Ruth gathered the skins around her.

"I'd like this."

"Take it, baby. Just take it. It's yours."

A white hand came out of the skin. Ruth drew up her bag, and into it, from another white hand, she dropped something she had been hiding in the pelt.

So, she had stolen something. That was fine.

"Do you want a drink? See you on your way?"

"No," said Ruth. "Thank you."

She walked past him, through the door.

"Frankie," rapped Lorlo, "take her down in the lift. Take her wherever she wants to go."

"Sure, Mr. Mulley."

Her black-haired head had come from the skin now. Otherwise clothed in it, leopardess, she glided over the carpet.

In another fifteen minutes—

But it had not come to that.

Lorlo felt disorientated and nauseous.

Frankie had pressed for the lift. The wide doors opened in the wall, and Ruth went through, and Frankie followed her, not getting near, as if she was an isotope.

In his cubby, Chas chose another bottle from the crate of fizzy lemonade, and opened it. He drank earnestly, like a child. During his fighting days, this beverage had been strictly off the menu.

Somewhere out of the night, deep in the dereliction, a car moved.

Chas listened. His left ear was not up to much, but his right was very acute. The car slid through the broken buildings like an alligator in a swamp, and went away.

Chas sat down and put his feet up on the table. His cigar had gone out and he relit it with the gold lighter Mr. Mulley had given him after that job in Brixton. He pulled the thick smoke down into the sacks of his lungs. Opening up the paper, he found a girl with naked breasts, and began to reach for the box of pins.

Maybe it was only a drift of smoke. Something had passed over the glass window of the cubby.

Chas looked around.

In the doorway stood a man in a long black coat. His hair was white. He smiled.

Chas swung down his legs and got up.

"Wha ya wan?"

"Many things," said the man. He had a dry actor's voice. His hair was very long.

"Ya wan Mr. Mulley?" asked Chas. "You tell me name and business. If I think ya need ta see him, I call him up on the internal."

"Yes, I'd like to see Mr. Mulley," said the white-haired man. He glanced about the room. "A boxer with a gun and axe."

"Ya better believe I don' need no gun."

"Why don't you show me."

Chas grinned, displaying ill-kept, well-made false teeth. "I'll show ya."

He lumbered forward with a weird mechanical speed, and his left arm reared out for Malach's face.

Malach caught the arm at the wrist in his left hand.

Chas gawped at him, rolled off-balance. The hefty blow had been checked as if by a wall. "A southpaw," Malach said mildly.

Chas lunged with a right hook.