookie." Juno stared at him. For a second or two there was silence. Then Sacheverell coughed delicately. "Jack," he said unhurriedly, "I am convinced that you have a deep appreciation of spiritual values. Your aura may flicker and dim, but in the end it always glows out bright and clear. Yesterday you gave up ten thousand dollars Moe Brimstine would have given you for the Green One, just in order that we might worship him properly and help him change the world. Now if you were willing to do that...." "I know, I know," Jack snarled at him impatiently, "but this time it's really big money." Sacheverell looked up at the ceiling, as if he were silently telling some god just how evil a world it was.