Ma thought the question over, while behind him Roderick heard someone say, '... like teeth only ... dank wish ... the Omaha disaster we decided ... a peep in Coventry, was it?'

'Sure sure sure sure sure.'

Ma continued to think while the bus pulled into a greasy terminal, and the driver ordered them to 'debark'.

The city at first seemed to fall apart without putting itself together: Roderick saw tall glass buildings falling over on him, people pushing each other along the sidewalk, cars honking and revving their engines while waiting to move an inch forward, six abreast, towards the bleeping traffic lights where people pushed each other past the walls of black garbage bags and out on to the street. A yellow taxi pulled up next to him and a man with blood running down his forehead and nose jumped out and ran inside a shoe store, elbowing aside a woman whose little dog made a dash to the end of its tether trying to bite the kid who was being chased out of a narrow doorway marked MASSAGE THERAPY; the dog twisted and snapped instead at the crowd of little wind-up dolls a man with dirty fingers was setting in motion on the sidewalk where they tottered in circles and fell over, looking much like the man with a bottle in a paper bag who sprawled next to an alley where two boys were dividing the contents of a woman's purse. They were ignored by the man wearing sandwich-boards (FOLLOW ME TO JUNIOR'S DISCOUNT CAMERAS) who entered the alley (no one following), flipped up his forward board and began urinating on a wall beneath a poster, VOTE J. L. ('CHIP') SNYDER FOR LAW & ORDER, a duplicate of the sign Roderick saw a moment later on a wall behind the hot-dog stand where a man of a thousand pimples reached for his hot-dog with one hand and for the crotch of the boy next to him with the other, this being a thin kid engrossed in a photograph which he then dropped 'Jeez, whaddya ?' and Roderick looked down at the picture of a dismembered woman as Ma dragged him past the thin kid, who wore a jacket marked JUNKERS S.A.C. almost the same neon orange as a sign BURGER BELLE in the window where the top half of a black man could be seen frying grey meat and whenever he noticed anyone looking at him spitting into the top half of each roll. Hardly anyone but Roderick did look, any more than they looked at the transparent plastic box of newspapers (headline: ARMY MOM COOKS BABY IN M'WAVE OVEN, EATS IT) which someone was trying to break open, next to a video pay-phone on a post, under whose plastic canopy a woman in wrinkled stockings leaned, weeping and pleading with the face on the tiny screen, which seemed to have hair as bright and green as the sweater on the little dog held back now from a puddle of vomit by a smiling woman in a tiny silk skirt no larger than a cummerbund who called out to the sailor lurching towards the door of SUGAR'S SAUNA past two figures leaning together in so friendly a fashion that the knife held by one at the other's throat seemed a mistake (as the victim kept insisting it was), past the JOYS OF JESUS mission towards the amusement arcade, a place of flashing coloured lights, bells, buzzers and bleeps under the defective sign TEST YOUR SK*LL flickering next to an empty store plastered with SNYDER FOR LAW & ORDER and a poster advertising STREET MUSIC overwritten with hundreds of obscure slogans all beginning SUCK. This was next to a novelty shop featuring dribble glasses, rubber pencils, loaded dice, a talking crucifix, marked cards, plastic snot, a fake finger (hideously injured), itching powder, cayenne candy and a 'Sacred Heart lighter REALLY WORKS useful and devotional Butane extra'. Ma dragged him on, past a larger-than-life photo of two naked women embracing under the legend THIS WEEK ONLY TRIPLE ADULT SEXATION: DOLLS OF DEVIL'S ISLAND 'Brutally frank'; 'Sexplicit revealing confession' I WAS A SAUNA BITCH; 'Inside bare facts of Hitler's mad nuns' ANGELS WITH DIRTY HABITS and the long line of tired old men before the ticket-office nearly as long as the similar line across the street before the Unemployment Office where a policeman sprang on one of the grey figures, knocked it to the sidewalk, and began beating it with his truncheon, while shoppers pushed their way past this as they had pushed past a man with missing fingers trying to play a harmonica, on their way from FURNITURE WAREHOUSE to DENIM INIQUITY ignoring the bright neon of MARV'S SEX DISCOUNTS above a bewildering array of objects identifiable only by fluorescent signs (Condom's Slashed, Vibey's Reduced; Manacles Cut; See Our Selection of Custom Rubber & Leather Unclaimed Specialties) signs all but obscuring the next place where a feeble neon sign proclaimed from behind heavy iron grilles, NO CREDIT LIQUORS. Before it a machine like a kind of automatic pogo-stick pulled its operator along as it tore at the street, holding up a line of bleating cars including a limousine flying Ruritanian flags, a panel truck shaped like a turkey and labelled GOBBLE KING, a sound truck whose message echoed ('... law and order ... sick of bleeding hearts ... man with guts ... man with experi ... an with integrity ... n with the know-how to turn this city into the kind of ... to grope up in, to grow up in ...') through the sounds of car horns, bleeps, bells, buzzers, the Brandenburg Concerto, laughing, screaming, moaning, the hammering of the street-ripper, coins going into a telephone, replays clacking on a pinball machine, revving engines and a singing clutch, the thunder of an invisible plane overhead shaking the glass walls of the tipping buildings, rock music fighting jazz fighting country western over the loudest horn of all, on a yellow taxi with blood down the door.

'Well ma'am, your lucky day, we got just one in stock. Not exactly the same colour but well the fact is, we had this stockroom fire last week, pretty well cleaned us out. Yup, your lucky day. My partner bought it too, he was back there takin' inventory see, and it looks like he was smoking or something, so. So here I am, half a ton of assorted high-grade hardware up in smoke along with the only guy who knows how to design and build it. I was just supposed to be the money man, only now I can't even pay the rent on this crummy little store unless I sell off our plant. Yup, your lucky day. This one's a demo, let you have it half price, okay? You want me to fit it for you now? Just takes a second, even I know how to there, how's that look? Okay that's thirty-eight no nineteen hundred plus tax plus city tax, comes to twenty-two oh six eighty-five, cash I hope?'

'Ma I can't see out of it.'

A bandaged hand patted Roderick on the head. 'Nice little talker you got there, ma'am, kit-built is he? Never seen anything like no look, I don't know what kind see-see-em or what you got in there but usually these eyes take a while to get warmed up not warmed up exactly but see they gotta compatiblize with the other stuff, look you wanta leave him here for an hour, see how it pans out?'

The man with bandaged hands set Roderick on the blistered paint of the counter. From there he could turn his good eye one way to see Ma leaving, or the other way to see the man going into a back room. Roderick could see a table back there, and a pair of hands turning pages.

'... seems in order, we might even take some of the damaged stock here on page three, but of course I want my boy Franklin to go over this ...'

'Yes sir of course sir, you know I think you'll find this is your lucky '

The door closed. But not before Roderick glimpsed a heavy gold ring mounting a single pinball.

No one at Larry's Grill noticed just when the little machine came in, but there it was, sitting up on a barstool listening to the chatter of the regulars.

'You wouldn't think it to look at me ...' said the woman in purple lipstick, holding herself steady as she raised a brimming shot-glass. 'You wouldn't think it to look ...'

'At's right Lena, you tell 'em.' The taxi driver, who considered that his Irish ancestry gave him the right to a brogue and the gift of story-telling, went on with his story about the Baltimore Mets. 'See they went to Japan to play this exhibition game, and one night they all went down to this '

'Think I heard this,' said the swarthy used-car salesman. 'I hear every damn thing, that's the trouble in mind, Oh!

Gonna lay my head On some lonesome railroad line And let the midnight train Ease my troub yeah, yeah, YOW!

Tourette's syndrome they call it, I calls it like I sees it, grab it when I can get it '

'No but listen one night they all went down to this special kind of geisha '

'No spitting on the floor,' said Larry to the man in the red hunting cap, who was glaring at the three newcomers, youths in red Digamma Upsilon Nu sweatshirts. 'Boys if you got ID, welcome.'

'College boys!' muttered the spitter, while beside him two truck drivers argued money.

'You think you're broke? Betcha I'm ten times as broke as you.'

'Yeah? Betcha you got more money in your billfold right this minute than I got in my whole life. My whole billfold.'

'Hell I couldn't even afford that brassy blonde over there.'

The woman he could not afford had discovered Roderick. 'Hey, you want a peanut? Here boy! Cute little bastard ain't he, I mean with one green eye one blue '

'You wouldn't think it to look at me, but I used to be a Paris passion, fashion model.' Another drink passed purple lips. 'Paris, France.'

'I'm so broke '

'Where the hell is Dot today, she'd like this, have a peanut boy?'

' doesn't want a damn peanut, what the hell's the matter with you? You can see the thing's a machine, what's it gonna do with a peanut, vend it? Anyway Dick, listen they get to this geisha place '

'Who belongs to this thing anyway?' Larry leaned over the bar to look at it. 'Anybody belong to this thing?'

'Probably came in with them college boys,' said the hunter, and spat on the floor.

'Goddamnit Jack, behave yourself.'

'Parish fashion model, you believe that?'

The used-car salesman turned. 'Ignore Lena boys, she used to be a plaster of Paris model only now she's just plas ow, Jesus Lena can't you take a joke?'

'Okay that's a bet. Larry counts the money in both our billfolds, and whoever's got less gets all the money. Larry come here, we got a bet '

The taxi driver's brogue deepened desperately. 'Will ye listen? Now the lads get to this special geisha place only it turns out '

'Sure he wants a peanut, don't you my little sweet-urns? Come on boy, sit up for he won't sit up.'

Larry, holding two billfolds, spun around to catch old Jack spitting again. 'That's it, Jack. Out. I told you about that, now out!'

The old man's earflaps stood up like the ears of a fox terrier. 'All of a sudden the place is too classy for me, all of a sudden it's a classy college-boy place, eh? Well I'm goin'. I'm goin'.' He deliberately spat again and ambled out.

'I'm a-comin', I'm a-comin',' sang the used-car man. He tapped his feet on the brass rail, threw a peanut into the air and caught it in his mouth, winked at the blonde and made a face at Roderick. 'Howdy doody little robot. How's all your nuts and bolts?'

'Bejesus will you listen man? They get to this geisha place and it turns out that all the girls are just inflatables!'

'But no really, I was a Parish, a Paris, a mannequin.'

'Inflate me,' sang the used-car man, 'my sweet inflatable '

'I'm very well thanks,' said Roderick. No one seemed to hear, which was just as well because he was not quite telling the truth. In fact he felt strange and dizzy, and a peculiar pulse was building up behind his new eye. A pair of purple lips swam by, saying: 'To look at me, be honest, you wouldn't think ...'

Larry transferred all the money from one billfold to the other and handed them back. 'You win, Eric.'

'Hey wait a minute, that ain't a fair bet. He only had six bucks there, I had over twenty!'

'Yeah well that was the bet, who had less '

'Yeah but I mean I'm risking twenty against six, what kinda odds is that?'

The expensive blonde said, 'Larry, forget them geeks, willya? I wanta buy my little friend here a drink, I wanta buy him a Shirley Temple. You get him a dish so he can lap, my little sweet-ums!' She patted Roderick's metal cheek. 'Soon as I get back from the little girls' room, honey, you and me can have a drinky, okay?'

'Her little robottoms,' said Dick, and winked at no one. 'Hey little robottoms, what's your name?'

'Roder-ick Wo-od.' Roderick lurched and nearly fell from the stool. One of the fraternity boys caught him.

'Wow, HE TALKS! Crazy, you see that boys? Shoo-be-do, Pow! Zap! She's a transistor sister with a ... and what was that name? Woody? Howdy Woody, how's the old wood pe '

'Shut your gob will you? The point is, they all slept with this little inflatable geisha see? And they all came down with a dose!'

'Okay Eric, how about double or nothing?'

The money changed billfolds solemnly as one of the fraternity boys said, 'Doubles hell, we're drinking triples here, by God!' They had indeed been drinking so much that it seemed a good idea to take Roderick with them, just as it seemed a good idea to leave their car (since none of them could remember where it was parked anyway) and steal another.

The two men in the back of the Rolls-Royce sat so close that, had passers-by been able to see them through its dark windows, they might have supposed that Mr Kratt and Ben Franklin were embracing. They were in fact looking over a typewritten list.

'Now what the hell's this, twenty grand for a diode loser?'

'Laser it's supposed to be, they use it for etching the '

'Sure, sure, just so you checked all this stuff out. This could turn out to be the best damn thing ever happened to us, Benny, where we gonna find, look at these kilns, ten grand under wholesale, and this, where is it?' Kratt erected a stubby finger and ran it down the list. 'All this test stuff half price, Christ if I knew they owned all this and were tight for cash, 'I'd have set fire to their place myself, Ha!'

'Yes sir, now '

'So what do you think, bub? Make an offer on the whole shebang or what?'

Ben Franklin sat back, felt Mr Kratt's tweed-covered arm against his neck, sat forward again. 'Well if you ask me '

'Jesus Christ, I don't see anybody else here to ask but the chauffeur, wouldn't ask that little greasy spic for the time of told me when you came over you wanted responsibility bub, so here it is, do we buy?'

'Well, yes if you really, if it's really what you want '

'Hell yes, you think I want to go on all my life paying through the nose for hardware we could make ourselves? Now you buy this crap and get the plant working, by the way how's that peanut brittle idea going?'

'Well Hare I mean Dr Hare is just working out a few last-minute bugs I guess, something about the batteries, the '

'Fine, fine. Because I don't want nobody getting there first, we got to drive a spearhead see into this fun food market, then broaden our base, first maybe the gingerbread talkbacks and then see what we can do with chocolate chips, you tell Hare to get the lead out of his ass and put this stuff forward, hear me?'

'Yes sir, but you see he thinks '

'Thinks, that loony thought his last employers right out of business, you tell him to stop thinking and start producing. Jesus, leave it up to him we'd still be farting around with some piddling little so-called improvement twenty years from now, I know these science yak-heads. Christ Benny, why do you think I put you in charge here? It's because you're not a science yak-head, you got your feet on the ground.'

'Science, well I was trained '

'Sure, sure, but look, just look at these yak-heads, the way they go around blinding everybody with science, blind themselves too. Jesus they take an idea and play with it and play with it until they go blind!'

'Ha ha, yes I guess there is a sort of masturbational side to research, even dreams you know the answers sometimes come up in dreams, Kekule '

'Yeah well I say screw that! Screw that! I want to see that damn gingerbread boy on the market in months not years, months. Hell save the damn improvements, later we put out the new improved model, miracle ingredient, only way anything ever gets done. Tell that to Hare and his dreaming coolies, make him listen! Tell him if I don't see talking gingerbread boys in the supermarkets by Easter, I'll hand him his dick in a test-tube, let him have a wet dream about that!'

'Uh, yes sir.' Ben folded the inventory and put it in an inside pocket. 'Now if that's all I think I'll just get out here and '

'We're both getting out here, bub, only reason I had this little greaser drive us here was so I could show you my gallery.'

'Gallery? Shooting ?' Ben peered out but could see no neon through the dark glass.

'The Kay Tee Art Gallery, right there, bub. We got an opening tonight, Edd McFee, ever heard of him?' Kratt opened the door.

'No I don't th '

'You will. Come on.'

And Ben Franklin, hurried from the car into a mirror-fronted place, caught sight of his own nice face, poised for some suitable expression. He had already shaken hands with two or three persons inside before he could stop thinking about that face: maybe he should grow his moustache again, and to hell with Mr Kratt?

XI.

The artist and the beautiful Mrs McBabbitt swept past the two critics who'd been standing in the same spot since their arrival.

'... but I still don't see why they all look the same, aren't they all just ...'

'Well I call it Paradigmatics, it's ...'

'... just purple squares?'

The two critics stood with their backs to as many of the pictures as possible, twiddled their champagne glasses, and studied the crowd.

'Plenty of loot here ... who's the big boy in the J. Press suit?'

The taller critic looked where the shorter was looking. 'Oh, Everett. Everett Moxon, he's nobody. Now. Probably just here to ask Mr K. for a job. He used to be into reactors, light-cooled reactors or something boring like that. Lost everything in the panic.'

'Just as well, before he started polluting light or something. Ever know a businessman with a conscience?'

'Not unless they've started buying them as investments, who's that stunning woman in black talking to McFee?'

The shorter looked where the taller was looking. 'Mrs McBabbitt. If you think she's beautiful now, wait till you see the finished product.'

'You don't mean ?'

'Yep. Going through one of those whole-body cosmetic surgery jobs, bones and all.'

'But they take years! And loot ...'

'Absolutely. Everybody here is loaded practically, except Allbright.'

'Allbright! God I wish he'd hurry up and o.d. or whatever he's going to do, I really get sick of seeing him everywhere. All he does is steal books to support his nasty habit.'

'Poetry? Well I've got a dozen signed copies of his book put away, just in case. Posthumous glory might hey, who's that old woman?'