On Friday morning, Snim Asj was awakened by his landlady, Chooka Frood, with a loud scream for back rent.

“For chrissakes, Chooka,” Snim mumbled. “You already makin’ a frabby fortune with ’at loppy yella head girl you pick up. You runnin’ a golmine withat spook stuff down-inna basement. Whaddya want from me?”

Chooka Frood pointed out to Snim that: A) The yellow-headed girl was not crazy. She was a genuine medium. B) She (Chooka) did not run rackets. She was a legitimate fortune teller. C) If he (Snim) did not come through with six weeks roof and rolls, she (Chooka) would be able to tell his fortune without any trouble at all. Snim would be out on his asphalt.

Snim arose, and already dressed, descended into the city to pick up a few credits. It was too early to run up to Quizzard’s and work the sob on the more prosperous clients. Snim tried to sneak a ride uptown on the Pneumatique. He was thrown out by the peeper change clerk and walked. It was a long haul to Jerry Church’s hockshop, but Snim had a gold and pearl pocket-pianino up there and he was hoping to cadge Church into advancing another sovereign on it.

Church was absent on business and the clerk could do nothing for Snim. They passed the time. Snim told the sob to the clerk about his bitch landlady crowning herself every day with the new spook-shill she was using in her palm-racket and still trying to milk him when she was rolling. The clerk would not weep even for the price of coffee. Snim departed.

When Jerry Church returned to the bookshop for a brief time-out in his wild quest for Barbara D’Courtney, the clerk reported Snim’s visit and conversation. What the clerk did not report, Church peeped. Nearly fainting, he tottered to the phone and called Reich. Reich could not be located. Church took a deep breath and called Keno Quizzard.

Meanwhile, Snim was growing a little desperate. Out of that desperation arose his crazy decision to work the bank teller graft. Snim trudged downtown to Maiden Lane and cased the banks in that pleasant esplanade around Bomb Inlet. He was not too bright and made the mistake of selecting the Mars Exchange as his battlefield. It looked dowdy and provincial. Snim had not learned that it is only the powerful and efficient institutions that can afford to look second-rate.

Snim entered the bank, crossed the crowded main flood to the row of desks opposite the tellers’ cages, and stole a handful of deposit slips and a pen. As Snim left the bank, Fred Deal glanced at him once, then motioned wearily to his staff.

“See that little louse?” He pointed to Snim who was disappearing through the front door. “He’s getting ready to pull the ‘Adjustment’ routine.”

“Want us to send him, Fred?”

“What the hell’s the use? He’ll only try it on someone else. Let him go ahead with it. We’ll pick him up after he’s got the money and get a conviction. Stash him for keeps. There’s plenty of room in Kingston.”