Then Milos knelt down to him. “I have grown tired of you,” he said. “So I am now inviting you to leave Chicago. I am inviting you to leave alone, and to leave now.”

“What are you, nuts?”

Milos nodded to the others again, and they sent the second of Pugsy’s bodyguards off to the dirty deep.

“You have thirty seconds to accept my invitation.”

“Mary!” said Pugsy. “Go get Mary! She’ll negotiate for me. She’ll give you whatever you want!”

The other two laughed, and Milos whispered to him, “Mary is the reason we are all here on this fine evening.” He signaled the other two, and they hurled Pugsy’s last bodyguard off for serious core time. Then they dragged a cinder block to Pugsy, and tied it around his ankles.

“Okay, okay, okay, I see you mean business! So I’ll tell you what. You can untie me, and I’ll leave, just like you asked. I’ll leave right now and I’ll never come back. Okay? Just like you asked, okay?”

Milos gave Pugsy a satisfied smile. Then he said, “I’m sorry, but I cannot hear you.”

“What?”

“You have ten seconds.”

“I said I’ll leave! I’ll leave!”

“Sorry, your answer must be in Russian.”

“I don’t speak Russian!”

“Five seconds.”

“I’ll leave-ski Chicago-ski!”

“Time’s up.” He nodded to Moose and Squirrel. “Goodbye, Pugsy.”

“Nooooooo!”

Pugsy was lighter than the other three, so he flew much farther before hitting the lake. He quickly plunged through the living-world water, as thin to him as air, and then passed into the lake bed, toward his place on—or rather in—the mantel. As he sunk deeper and deeper into the earth, he could only hope that when he reached the center, he wouldn’t come across anyone he sent there himself.

The following day, all the Afterlights of Chicago were called for a town meeting—the first such meeting since Pugsy announced his partnership with Mary some weeks ago. Now Mary stood on the same balcony, looking out over the crowd. This time, however, Pugsy was absent. Instead she stood with Speedo beside her. Milos was there, too, but he lingered in the background, along with a silently aggravated Jackin’ Jill.

“You shouldn’t be up here at all,” Jill told Milos. “I earned the right to be here, but what have you done?”

“Not much,” Milos told her. “Just what was necessary.”

She was unimpressed. “Where’s Pugsy?” asked Jill, glancing around. “He’s never late when he calls a town meeting.”

“Pugsy did not call it,” Milos said casually.