Believe it, Mac. Corey winked at the Buddha.

She came close behind him. She didn’t touch him. In his brain he heard her telling herself that this one would be easy. He winked again at the Buddha.

Then he felt her hand on his side, just under his ribs. Her hand moved across and down, going toward his belt line.

“Don’t do that,” he pleaded in a hoarse whisper, but made no move to get away from her fingers sliding under his shirt. Her hand kept going down and he grimaced slightly and the grimace wasn’t faked. What’s happening here? he asked himself.

His head was spinning as the answer hit him. You ain’t pretending now, he told himself through the giddy feeling that was almost like floating. She’s actually got you.

She took her hand away. Upstairs a door had been opened and Grogan’s voice barked very loudly, “—don’t tell me about prune juice. I don’t like prune juice. I ain’t gonna drink no prune juice. Now leave me alone and beat it!”

Footsteps moved across the second floor hallway going toward the stairway. Then the high colonic crew was coming downstairs and they saw Lita seated on the sofa with a picture magazine in her lap, Corey in the ebony armchair scrutinizing a thumbnail.

Corey glanced up, wanting to see what a high colonic crew looked like. The two nurses were scrawny, unhappy-looking. One of them appeared to have been weeping. The high colonic expert was a short pudgy middle-aged man with a gray-yellow complexion that indicated some internal trouble. He carried a large calfskin satchel. With the back of his hand he wiped perspiration from his forehead. He said to Lita, “A difficult patient, Mrs. Grogan. Very difficult indeed.”

“And he insulted me,” the nurse with the wet red-rimmed eyes added. “He called me an imbecile.”

“I told you to beat it,” said Grogan, rapidly coming down the steps. The nurses and the high colonic expert headed for the front door. They managed to make a dignified exit, but it was hurried. Grogan looked at Corey. “How long you been here?”

Corey shrugged. “Not very long.”

Lita put the picture magazine aside. She got up from the sofa and moved toward Grogan. “How did it go?”

“It was hell,” Grogan muttered. “They damn near busted me open. They really had me scared, the way they were getting their signals mixed. D’ja hear all that racket up there? You shoulda seen them. Like the Three Stooges.”

“You look weak,” Lita said. “Washed out.”

“I’m washed out, all right,” Grogan said. “They call it irrigation, it’s more like a flash flood.” He turned to Corey. “What they do is, they take this hose and ram it—”

“Please,” Lita interrupted. “Not the details.”

Grogan glanced at his wristwatch. “Think I’ll go out for a while.”