“That right? Don’t believe in them myself. You know what mine said this morning? It said that I should think long and hard about my personal and financial prospects. Pretty much what it said yesterday. ’Course, that’s pretty much what I do every day, just driving around. So I suppose that means something, then. What did yours say?”

“That I would meet a three-ton rhinoceros called Desmond.”

“I guess you can see a different bunch of stars from New Zealand,” said Joe.

“It’s a replacement. That’s what I heard,” volunteered Joe.

“A replacement?”

“Yup.”

“A replacement for what?”

“Previous rhinoceros.”

“Well, I suppose it would hardly be a replacement for a lightbulb?” said Dirk. “Tell me—what happened to the, er, previous rhinoceros?”

“Died.”

“What a tragedy. Where? At the zoo?”

“At a party.”

“A party?”

“Yup.”

Dirk sucked his lip thoughtfully. There was a principle he liked to adhere to when he remembered, which was never to ask a question unless he was fairly certain he would like the answer. He sucked his other lip.

“I think I’ll go and take a look myself,” he said, and climbed out of the car.

The large, dark green truck was pulled onto the side of the road. The sides of the truck were about four feet high, and a heavy tarpaulin was roped down over an enormous crate. The driver was leaning against the door of the cab, smoking a cigarette. He clearly thought that being in charge of a three-ton rhinoceros meant that no one would argue with him about this, but he was wrong. The most astonishing amount of abuse was being hurled at him by the drivers negotiating their way one by one past his truck.

“Bastards!” muttered the driver to himself as Dirk wandered up to him in a nonchalant kind of way and lit a companionable cigarette himself. He was trying to give it up, but usually kept a pack in his pocket for tactical purposes.

“You know what I hate?” said Dirk to the truckdriver. “Those signs in cabs that say ‘Thank You for Not Smoking.’ I don’t mind if they say ‘Please Don’t Smoke,’ or even just a straightforward ‘No Smoking.’ But I hate those prim ‘Thank You for Not Smoking’ signs. Make you want to light up immediately and say, ‘No need to thank me, I wasn’t going to not smoke.’”

The driver laughed.

“Taking this old bugger far?” asked Dirk, with the air of one seasoned rhinoceros delivery driver comparing notes with another. He gave the truck an appraising glance.

“Just out to Malibu,” said the driver. “Way up Topanga Canyon.”

Dirk gave a knowing cluck as if to say, “Don’t talk to me about Topanga Canyon, I once had to take a whole herd of wildebeest to Cardiff in a minibus. You want trouble? That was trouble.” He sucked deeply on his cigarette.

“Must have been some party,” he remarked.