2. Jarred

Jarred sat at a jaunty angle on the crumbling concrete block, all that remained of the splendor of the Mahmudabad Rajahs.

The angle wasn't for the benefit of anyone who chanced to be watching, and he was sure there was someone watching some-where, either through a transparent screen, a peephole, a monitor or a portal. He was using his muscles, straining his body, to sit erect even though the edge was about three inches too short to project his image comfortably, because he liked to watch himself in his mind sitting at that jaunty angle.

He didn't care what others thought about his demeanor as long as he pleased himself. He'd learned his taste was more than acceptable for others who happened to encounter him as he moved though the world.

He didn't have to close his eyes to picture himself lounging casu-ally on this relic of a long passed cynosure of power and light, Queen Victoria's matronly features behind him on one side of the long hall, his figure slight in proportion to the Throne Room, but great considering his power, greater than the power of the molding Rajahs.

He wondered if the Rajahs might've realized they'd served as tools for movements in history, making their lives the culmination of a culture rather than its continuation.

He doubted it, he concluded, as he toyed with the broadcaster in his pocket. He moved the rifled ridge of the dial slightly.

The excitement of the rats scurrying about on the floor all around him increased imperceptibly. Jarred knew it would attract other rats while leaving them curious, just this side of vicious. That would come later when he set the timer and turned the dial all the way on. When the timer went off, the assembled rats would go crazy, crawling into Queen Victoria's ears in an effort to get where they weren't.

And where they weren't was behind Queen Victoria, where, Jarred judged, The Chairman sat, occupied with worries about the assaults of nationalistic combines on his precious Representative World Government. He wondered what The Chairman would think if he knew the battle was already over, that there wouldn't be any Representative World Government.

Oh, there'd definitely be a world government. In fact, it'd be all but indistinguishable from the silly Representative World Govern-ment The Chairman was tying to fashion in the face of almost uni-versal opposition.

There lay the key. Whenever there's universal opposition, there must be universal oppression. The levers of power The Chairman and his generation so carefully fashioned where still levers of power.

If benign hands operated them, the forces of nationalism would wipe out the forces of unification. However, in strong hands, the forces of nationalism would be controlled and a government could emerge to rule the world based on practicality, the practicality of unopposable power.

His fist closed around the generator in his pocket, squeezing it with a ferocity mirroring what he'd do with the nationalistic oppo-sition when The Chairman was eliminated and the strings of power ran out of his own fingertips to encircle the world, wrapping it tightly in his enlightenment.

The nations would be no more than the rats scurrying at his feet, with their peoples nothing but flees, wishing only to know which way to jump, when and how far.

His fingers relaxed as he realized he'd turned the dial back. The rats were looking around, momentarily confused, wondered where they were. He moved the dial back up and watched as they immedi-ately became distracted once again.

It was time for The Chairman and his generation to make a timely exit. He was losing it when he could buy a story about os-trich farming in the internationalized zone of the Amazon. That was like suggesting oilrigs be transported into the Arabian desert for purposes of exploration.

The world had all of the ostrich meet it needed, and locating to market was never cheaper than transporting to market from favor-able labor and supply areas. It was probably cheaper to feed a Bra-zilian family a drumstick from the Kenya than it'd be for the family to raise it in their own back yard.

Just another example of The Chairman's inattention, the first allowing him to visit at all. He'd been in Kanpur when the security net went up. He was just finishing up a little experiment designed to turn a school into a scene of bedlam. His vanguard had educated the school officials into the cost effectiveness of having ostrich as a part of the school lunch menu. Ostrich nuggets, wing tips, claw cracklings, omelets, deep fried feathers were all very saleable, being lower in calories, cholesterol and fat, and much cheaper than the competition. It was the food of choice for the millennium, and it was rightly sweeping the world. It didn't hurt that Jeremy Jarred, the Ostrich King, was willing to personally attend the kickoff cam-paign that'd eventually ostrichize the entire continent.

Being caught in the security net, it'd become a matter of record in some computer byte in some computer bank in some basement somewhere, and therefore subject to being dredged up by The Chairman's probability program. He had no intention of allowing that to happen when the location was one of his school experiments.

He therefore cancelled the experiment.

But he still had the generator, the Gleetch designed oscillator that produced electrical energy rather than broadcast frequencies, electrical flows that moved out through space like light and could alter the way a person thought.

People were too complex to use a generator on without condi-tioning, and the accent here was on the "gene" in generator, be-cause the Gleetch generator removed a person's ability to act from its genetic bedrock. Without conditioning, there was no telling what level of current would cause what response in humans.

With animals, however, the situation was different. Their re-callable memory was nothing more than a simple survival mecha-nism. It was therefore quite easy to broadcast an electrical range that would distort a rat's perception of reality so its reality could move from the benign to the life threatening on a uniform basis. All rats would respond pretty much the same, whereas with humans, the change in the electrical energy of their minds would make them perceive all sorts of different things depending on the events mak-ing up their history.

It was only when the precise level of electrical energy at which certain memories were stored was cataloged that they could be simultaneously recalled so there would be uniform behavior. As this was impossible with humans, the Gleetch generator was useless unless memory units were uniformly stored in the targeted indi-viduals.

Canceling the experiment at the school, he wanted to make his presence in the security net known, setting up a smoke screen. That led him to call The Chairman at Mahmudabad. He was delighted when he saw the sacred rats scurrying all over the countryside, and es-pecially delighted when he found that Mahmudabad was their center of operations. He could see their beady little red eyes shining as The Chairman's blood dripped out of their flesh flecked mouths, their furry bodies pressed against a dozen others bellying up at the trough that was his body.

It was a fairly safe long shot. Being attacked by a pack of crazed rats, sacred rats at that, rats that had been living peacefully for thousands of years, was so far fetched, it was virtually security proof. No amount of bull sessions by security teams trying to think up probable assassination scenarios up would ever conceive, or for that matter, recognize, a frontal assault by rats.

Because it was so improbable, the realization it was actually happening would be even slower in coming. All the rats had to do was breach the wall and it'd be over.

The fact the rats were sacred, and to massacre them would cause an international incident, causing delay after a danger was recognized, added delicious irony. The rats would carry the field. The Chairman would be done in by his own respect for comity, his belief in preserving, to the extent possible, the nationalistic iden-tity of the peoples making up The Representative World Govern-ment.

Jarred heard someone enter the far end of the hall. Without looking up, he finished his ruminations with the thought that even if he didn't get The Chairman, it was fun having absolute dominion over the nasty little creatures, not unlike the dominion he'd soon have over the planet's two legged variety and The Chairman would still be around to see his future dissolve.

He carefully set the timer on the Gleetch generator and turned the dial all the way up. The generator would continue to broadcast electrical flows at the current current level for two hours, calling in more and more rats. After that time, the field would rise to full force, causing the rats to collectively perceive only a dire univer-sal external threat. They'd go on the offensive to eliminate that threat. Their beady little red eyes would perceive everything as a threat to their existence. What had been familiar would become un-familiar. What moved would become a threat. The increased flows of electricity from the Gleetch generator would replace reality with an internal reality containing only the sense of immanent dan-ger, activating their claws and teeth to destroy everything to pro-tect themselves.

Block's comment about being a hippy amused him. It was, he thought, as he allowed the generator to slip deep into a crack run-ning the height of the throne stump, a comment directed at another generation, a generation with a little more passion than affected his own generation, which seemed more rational in its approach to re-ality. It was still a source of amusement as his Stratodart covered the short distance back to Kanpur.

He finally placed Block as a minor errand boy for The Chairman. As The Chairman was about to become obsolete, Block was of no consequence to his life. Many people would maintain their positions of power after the shift in perspective occurred when he took over the reigns of power. Block was a different story. Working close to The Chairman, Block had most likely been permeated by the effete philosophy of a participatory type of government. Those people would have to go, and not just into the unemployment line, but into history. He'd suffer no interference in the attainment of his goals. Opposition would be summarily crushed in the name of humanity.

Jarred was born at the depth of the depression, a time when people generally had nothing, into a family that had nothing. Home was Bayview Avenue in Jersey City, in sight of the Statute of Lib-erty. His first memory was of the Statute of Liberty, but it was a vague memory of something being there, a memory that might have come when he was two or five, or any age in between. He never visited it, and that was back in the days when people could climb up the winding staircase to the torch.

He did remember coming home one afternoon to find his father in a rage about something. As he came into the living room, his father, with a half drained bottle of beer in his left hand, was walking back and forth. Jeremy went over to give him a kiss. His father's right hand caught him on the left side of his face, knocking him in a half-circle that spun him into the kitchen.

"Don't take it out on the boy," his mother cried as he sprawled at her feet.

"I'm not taking anything out on anybody," his father yelled. "I'm just giving him a lesson in survival." He finished his beer in a single swallow and left.

Jarred never found out what was being taken out on him. He got up, hurting, his feelings hurt, wondering at the sting on his face, the soreness in his jaw, and the ache beginning to take over his head. He didn't notice his mother's puffy face, or the tears flowing from her downcast eyes.

He didn't see his father for a week, at least not in person. He saw him constantly in his mind. He tried to think of other things, but inevitably, the picture of his father intruded. The memory of his father hitting him, knocking him sprawling across the kitchen floor, caused the feelings of anger and frustration to return. His headache would instantly return. The more he tried not to think about it, the more he actually thought about it, and each thought created the physical response of the original incident, not the bruised face, but the emotional pain.

A single external blow had created a series of mental blows that were tearing his body apart. The blows were the more severe be-cause they were being administered internally, their impact di-rectly on his organs rather than externally, where the pain passed through a whole series of barriers buffering it. Not so the mental blows he gave himself every time the picture of his father's wrath at his lack of worth clashed in his mind with the positive picture of himself he normally carried.

After a week of self-inflicted blows, he encountered his father sitting with his bottle of beer. He instinctively kept his distance, moving in a half-circle as far away from him as the room permit-ted.

"You scared of me now, eh boy," he said, getting up.

His presence, as he stood, filled the half-circle he was drawing for himself and he cringed against the wall, trying to maintain the circumference he'd established when he walked into the room.

"Scared do you good," he continued, looming closer on Jeremy's diminishing circle of protection. His father's hand shot out again, catching him on the same cheek, knocking him into a somersault.

He looked up from the floor, blinking, tears streaming down his cheeks, to see his father return to his chair, ignoring him. He crawled like a crab to his room, burying his face in his arms against the sting.

It took several minutes for him to realize the sting didn't really hurt, but the thought created a picture of his father striking him. The picture, conflicting with his normal picture of self-worth, pro-duced another blow, this in his body, restarting the tears, con-vulsing him, making his cheek sting from the rush of blood to his face.

Every time he started to settle down, the picture reappeared, sending another shock into his system, restarting the process.

It was an hour before he heard his father leave.

"I wouldn't hit you if I didn't love you, and I would do the same for the boy," he heard him say just before the door slammed.

When he saw his father the next morning, he flinched at the ex-pected blow. However, his father took no notice of him. He just sat in his chair drinking his beer.

Jarred thought he'd be terrified to be in the same room with him, but he found the torment from recalling the blows disappeared when he was with his father. Between sitting in his room, his stom-ach aching, his head pounding from imaginary blows, and sitting with his father, apprehensive of a coming blow, he preferred sit-ting with his father.

Whenever his father was there, he sat on the floor beside him. As the week wore on, his tension subsided. He knew his father could unload on him anytime, but the pain that caused him was nothing compared to the pain he avoided by staying in his presence.

Toward the end of the week, his father looked over at him and smiled. It had a profound affect on Jarred. All week long, he'd tried to reconcile his view of himself as worthy with the unclear picture raised by the blows.

What did he do wrong? What could he do right? How could he reconcile the pictures? The failure to do so kept his mind in a per-petual state of unrest. Like an out-of-focus projector at the movies that couldn't quite form a clear picture on the screen, his mind wa-vered between unclear pictures of himself. In his father's presence, though, he didn't have a conflict, just the fear of another blow.

As a result, he was constantly tense, knowing the pain could return at any moment, either physically from his father's blows or mentally from his own internal blows.

This tension took in his father's smile, creating a profound physical reaction. For one brief instant, he formed a consistent picture of his self-worth. He could erase his internal physical blows using the picture of the smile. The release from tension flooded his body, making him feel like he was slipping over the first drop of a roller coaster, washing him with intense pleasure.

The smile became a short-lived oasis of joy in the middle of his pain. The next day he was sitting on the steps waiting for his fa-ther. He got up to greet him, but, in front of his friends and every-body else he knew, his father hauled off and cuffed him, knocking him off the stoop, across the sidewalk, and into the street among the flying feet of the stickball players.

His first thought wasn't the pain in his cheek or scrapped elbow. It was, as he lay in the middle of the stopped stickball game, the players, his friends, looking at him, of his embarrassment at sprawling on his side, tears running down his cheeks, snot clogging his lips, an embarrassment that burned with an intensity that was agonizing.

He slunk to the end of the block and sat behind a row of trash-cans. The picture of his self-worth solidified. He wasn't worthy. The picture of his own self-worth began to fade. In the face of the descending darkness, he faced the necessity of returning home to face his father with his inadequacy.

When he finally got up the nerve, his mother met him at the door. "He went out," she said, gently. "Come in, eat something, and go to bed."

The next day, he heard his father talking to his mother when he woke up. He resisted going in for breakfast, but the pain of his con-flicting images drove him to the living room where he could hear the conversation clearly.

"Get some God damn beer," he said.

"Give me some money," she replied.

"Get the fucking money yourself."

He slunk into the kitchen. His father didn't notice him. He sat at his feet, trying to still his pain. He waited hopefully for a glimpse of a smile that'd flood his body with the treasured pleasure, re-lieving his constant pain.

Jarred was sure other smiles had come, bringing with them their unaccountable sense of pleasure, but, he thought, as he watched the top of the building move under the slowing Stratodart as it settled down on the prescribed markings, the cuffs were what he'd become accustomed to rather than the smiles.

As soon as the reduced whine signaled arrival, he was up wait-ing for the door to drop, hitting the steps before the steps hit the rooftop. His aide Gleetch was waiting at the foot of the stairs. He'd called and said Finances dictated a meeting. Finances were the euphemism for the Gleetch laboratory's funding sources. Jarred had no idea who they were, but he assumed they were a consortium of moneymen who'd chipped in funding for this particular deal. Many people thought there was some sort of cohesive monetary control behind the various movements ebbing and flowing across the surface of the planet, but in reality, opportunity attracted money and money attracted opportunity.

Enterprise activities are activities designed to make money. The enterprises themselves are blind to legality or illegality. The only question controlling an enterprise is whether there's a possibility of gain, and if so, whether that possibility is worth making the in-vestment.

There're millions of individuals who have to invest in enter-prises simply because they have to do something with their money. Some of these individuals might wish to invest in very low risk enterprises, satisfied with a low return. Others might wish to in-vest in very high-risk enterprises where they stood to lose their money, but if they didn't, they'd get an extremely high rate of re-turn on their investment.

People, who otherwise might not know each other, and might never even meet within their framework of friends, might find themselves in bed with someone they wouldn't sit next to on a StratoLiner. It was enterprise risk that brought people together in a particular enterprise, the activity being simply a means to an end.

Some enterprises, of course, were sure to return a high rate of return with little chance of loss. Activities involving gambling, prostitution, drugs all were high return enterprises with no risk of loss. As a result, there had to be some way to discourage people from entering these enterprise in large numbers, thereby reducing the rate of return.

This was done by passing laws to make the activities illegal, and prescribing penalties for engaging in the enterprises, creating a risk other than, or in addition to, the loss of the investment in the enterprise, loss of money at a minimum, maybe of freedom, even of life. This created a class of criminal enterprises.

Because the only difference between a criminal enterprise and a noncriminal enterprise were the legislative sanctions with respect to the criminal enterprise, people expert in one normally had skills to engage in the other. Lawyers and accountants who had skills to facilitate one certainly had skills to facilitate the other.

Thus, when Jarred contended with Gleech's Finances, he knew, or at least strongly suspected, he was dealing with a group of en-trepreneurs whose money was attracted by the possibility of a re-turn promised by perfecting a method of controlling the purchasing instincts underlying the marketing process.

They didn't know he was using their money to take over the world. It was becoming increasingly difficult to justify the vast expenditures involved in the research and production process. Fi-nances wanted to see concrete marketing results that'd justify continuing to pour money into a project yet to produce a profit.

They would all, of course, be handsomely rewarded after the smoke settled, but for security purposes, his real intentions had to remain hidden.

He played with the idea of setting up some sort of experiment that would give Finances a taste of profits to come, but the project of blockading the future by destroying the generation that would inherit it was moving along at such a clip, he didn't have the time or energy available to divert his mental efforts to the project.

He would, however, have to come up with some sort of story to keep the money pouring in.

He didn't really need a trip to Tirgo Ocna, but the demands of Fi-nances had to be met, and he'd selected this out-of-the-way village located deep in the Carpathian Mountains as the situs of the Trust established to factor the funding for the project. There were very few places on the face of the Earth out of the reach of The Chairman and his agents, but he was sure he'd found one in Tirgo Ocna.

"Have you set up transportation?" Jarred asked his aide.

"Yes, and they're expecting you," Gleetch replied.

"How long do I have to catch the flight? I have to go to the bank."

"You'll have time, but just barely."

Jarred hurried over to the escalator leading down to the eleva-tor landing, taking its steps two at a time, accelerating on top of the escalator's speed. The combined momentum would've carried a normal person crashing into the elevator door, but Jarred, even at his age, retained the coordination and swiftness of movement that'd kept him one step ahead of physical disaster as a youth. He was so agile that, with the elevator door opening just as he reached it, he was able to let loose his brakes just enough to slide easily into the car.

He pushed C for commercial level and waited as the car rapidly descended. He used the time to mentally frame his request. The purpose for withdrawals from his account at Interfund, the giant global bank that served as the embryo of the coming worldwide central reserve bank, had to be carefully stated, especially in cases where the use of the funds in the intended country were clearly illegal.

The elevator door opened onto the large Interfund lobby and he made his way over to a series of private desks occupying approxi-mately fifty percent of the open space. He watched a person stand up from one of the desks as he approached, identifying himself as the person who'd personally handle his request for funds.

"And how are you today, Mr. Jarred?" the young man asked, gesturing for him to sit down in the padded chair in front of the desk. "Please input your number."

Jarred entered the number he operated the Amazonian Interna-tionalization Project out of, the double five for Brazil, the double 0 for the absences of a city code, the Brazilian Rain Forest, and a one for the account indicator, 55001.

A computer generated withdrawal slip appeared out of a slot in the middle of the desk and the young man pushed it over to Jarred. The first line stated Purpose. Jarred thought carefully once again, stringing his words together until they were agreeable, then wrote: To support Senator Shade's efforts to create a free-life zone.

He sat back and looked at the written words, running them si-lently through his mind. It stated enough to clearly show he was making a campaign contribution to a cause near and dear to Senator Shade's heart. The Senator was elected in the United States, which indicated the situs of the law governing the contribution. The amount would clearly show that it was an illegal contribution.

Therefore, because Interfund's records were available to the concerned government, this would constitute notice to the United States, and would start the statute of limitation running on the ille-gal contribution.

It was, of course, impossible to move $200,000 in cash around without having some sort of record of it on either side, so if something unusual should happen, and somebody was in a position of using the campaign contribution against him or the Senator, he was going to get caught whether he made the disclosure or not.

By making the disclosure, he simply protected himself by mak-ing himself immune from prosecution after the prescribed year statute of limitation.

He wrote the amount, two hundred thousand U.S. on the line pro-vided, and signed at the bottom.

"Hundreds will do," he said.

The young man looked at the sheet and, getting up, said most certainly, and proceeded to go into the barred area of the bank.

Jarred tried to estimate the time the detour to Tirgo Ocna was going to take. He'd have to take a StratoLiner from Bucharest rather than Delhi as he'd planned, so the time lag would be the time lost in traveling to Tirgo Ocna and then Bucharest plus the time of the meeting. He made the mental calculations and came up with an eight-hour delay. Instead of getting into New York in the morning, he'd be getting there in the afternoon.

"Your funds," the young man said, placing a leather case on the transaction desk.

"Thank you," Jarred said, taking the case by the handle and re-turning to the elevator, which was just opening. Mechanisms mov-ing in conjunction with his desires made him feel he was in harmony with his surroundings.

He raced quickly up the escalator feeling in charge of the envi-ronment around him. The Stratodart crew was just finishing their ministrations, the fuel hose reeling back into its holder.

Gleetch was waiting at the door of the Stratodart.

"I'm going to be late for Don Dorney," he said, moving into the cabin behind Gleetch. "Have you gotten a message to him yet?"

"Not yet. I was waiting to see how long you took with Finances."

"I'll probably get the early out of Bucharest, so set me up on that, and I'll meet him at the Stratolounge. Set up the times so I'll have a few minutes with Senator Shade. He's going to be at the air-port too, isn't he?"

"He'll be wherever you want him to be," Gleetch replied.

"I'll pick Don up, you set it up with the Senator so there's no conflict."

He tuned Gleetch out, making himself comfortable.

It felt good to be at one with the environment, to move through it in harmony without anything thwarting him from moving as freely as he wished.

That hadn't always been the case.

The treatment he'd been getting from his father faded with fa-miliarity after several months. He didn't have to relive the agony of his mind beating himself up every time he thought about it, and he didn't get a rush of pleasure from his father's smile.

He felt closeness to his father, a reserved closeness, but the occasional times the palm stiffened and rushed toward his face, catching him with its hot sting, he didn't bother to flinch. In fact, he took it with a measure of pride, a feeling of belonging to a man who cared for him.

But the details relating to the times of pain and pleasure, the pe-riods of crying, of sitting close but quietly at his father's feet praying for a smile, receded in his memory and became an overall memory. If he tried to call forth specifics, they weren't there. He only remembered the overall picture of being a part of his father, as his father's son.

One afternoon he was walking around his block when he was drawn up short. His focus, which had been internal, suddenly be-came external. He realized a half-circle of kids, two or three years older, was blocking his way. He recognized the Bay Street Bas-tards. They'd left him alone, and he hadn't paid any attention to them. Now they were in front of him, preventing him from moving, and he could see their mouths moving.

He refocused so he could hear what the voices were.

". . . a day."

A day, he thought. A day what?

"First thing, a dime," another of the boys said.

"Before you even think of doing anything else," a fourth said.

"A dime a day to keep breathing, you twerp," the first one reit-erated.

Jarred realized what they wanted. They wanted him to pay them ten cents a day to leave him alone. He didn't have ten cents, and he didn't have any way of getting it.

"I don't have ten cents," he said simply.

"You'll get it," the first one said menacingly.

"Or what?" Jarred asked.

The boy hauled off and laid one right on the side of his head. Jarred almost laughed in the boy's face as the other boys cheered at the roundhouse. Compared with the force of his father's blow, this was nothing.

He stared at his attacker. He didn't want to laugh, although it was ready to come out. He didn't know what to do. Then he saw himself having to pay a dime every time he walked out the front door. He saw himself having to worry about where to get the dime. He saw himself having to confront this forever.

And then he saw himself, as if he'd been removed from his body, looking down at a little seven-year-old boy who'd just been attacked by a bunch of nine and ten year old boys. He saw the seven-year old clench his fingers together, his hands interlaced in front of him, rise in a blur, the boy's head snapping back as he was caught by the double fist under the chin, then falling backwards.

The pain in his hands brought Jarred back into his body and he saw the boy go down in front of him.

Later, the other boys told him there'd been no delay between the time the boy hit him and he'd floored him. Instead of the slow mo-tion, contemplation and hesitation Jarred remembered, the en-counter had been one smooth action following another. He later wondered if the pain mechanism required mindless retaliation be-cause he had no recollection of even forming a picture of himself acting as he did. That might provide an explanation for the physical pleasure he received when he caused pain.

But on that afternoon, on that street, faced with the semi-circle of potential antagonists, he'd felt no pleasure, only the sting in his fists caused by the chin of the boy who was falling over backward in front of him, his legs opening up as his body went awry on the concrete sidewalk.

Jarred buried his foot deep between the boy's legs before he even bounced.

The kid's head jerked forward, leaving a trail of blood and greenish puke in an arc behind it.

Jarred stepped back, regained his balance, and caught the mov-ing head like a kickball, cracking it back against the motion of the boy's torso.

"Crap . . ." a semi-circle head said, starting to move forward to restrain Jarred, then stopping himself. The semi-circle grew larger as the boys gave Jarred more room. Everybody stared at each other, then at the boy who lay moaning on the stained con-crete.

The boy finally stirred, turned over on his stomach to pull him-self onto his knees, and looked over, his own gaze moving between Jarred and his own group. He shook his head to clear it, and pulled himself to his feet.

"I am going . . ." he began, but had to stop while he drew himself upright. He got his breath, wiping the muck from his chin with his sleeve, and began again. "I'm happy you don't live on some other block. Let's go have a fag."

Jarred didn't smoke, but he went with the group down the block, into the tunnel made by tenement steps, and through a door leading into a musty hallway with four apartment doors. One of the doors led into a boiler room where a little club house had been set up for the younger members of the Bay Street Bastards, the members in training.

Jarred's existence switched immediately from his apartment to the clubhouse, and he was accepted immediately, as was his ac-ceptance of the boys that'd formed the semi-circle. He never again crossed fists with The Don, as the boy called himself, and never had to fight any member of the club, either the members of his group or the older group that made up the major part of the BSB.

They did play a lot of games that came perilously close to fight-ing. Jarred was a consistent winner at pop the fag. Two boys stood two-feet apart with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. At a word, they went at each other with the goal of being the first to knock the other's cigarette out. He was such a consistent winner, some of the boys, in frustration, purposely missed his cigarette in favor of his face. He hardly noticed the misses, making him even more fearsome in the eyes of his comrades. If a person didn't fear pain, how could you fight him?

His quickness, combined with his ability to ignore pain, made him very good at scissors, rocks and paper, where paper covered the rock, the rock broke the scissors and the scissors cut the pa-per. The reward for coming up with the dominant hand sign was a free punch at the other player between the neck and the waist.

On the rare occasions Jarred lost, the ensuing punch could lift him off his feet, knocking him four feet away, but it didn't even produce tears, fairly common for the recipients of his punches. He wasn't heavy, but he was so fast, his fist accelerated to the point of impact like a jackhammer. And the occasions of loss were few because he learned by delaying making a sign for a split second, he could determine what the opposing sign was going to be and counter it. He could see the fist forming and have the sign of paper out be-fore the fist was fully formed.

He was also more mentally alert than his comrades, his quick-ness being not only of body, but of mind.

The Bay Street Babies performed certain tasks for their older brethren, who in turn had the franchise for their block, an area two blocks wide extending four blocks from the waterfront. Their prin-cipal task was picking up and delivering numbers sheets to the older boys who were in charge of the book on the block.

When Jarred became involved with the operation, it was hap-hazard at best, with instructions coming from one of the Bastards to pick up the slip from a particular player on the block. If there was a winner, the Bastard would deliver the payoff, the player would tip the Bastard, and the Bastard would give a little cut to the Baby Bastard who'd picked up the slip to start with. The Don would give the nod to whoever he favored at a particular time, but the lack of certainty as to which pickup would result in a payoff didn't give him a real way to reward his favorites.

Before Jarred was ten, he took over The Don's operation, with pickups handled on a rotational basis, and all payoffs were paid di-rectly to him on The Don's behalf. The pickups became the privilege of belonging to the club, and The Don had a stash to use for rewards when they were warranted.

After this success, The Don started letting him occasionally come to the Bastard's clubhouse. This exalted place was on the riv-erside of the road in an abandoned warehouse. On his first visit, they were waiting for traffic to clear when Jarred spotted a girl he'd never seen before. He'd seen her, of course, but he'd never really noticed her. The weather was spotty, with the wind blowing in from the river. She moved to put her coat on. In the process, her shoulders moved back, forcing her chest to jut out.

The Don, who picked a break in traffic and started to sprint with one hand around Jarred's elbow, almost lost his balance and sprawled into the oncoming traffic. He caught himself as he whirled around to see what kept Jarred rooted to the sidewalk like a tree.

Jarred felt a stab of pleasure, not unlike the feeling he'd felt at his father's smile half a lifetime ago, but this time, rather than diffuse, centered between his legs.

He'd never experienced anything like it before.

The Don saw who he was looking at.

"Forget that," he said.

"Forget what?" Jarred asked.

"Forget messing around with her. She's Reanne. She's reserved for The Bench when she gets a little older."

Jarred knew Johnny the Bench lived on the top floor of the apartment house on this very corner. He controlled everything that happened in the Bay Street Block, and in an indeterminate number of other blocks along the waterfront, and more behind. To mess with him could be painful even to someone like Jarred who had a high threshold for the stuff.

"I was just looking at her," he said.

"Even looking at her can get you in trouble. We have girls, or haven't you noticed."

"No . . ."

"How old are you? Ten, eleven? If you're getting old enough to notice them, you're getting old enough to do them."

"Almost eleven," Jarred replied.

"Ten, eh. Well, it doesn't make any difference. Age is meaning-less. The only thing that's important is, can you can get it up and keep it up."

He spotted a break in traffic and this time made sure Jarred was with him as he sprinted across the roadway, dodging a massive '32 Ford Victoria that'd escaped his noticed, avoiding being splat-tered by its all steel body.

"They've usually got something going on at the club," he said after they got across.

The Don led him down a broken sidewalk, though a break in a chain link fence, over asphalt divided into uneven sections by crops of grass, to an unobtrusive door. Jarred was in a fog. He couldn't feel the stab of excitement he'd experienced at the sudden jutting of the girl's breasts, but he could remember it, and he wanted to experience it again, the traces of it playing around the strands of his newly emerging hair. He'd been going to sleep designing a more efficient method for operating the numbers of the club and hadn't been paying attention to anything else.

Now he felt like he'd been hit by lightening, that a black and white world was just colorized, that he'd been living with shadows that moved imperceptibly around him all of a sudden taking shape and color, and above all, meaning, although the exact nature of the meaning escaped him.

His mind raced to regain its normal operation. He was over here to make a presentation to the Bastards dealing with how to go about collecting the numbers, and he couldn't do it if his mind was cen-tered between his legs.

Jarred followed The Don into the warehouse, which was clut-tered by cars in various states of completion, or incompletion, for as many were being torn apart as were being built, with fenders bumpers, windshield wipers, and engines strewn around the floor.

The roof was two stories above the cluttered floor. The floor it-self was perimetered by offices with painted over windows that at one time had been used to observe the operations on the floor when the warehouse was manufacturing whatever it'd manufactured be-fore the depression brought its enterprise to a halt. A series of catwalks crisscrossed beneath the periodic skylights designed to let light and air in.

The Don waved his hand in a mock salute at several of the boys arguing over the open hood of a Packard and waved Jarred into one of the offices. Inside, he was introduced to three boys in their mid-teens, one sitting down named Mike.

"I understand you want to reorganize the numbers operations on the block. What do you want to accomplish?" Mike asked.

"I think we can increase the pool by organizing our customers in block fashion," Jarred replied.

"How's that?"

"Now someone goes in and finds a player and we act as go be-tweens picking up the numbers and the money," Jarred began.

"Which puts another link in the chain between The Bench and jail," Mike replied.

"We keep the link, we just make it more responsive," Jarred countered. "See, if we made a chart of everybody on the block, then divide the chart up among the Babies, we could hit every mem-ber every day. We could ask each and every member each and every day if they wanted to buy a number, and we could report at the end of each day how many people played and how many people didn't play.

"Now you Bastards just go in and jot down whoever says they'll play, and then we have to go in and get the number and the money. This way, the entire block is covered. We just give you the count, the numbers and the money at the end of each day."

Mike thought about it for a while in silence.

"There's something else involved here besides collecting num-bers, isn't there?" he said after awhile.

Jarred had left the real selling point unsaid in order to reinforce a point later, or as here, to find out if Mike had an operating mind.

"It gives us an exact daily count of who's where doing what with whom, and who isn't," he replied.

"You wouldn't try to pop a house without cutting us in, would you?" Mike asked.

"Nothing changes except the amount of information we have on everyone. It seems to me the more information we have on every-body, the better we'll be able to serve our needs."

Mike lapsed into silence again.

"I can't see why The Bench would have a problem," he finally said. "How will we collect all this information?"

"Right now, if we get busted, we've a pocketful of number slips which are an obvious clue as to what we're up to. If we want to make book, we ought to use a book. We can set up a ledger with everybody's name, address, and other appropriate information listed. The number anyone might select will be just one more num-ber, and we can erase it daily. Each Baby will have a book, and each book will contain the names of the people he has to contact each day. We can set up levels of review to filter up the important in-formation and the numbers can be paid out of the ledger."

"That's an awful lot of work," one of Mike's lieutenants com-mented, with the grunting agreement of the other.

"So is chopping cars," Mike replied sharply, "but once we get it organized, it's just a matter of routine. All right, I'll talk to The Bench and see what he says. Why don't you show the little genius around, Don?" he said, standing up in dismissal.

The Don took Jarred's elbow and led him out of the room.

"Let's scout around and see if we can find anyone doing it," he whispered.

"Doing what?"

"You'll see."

He led Jarred around the perimeter of the car chopping floor, stopping in front of each of the observation cubicles to see if he could determine what was going on inside. The windows were painted over so bright flecks of light flashing through where the paint had chipped off provided the clue they were occupied.

The Don ignored these, stopping and listening only at the ones without any light. Jarred tried to listen too, but he didn't know what he was listening for. Finally, The Don put his finger to his lips. Jarred strained and finally was able to make out a rhythmic thumping accompanied by regular, muffled grunts. He pointed at a metal ladder leading up to a catwalk running above the offices, and then motioned Jarred to follow him.

The Don noiselessly slipped up the ladder with Jarred following like a cat. He stepped onto the walkway with Jarred close behind and stopped directly over the office he'd heard the noise in. He then reached back and put his hand over Jarred's mouth, pointing down into the room below.

Jarred looked over and felt like he was falling into a vortex. The skylight opened up the scene below him, a girl, her dress thrown over her back, her behind reaching for his eyes, bent over an an-cient desk, moving in rhythm with the boy behind her, the boy with his pants unzipped and his peeper moving in and out of her behind. He caught his breath to keep involuntary inhale from becoming volu-ble. At the same time, he realized his hand had slipped between his legs and he was holding his own peeper, which now become some-thing other than a peeper, uncomfortably filling his pants.

He didn't understand what he was seeing, although he could re-member this was the source of the embarrassing comments he'd heard continually for the last five years. He didn't understand it, but he could understand why, as he again realized his hand wasn't still on his newly found toy, but was moving it back and forth against his underwear. He couldn't help a gasp when his underwear and his whole body were suddenly filled with warmth.

The Don frantically signaled silence and looked to see if the cou-ple below them noticed. The girl's head was buried in her arms on the desk, and the guy was involved in looking at himself move in and out of her backside. Neither changed their point of interest. He con-tinued to look at them avidly, as if in a trance.

Jarred looked, but it didn't have the same feeling to it it did be-fore he'd wet himself. He felt surreptiously to see if the wetness was going to show, and realizing that it would, the scene below him disappeared and he began to visualize the huge spot that would be his badge of inescapable childhood. He wanted to get The Don to go, but he figured the longer he stayed, the better chance he'd have for the spot to dry.

And at the rate the guy was going, he was going to get the chance to dry out completely. On and on he went, in and out, in and out, regularly, rhythmically, the back and forth strokes never varying in distance or strength. Jarred didn't have a watch, but he was certain the two of them remained motionless on the catwalk for a good half-hour while the guy's stroke didn't vary by so much as a hair.

Finally, they were rewarded when he pulled it out, turned her over and pulled her blouse and halter over her shoulders, exposing small breasts with soft nipples. Jarred saw it wasn't her behind he'd been in as he stuck his hand down to guide himself into her front. Once in, he attacked her breasts and began to heave and thrust uncontrollably, finishing after about ten seconds in a tre-mendous burst of energy.

He quickly pulled it out of her and, making a fist, milked it in si-lence for another ten or fifteen seconds, the girl looking down at what he was doing through her tiny breasts. Jarred could feel him-self stiffening again at the sight of her heaving breasts, but was determined not to wet himself again, so remained as motionless as possible. The more motionless he remained, the more he looked at her breasts, the harder he got and the harder it became to remain motionless.

His discomfort was broken by the boy grunting something at the girl, zipping his pants up and leaving the cubical. The girl took a handkerchief and wiped between her legs. They watched until she got dressed and lit a cigarette, sitting in the dusk on the end of the desk, smoking quietly with her thoughts.

The Don motioned Jarred to move back over the catwalk and mount the stairs. As he was crawling backward, Jarred tried to get a look at the front of his pants to see how bad the spot was. His back was to the skylight, so he couldn't see. On the stairs, he couldn't lean his head forward enough to tell, and on the ground, he was afraid to look because the act of looking might draw attention to it. He stayed close behind The Don as they walked to the door, angled away from the boys chopping the cars on the floor.

He made it through the door and into the crisp afternoon. He re-membered the girl he'd seen putting her coat on and wished he'd brought a coat, too, not to warm up, but to cover the spot. The Don was laughing breathlessly as they came through the door, but he laughed out loud once they reached the open air.

"You really shot your wad," he said between giggles.

Jarred looked down. His pants weren't so much wet as stained with an almost perfect circular blotch.

"When you fuck, man, you want to hold it back as long as possi-ble. Hell, he went a half hour while we were there, and he was probably doing it for an hour before we got there. That's staying power man. He's a real stud.

"Boy, one look and you shoot all over yourself. We'll have to get you some practice on the girls back at the clubhouse. See. The trick is, you got to think of something other than what you're doing. Think of a baseball game you watched, or what you had for break-fast. That way you can keep it hard and make it last for a long time."

"Make it last?" Jarred asked.

"Being inside the girl. Girls like you to be inside them moving around and all. It's what turns them on. So the longer you can stay in them, the more you are like a god to them." He grabbed Jarred's arm. "Come on. It makes me hot just to talk about it."

Jarred was trying to imagine the girl he'd seen on the corner, her barely teenage breasts bare like the girl on the desk, as The Don jerked him into the road. The jolt brought him back to the pre-sent, sitting in the Stratodart. He looked at his watch and realized the Indian subcontinent was behind him, as was Iran and Turkey. He glanced out the window looking for the source of the jolt. He could make out some lights far below, spotting the bulk of the Carpathian Mountains in the moonlight. They'd passed through the front sepa-rating the weather system of the Black Sea from the one controlled by this breathtakingly beautiful mountain chain creating a barrier in their sinister majesty between Europe and the mysteries of the east.

Tirgo Ocna was situated on the eastern slope of the Carpathians, hopefully out of the eminently western gaze of The Chairman and his far-flung operations.

The Stratodart dropped silently in the evening coolness, gliding unerringly on a beam of electrons directly into the hanger facilities of the laboratories of PI International. He told the pilot to gas up and be on hold for the hop to Bucharest so he could make connections with the StratoLiner to New York. He climbed out of the cockpit and passed though the cavernous hanger. PI International was built into the side of a steep hill several miles outside the town proper, so he left the low oblong building serving as the outside support for the PI sign into what was essentially an underground facility hidden from view by the soaring mountain overhead. Entering, he put his hand on the Identistrip, watched the light flicker from red to green several times before it fixed solidly on green, and walked through the opening door.

The administrative offices were to his left as he entered the temperature-controlled hallway, and it was there that Finances awaited him. He decided to let Gleetch go ahead. He'd go the long way around so the stuffed shirt spreadsheet scramblers would start feeling impatient. He therefore went through the Identistrip process once again, this time at the door directly facing the door to the hanger. Like everything else in the world, the facility operated on security levels, with access to particular spaces, be it an of-fice, a country or the hard disk of a computer, depending on the clearances a person bore.

The identistrip leading into the computer room was set to open at the same security level as the last, designed to give visitors a sense of importance, a feeling they'd been granted permission to enter a higher security level than some other non-defined, but in their mind real, group.

The room never failed to impress him. The entrance opened onto a stage. The platform overlooked a sunken floor containing twenty-four circular Cray supercomputers. They were outdated, built be-fore the invention of multicore chips, but still respectable, which served his purposes well. Strict restrictions on the export of com-puter equipment limited what he could get. Cray, after almost going bankrupt, moved into the age of lightning computer processors. The legislation blocking export, however, did not cover the last model they made before the changeover and he'd been able to buy up the lot and ship them out of the country without a permit. He wasn't hiding from the scientific community, he just wanted to remain un-der the radar of the ever-observant Chairman.

The Crays were arranged in six clusters of four, the four mak-ing up the corners of a square. Each side of the room contained three of the squares. A platform ran down the center of the room with perpendicular branches bisecting it in thirds, running between each of the clusters. The sunken floor and the circular machines, quietly humming gave the illusion the room was the bowels of a nu-clear power facility, with the machines generating power rather than using it. But using it, they were involved in the hottest scien-tific project in the history of the world.

With the introduction of the personal computer in the early eighties, isolated attempts to find the exact value of Pi, the cir-cumference of a circle divided by its diameter, was undertaken, but soon exceeded the capacity of the weaker machines. Unlike the planets and the stars, whose exact location could be computed for billions of years into the future as a result of being able to fix their location billions of years into the past, Pi eluded specificity. It had become the transcendental number.

As such, it was important to carry research further than just determining how far the equation had to be carried until it was rounded out. Being transcendental, everyone realized the whole Pi would contain, somewhere in its sequence, the number that would unlock the secrets of the universe.

Even the strongest personal computer wasn't strong enough to handle the programs created to scan the endless series of digits that strung out after the initial 3.14159. What was needed was the ability to hold Pi carried out far enough to the right of the decimal point in active memory that it could seek out telltale patterns in those numbers. This was done by examining the numbers in blocks of twos, then threes, then fours, and so forth up to the total held in memory. Once the blocks were established, the first number of every block with a like number of numbers in the blocks could be surveyed for telltale patterns, then every subsequent number in the block. They could then be compared last to first, first to last, mid-point out and out-point to mid.

While one set of Crays meticulously carried out Pi in a survey-able series of digits, another set checked the first to make sure that the calculations weren't in error. The first computer carried Pi out to over fifty-eight quadrillion places, enough, if printed in eight-point type, to circle the Andromeda Galaxy thirteen times according to the latest calculations as to its volume. The Cray group assigned the verification operation was in the thirty-three quadrillions. The remaining groups chopped up the resulting numeri-cal series into surveyable portions to determine the patterns that would yield the secrets of all creation.

Jarred strolled down the walkway to the control center on the opposite side of the room. For serious empirical scientists, using obsolete computers made his efforts at the Pi problem the object of scorn, invisible to the rest of the world while seemingly perform-ing useful work.

Jarred walked over to the small bespeckled man intently bent over the Mac used to control the operation of the Crays. He stared over his shoulder at the screen for a few moments.

"X," he said.

"X?" the man asked. "That's not a thing. Boxer shorts are things, not a thing."

"Put in the X if you don't want to get hung," Jarred insisted.

"X it is." He typed in the X and the screen began to flash and play a trumpet blare. "It was X. Thanks."

Jarred walked past the little desk as the man reset the game and put his palm on another Identistrip. This time the level of security was higher because the guts of the research operation were carried out in the vast cavern behind the opening door.

The cave had been a World War II bomb shelter and the walls, excavated out of the solid rock of the mountainside, were still visi-ble arching over the myriad workbenches stretching from one end of the room to the other.

Four workers sat around each of the workbenches. Placed in the center of each workbench was a cage with a white mouse. Each of the four workers had a generator with wires running into the white mouse's head. Amperes were broken down into billionths and as-signed to the various benches. The project manager at each bench broke their assigned microamperes down into smaller units and was responsible for ensuring the mouse was continuously subjected to ever changing microamps and recording the results.

The assistant project manager took the project amperage and broke it down into milliamperes, the first assistant project into centiamperes, the second assistant into deciamperes. The second assistant then slowly cycled through each deciampere to see what its affect was in conjunction with the other three inputs. When the group of ten was completed, the first project manager changed to another centiampere so the second project manager could cycle through ten more. When the first project manager finished cycling through the hundred possibilities, the assistant project manager changed to another milliampere.

And, of course, when the assistant project manager had cycled through his million, the project manager cycled up another mi-crometer from the billion possible assigned to his project.

Jarred knew each experimental result represented the possible flows of electricity generated by the mind, but had to see this room to realize the staggering number of currents available in the range from no current to the strongest of the imperceptible currents coursing through the mind, storing and retrieving the correspond-ingly charged units carrying the pictures the mind formed and re-formed.

He had no idea what would result from this ongoing research, but really didn't care because the research wasn't the purpose of the project.

The detour through the cave always made him dizzy because of the magnitude of the operation, and after a brief pause contemplat-ing the effect the work was having on the workers brains, he walked down the ramp to the door that would take him by Phil-brook's laboratory. Philbrook had been a television repairman for most of his life, operating out of a basement forever cluttered with sets in various states of disrepair, with three always turned on. Philbrook was devoted to quiz shows, talk shows, and soaps, a man of eclectic tastes.

One day he finished working on a set and turned it on to see the picture quality. As the set warmed up, he started jumping up and down, growling like a dog. Not a passionate man, he quickly turned the set off.

He immediately settled down.

He turned it back on and immediately started foaming at the mouth.

He turned it off, settling down.

He called his wife down, explained what was happening, and then turned the set on.

His wife jumped out of his way as he lunged for her, turning the set off in the process. Philbrook, his muscles going limp, fell to the floor in a heap.

"Interesting, eh?" he said, getting up and brushing himself off.

"You'd better get to the doctor's. It doesn't affect me," Mrs. Philbrook replied.

The doctor found a tumor in Philbrook's brain, but Philbrook re-fused have it removed. He was convinced there was something about the interaction between the four sets and his brain that con-trolled his behavior. Involved with televisions for both his, and television's, life, he was very much aware of the profit to be made by any medium capable of controlling behavior.

He set up a corporation as the introduction of logic boards de-stroyed his repair business, sold stock, had the tumor in his brain sectioned, took some of the resulting material and injected it into a mouse, and put the mouse in front of the set. When he turned the set on, it went berserk.

He set out to determine the combination of electrical flows broadcast by the four operating sets and duplicate it. He then set out to discover the nature of the tumor material so it, too, could be duplicated. This was more expensive than his small corporation, operating out of his basement, could afford. He went in search of funding, loans to underwrite the intensive research needed to come up with the result, a simple generator to control behavior, at a minimum, enrage people.

Jarred invested in the bonds, and when the research faltered, bought out other bondholders, first at fifty cents on the dollar, then ten cents. When the breakthrough finally came, he owned ninety percent of the debt, which he'd restructured into a hundred percent capital position. He in essence owned Philbrook's effect, although part of the final deal involved a lifetime contract for Philbrook's services.

Now he watched Philbrook in his laboratory. He'd been given an extra set of jacks and now, seeing Jarred, he gave Jarred the bird before he deftly executed fifteensies with a clean stroke of the hand.

The guy was brilliant.

Jarred waved back and opened the door to his left, the Execu-tive Suite. Gleetch was up immediately, a worried frown on his face, as he motioned to the two suits Jarred assumed were repre-senting Finances. Neither stood up, one immediately launching into a tirade. By the time Jarred caught up with it, his mind was starting to focus on deficits in certain accounts.

"Nothing," the suit was saying, "you paid next to nothing for your facilities, your equipment. It's all operating loss. We need de-preciation"

Jarred's mind caught up with the deficit and the depreciation, and realized he was being told the lack of property depreciation benefit was making his operation less attractive than other posi-tions with an equal amount of risk, and if he didn't do something to sweeten the pot, his funding was going to come to an abrupt halt.

That, he thought, was better than having Finances complain the lack of results was increasing the risk, thereby causing the money to walk.

He thought for a few minutes. There was no question about the lack of depreciation.

"There shouldn't be too much trouble attaching some deprecia-tion to the deal," he said after a long moment during which he calmly returned the suits' unwavering stares.

"How's that?"

"I'm just finishing up my current project in Brazil. As you must know . . ." Jarred looked closely at the dead eyes, "as you may or may not know, this project involved internationalizing the Amazon so it can be preserved as the world treasure it most definitely is. Before the project can be finalized, the entire topology has to be digitized so the metes and bounds can be stored to disk for all to retrieve. This is a job the Cray computer banks are capable off ac-complishing."

"So?" Finances said in unison.

"Most of the funds are going to mainland China for the produc-tion of the mood generators."

"So?" came Finances again.

"I've the authority to let the contract for the digitization of the Amazon."

"So?" They were beginning to sound like a Greek chorus.

"We set up a unified Korean Trust. The Trust signs a contract with the Amazonian Authority for the digitization. The Korean Trust purchases the Crays. Finances puts a year's funding into the Trust for the purchase."

The suits' eyes were beginning to unlock.

"The funds will be transferred here as the bona-fide purchase price of the computers. We pass the money on to the contractor on mainland China, the depreciation resides in the Korean Trust, which by reason of Finances' cash input is controlled wholly by Finances, and Finances gets the entire depreciation."

The suits' four eyes were glistening. Jarred thought he saw a tear at the corner of at least two of them.

"But what about the Pi project?" Gleetch cried.

"We'll just keep operating it. The Korean Trust can redonate the Cray's back to the laboratory and get a charitable deduction to boot."

"But what will the Korean Trust use to do the digitization of the Amazon?" one of the suits asked, startled.

"The trust can buy a used Mac. Instead of the funds coming here and then going to China to pay for the fabrication of the generators, the money comes here to pay for the Crays, the ownership of the Crays goes to Korea, the money to China, and then we lease the Crays back to you here in Rumania."

Jarred paused. He didn't want to burden this operation with any more expenses than it already had. Finances, however, had reser-vations about the charitable deduction.

"What's wrong with the charitable deduction?" Jarred asked.

"In Korea, you can't depreciate something you've given away. There's a percentage limitation on the charitable contribution. Pure bottom line."

"We'll adjust the price of the digitization project to make up for the loss in the bottom line."

"Won't wash. We want the benefit now."

"How about a six-month deferral of the rent?" Jarred sug-gested.

"That would do. Loss of income will increase the bottom line."

"Increase?"

"The loss."

"Oh. Right. Okay. Deal?"

"Deal," finances replied in unison.

Jarred looked at his watch, shook hands, told Gleetch to take care of the details, and raced back to the hanger, jumping in the Stratodart for the short hop to Bucharest.

Settling into his first class seat on the StratoLiner, he thought of the six month deferral of rent. In six months, the die would be cast. The world's schools would be in disarray, an entire generation herded into hastily constructed concentration camps for their own safety and the safety of civilization as a whole. There would be a new appreciation of the old values, the values of individualism, self-interest, and resource ownership.

He grabbed the assignment of internationalizing the Amazon just as eagerly as he'd jumped at the opportunity to organize the ostrich industry, an industry that developed so rapidly, its consolidation and integration into the marketplace was a major achievement and great benefit to Jarred.

One of many achievements to his benefit, the first his redirec-tion of "tips" for numbers running into The Don's pocket, the sec-ond, the organization of the information about everyone in the neighborhoods using the cash flow generated by the numbers opera-tion. Information was money, and once he established the informa-tion collection and analysis process, the money came rolling in through the Babies to the Bastards on up to The Bench.

And, Jarred recalled wondering at the time, what was beyond The Bench?

Shortly after his meeting at the Bastard's warehouse and the subsequent establishment of the block system on Bay Street, Pearl Harbor heralded the United States' entrance into the second great war, always a lucrative time for ingenious people like Jarred. The Bastards, close to the waterfront, started extending their en-forcement to the nearby docks, which, with the coming of the war, were filled with new activity.

The Don was fourteen and Jarred eleven when the chop shop was turned into a legitimate repair shop to keep cars that had to go years without replacements running. The illegal enterprises that'd been run out of the warehouse were moved over to the Babies' clubhouse, and the Babies in essence became the Bastards, the con-nection between the neighborhoods and The Bench, and through The Bench, the outside world.

Nothing changed except the cash flow, which increased with the addition of activities involving the proscriptions placed on other-wise legal enterprises. Thus, the black market in ration coupons for such things as gas, oil and tires put what would otherwise be a legal enterprise into a netherworld of possible illegitimacy where Jarred's block operations could work as a clearing house for legiti-mate coupons, and total illegality, where massive amounts of forged coupons were printed and distributed into the burgeoning war economy.

As Jarred moved into his teens, his position and money provided him access to the more mature girls in the area, and he became an expert at what he'd seen from the loft of the old warehouse. He could last a good long time, and pleasure even girls three and four years older than he was. Every once in awhile, he thought of Reanne while he was moving in a girl, and he'd almost lose self-control, but by quickly redirecting his thought processes to the daily sorting of the numbers slips, he could dampen the effect and proceed with renewed energy.

Reanne, he discovered, was The Don's age, just a couple of years older than he was, and well within the range of the girls he was used to pumping. But the girls he and The Don had access to were nothing like Reanne. There was something special about her. She had a figure apparent even under her dresses and blouses, clothing designed to hide it, if anything. And she was extremely good looking. But, as The Don said, you touched her at a risk greater than the touch was worth.

As soon as he had his information system operating smoothly, The Bench requested a separate and detailed accounting on thirteen of the girls who lived on the Block. One of the girls was Reanne and Jarred collected the information personally. The Bench was con-cerned with whether Reanne, and the other twelve girls, spent their time with boys, so Jarred mentally thanked The Don for his warning.

On the other hand, as he was responsible for the reporting and could eliminate information if he wanted, he could, theoretically at least, see her all he wanted without The Bench finding out.

He spent much of the early war years, from forty-one to forty-four debating the possibility with himself. Every time he decided he'd do something about it, see how far he could get with her, he was overcome with the same excitement he felt when he was in one of his girls and her picture came to mind.

He beat the feeling back with the pure force of will power.

As a result, he was either beating thoughts of her out of his mind with covering thoughts, or he wasn't thinking of her at all. Neither were conducive to getting in her, so he never did. He just went about his business, which was The Bench's business.

One day, as he finished totaling the slips, The Don gestured to pick up the phone. Jarred walked over. The Don cupped the phone. "It's The Bench," he whispered.

Jarred looked at The Don quizzically. The Don cupped the phone. "He wants you to come up and see him."

Jarred took the phone and put his ear to it. "Yes sir?" he said.

"Yeah, Jeremy. You finished with the slips? Bring the book on up, will you?"

"Yes sir."

Jarred hung up the phone. Usually The Bench sent a runner to pick up the totals played on each number so they could be compared with the totals of other operations.

"What do you think he wants?" Jarred asked The Don.

"Does it matter? You're finished, get going."

Jarred took the totals, slipped out the door, across the hallway and out into the melting snow slushing under the overhang at the entrance to the basement apartments. For a fleeting instant, he wondered if The Bench had somehow found out it was his 13th birthday and was going to give him a party.

He caught himself dreaming, and his ears burned as the blood rushed to his head. Fat chance. He'd die of embarrassment if that happened.

He picked his way up the melted footprints and out onto the street, moving against the wind toward the waterfront. He knew the entrance to The Bench's apartment house well, having passed it on a daily basis, but he'd never been inside. The thought of entering made his stomach feel funny. He couldn't determine whether it was an unpleasant feeling. His desire to see how The Bench lived sup-pressed the feeling before it paralyzed him.

He decided to treat it as excitement in anticipation of learning something new. He tested his voice to make sure it didn't crack, then pushed the door open and announced "The Bench's flat, please," to the elderly man framed by a square of pigeonholes.

"Top floor," the man replied, pointing at the curving staircase to his right.

Jarred started toward the stairs, realized he was moving too fast, took a deep breath, and slowed down, waiting until he was out of sight of the desk before taking them two at a time. He reached the top landing, confidently knocking on the door.

He wasn't prepared for what he saw. He was breathing faster than normal because of the stairs, but the vision stopped his breath.

"Hi, Jeremy, come on in."

Jarred blinked. He'd never seen anything like the girl who'd opened the door, the girl right here in front of him, talking to him, telling him to come in.

He could only imagine a face like this when he was ejaculating. It was something that played around at the corners of his mind, something he couldn't look at directly as he thrashed away to his inevitable conclusion.

As soon as he looked directly at it, at the reality in front of his eyes, he couldn't comprehend it. He knew she was made up of eyes, a nose, cheeks, a chin, but when he tried to see her face, it seemed to explode in front of his face.

He shut his eyes. He couldn't remember what she looked like, only that he wanted to look again. He opened his eyes and found he couldn't look at her. He diverted his eyes away from her gaze, seeing a bit of her smile.

His shock grew greater as she stepped back, her figure coming into full view. She was dressed in a tight red sheath, shinny, cling-ing to every curve of her body. Her shoulders were bear and the light bouncing off them hurt his eyes. He couldn't look at them, they were so compelling, and his gaze dropped to her breasts, perfect, pillowing a cleavage whose potential sent shocks into his palms.

As if her body had the same polarity as his eyes, his eyes were forced away from wherever they attempted to stop and gaze. Be-low the bulge of her breasts, her waist almost disappeared, making him think the top half of her body was unsupported, floating in space, but the painful thinness of her waist forced his eyes down to the swell of her hips, flowing out in perfect symmetry with her breasts, truly a marvel.

But the real pain came as she turned to close the door, her hips moving to reveal the incredible shape of her buttocks rising against the satiny material, supported, as his eyes were forced away, down, by legs pushing up into the abbreviated dress, legs that made tears come to his eyes.

"Have a seat. Johnny will be out in a second. Can I get you a soda?"

Jarred mumbled something, fumbling his way to a chair, his eyes trying to latch onto her, a piece here, a piece there, in an at-tempt to comprehend her totality. No matter where he looked, he couldn't continue to look and he didn't want to stop looking.

"I'm Marlisse. I'm Johnny's girlfriend. Is a coke all right? We've got ginger ale."

Jarred mumbled coke. He tried to take her in as she went to get his drink, took a glass, looked at it in the light, brushed its lip with a dishcloth, cracked open an ice tray, clinked in some cubes, poured the soda, waiting for the head to catch up with the rate of pouring, walked over and held the glass out.

He took it gingerly, trying to keep his fingers from touching her fingers.

"Johnny is in the middle of turning out a new girl," Marlisse said. "It'll give us a moment to get to know each other."

She went back over to the bar and repeated the process, this time filling the glass with ginger ale.

"I hate it when he does that. Half the city traipses through this place to have a go at her. I try to get him to do it somewhere else, but you know Johnny."

Jarred backed up his mind to replay what she'd said, seeing if he'd heard right. He'd heard about turning out a girl. That meant turning them into a working girl so they could go out on the streets and earn money. All the guys talked about doing it, but no one knew how. They just said you had to lock the girl up, shoot her up with drugs to get her addicted. Then everybody fucked her until she got hooked on the drugs. Then she did what she was told to do if she wanted a fix, and that was get bucks, preferably for sucks, but fucks or anything else a guy wanted.

The feeling came back to his stomach and moved down into his crotch as he wondered if he'd get a chance to have a go at her. He looked around the room. Behind one of these walls was a girl, na-ked, getting whammed raw. The thought made him dizzy. He pushed it into the background, tried to focus on Marlisse and instantly re-alized his mistake.

No relief there.

He looked at the floor.

Marlisse sat down on the couch beside him. Her knee, incredible, was less than an inch from his pants leg. He wanted to move his knee away, but he couldn't. He was paralyzed by her closeness. He caught himself letting his eyes slide up her thigh to see what he could see under her dress, and let them slip rapidly up as if he were looking at something on the ceiling. From the glimpse, her dress had slipped so high he could see all the way to bliss.

"You all right?" Marlisse asked. "You got something wrong with your neck?"

Jarred tipped his head the other way, mumbled something and took a sip of his drink. Even this led to disaster, her cleavage picked up and distorted by the curvature of his glass, the tops of her foam tipped breasts making him inhale at the same time he was trying to drink, the coke clogging his sinuses.

"Here, let me help you," Marlisse said, getting up. She brought him the dishtowel and thumped him on the back several times as he struggled to get his breath and regain his composure at the same time.

"You beating up on him already?" The Bench boomed, coming in from a door behind the couch.

"The poor boy, it just went down the wrong tube," she replied, whamming him several more times.

Jarred used the back of his hand to wipe the tears streaming down his cheeks.

"I'm . . . okay," he was finally able to gasp.

"You're like a pup out of water," The Bench laughed. "Two fin-gers, fast," he said to Marlisse.

Marlisse left thumping Jarred and performed the ice routine with a bottle of bourbon replacing the soda and ginger ale. The Bench took the glass and sat down on the couch. Marlisse withdrew to the bar after giving The Bench his drink. Jarred couldn't look at The Bench without seeing Marlisse behind him. As a result, his line of sight kept shifting to take in some part of Marlisse, her thighs, her marvelous behind, a structure that seemed to defy gravity, her shoulders, her hair, her face, the feast was endless, but denied, because he couldn't let on he was looking.

" . . . the totals." He became aware of The Bench's voice. "You back to normal? When business is ripe, you have to pick it."

"I'm okay," Jarred managed to say. He fished the paper con-taining the totals out of his pocket and passed it over to The Bench, letting it pass in front of Marlisse, leaving his eyes behind as he gave it to The Bench.

"We have to find a way to skin this turkey," The Bench was saying.

"Turkey?"

"Right. I've just been promoted. War's good for business. The Boss wants me to handle all the numbers this side of the river. I'm moving up like a duck out of water. Slick. Anyway, I've got to put all the slips together to find out what the number is going to be."

Jarred had let his eyes linger on Marlisse, losing part of The Bench's statement.

"Going to be," he repeated.

The Bench looked where Jarred was looking. Jarred felt the blood rush to his face, his forehead breaking out in beads of sweat.

"The paper goes to print at ten. We have to phone in the number by then. They print it as the last four numbers of the stock ex-change volume for the day."

Jarred tried to focus on what The Bench was saying. He knew the last four numbers of the volume of stock transactions dictated the number, but he didn't know they could pick the number them-selves.

"Wake up and spread your wings, boy. Nobody cares exactly how many shares were traded. They just want to know how many thousands were traded. No one cares about a few thousand plus or minus, and certainly none below a thousand."

Jarred was focusing, but then Marlisse got up to refill her gin-ger ale glass and she grabbed his eyes again. Up close, she acted like a magnet oriented in the same direction as his eyes. Looking at her made him look away. At a distance, she changed polarity. Every time he tried to look away, his eyes were drawn back to her.

"Well, go on," The Bench said.

He'd lost The Bench's thread in Marlisse's dazzle.

"Go on, I said." The Bench was rising rapidly to his feet, and Jarred saw he was looking at Marlisse. "I tell you, this hog's barely in his teens and already he's rutting around like a pig in heat." He looked back at Jarred. "Go on, now, get it over with. Can't do business when a guy who's got his balls in his ears." He went over and opened the door he'd entered through. "Go on in and give her a poke. She needs it. Take her mind off having to wait an-other half hour for her next hit."

Jarred's stomach turned inside out. He lost sight of the room. He didn't think he was going to be able to move. When the room started to swim into view, he barely saw The Bench, and he couldn't see Marlisse at all. He could see vaguely, through the clearing mist clouding his vision, a girl lying nude, sprawled out on a bed, her arms cuffed to the head posts.

"We'll be waiting on you," The Bench said, turning to Marlisse, holding his glass out for a refill.

He noticed Marlisse as he crabbed his way in front of the sofa, afraid to turn his back on the room, afraid he'd hear The Bench's booming voice "Stop, I was just joking." The picture of the nude, cuffed girl replaced his picture of Marlisse, then, backing toward the door, the cuffed girl became Marlisse just as every other girl had become Reanne.

He slipped into the opened door, closing it behind him, relieved to be out of The Bench's presence before the giant "no" was deliv-ered.

He imposed his picture of Marlisse without clothes on the list-less, exhausted, strung-out girl in front of him. She had her eyes closed and hadn't heard him walk in. He walked over to the side of the bed, reached down and cupped a breast in his hand, reaching up with the other to stroke her hair.

He was just registering how wet her breast was when her body came to life. He could see it arching away in front of him, the legs coming up to her chest, one leg bracing itself in the wrinkled sheets, the other thrusting her foot out directly towards his groin. The handcuffs limited her action. He twisted away from the oncom-ing foot, deflecting the blow, but not before he let out a yelp. He grabbed her leg, trying to get her back on the bed when he saw her right leg coming towards his face.

He warded that one off, too, trying to gain control of the wild bundle of muscle whirling around in front of him. Before he could get her settled down, however, the door burst open and The Bench stormed in, bellowing.

"God damn it all to hell."

He grabbed Jarred, taking him roughly by the shoulder, casting him aside.

"How long is it going to take me to teach you what you need to know, you little bitch?"

He took his fist, already balled up, and hit her hard in the stom-ach. Her eyes bulged out with her escaping air. The Bench took the back of his hand and whacked her across her face.

"I told you what was going to happen if you pulled this shit again, didn't I?"

"Oh, no," the girl sobbed, gasping for breath. "please don't do that."

"Didn't I tell you what I was going to do to you if you pulled this shit?"

"God, no, you wouldn't, you can't," she pleaded.

"The hell I can't," he snarled, pulling a knot of her hair out. "You cunts got to learn something and there's only one way to teach you." He reached over, grabbed one of her breasts, and pinched it with all his might. The girl let out a scream, throwing her elbows back, forcing her chest forward toward the unwanted hand in a misguided effort to get away from it.

Jarred suddenly recognized her, Reanne, the girl who was hands off because of The Bench's protection. Recognition filled his stom-ach, increasing his desire.

The Bench, using her breast, lifted her trunk off the bed with a savage twist and pull until the flesh resisted and tore her away, her body bouncing once on the mattress, her sobs caught up in the pain.

The Bench went over to the closet and rummaged through it. "Damn women and their clothes," he muttered, finally taking out a dress and tearing it from its hanger. He grabbed a washcloth from the dresser, bringing the washcloth and hanger back to the bed. He shoved the hanger under Reanne's nose. "What did I tell you I was going to do to you if you gave me any more shit?"

"Oh," Reanne groaned, managing a thin wail. Jarred could see the sweat beading together and rolling off her forehead in rivulets as she visualized what The Bench was going to do to her. The Bench stuffed the washcloth into her mouth. She watched in horror as he parted the twist part of the hanger, straightening it out, then, bending it double and using his thumb in the loop end to turn it into a corkscrew

"See bitch," he said, holding up the finished product.

He turned to Jarred, who was watching every movement breathlessly.

"Come here, boy. No. On the other side of the bed. Stick your knees on her arms so she's pinned flat against the cuffs. Make sure you got her firm cause she's going to do a little complaining."

Jarred'd never felt a more intense feeling move throughout his body. He had to move just to keep from being paralyzed by his stomach, moving at The Bench's instructions. Grinding his knee on Reanne's chest so she sunk deep into the mattress seemed to flush his system, making room for more feeling.

"Pull her legs over head," The Bench instructed.

Jarred looked at him inquisitively. The Bench put the hanger on the edge of the bed. "Like this." He reached over, grabbed her be-hind her knees, and pushed her legs up to her head so her bottom jutted into the air above her widening eyes.

"You take those legs and pull her knees down to her ears. I want her to see, as well as feel, every thing I'm doing to her."

Jarred complied, his pants bulging from his hardness, restrain-ing her strumming his excitement, fueling the sensations rolling across his stomach and down between his legs.

"Why do you make Daddy do shit like this to you, bitch. Why can't you do right by him, behave for Daddy. Why?"

He smacked her on the ass until it was almost bleeding through the soft white skin that was turning bright red, then took the hanger, twisted end corkscrewing outward like some deformed sword, and pressed it against her asshole.

"See, bitch," he said again. "You didn't believe me did you? You didn't think you could force your Daddy to do you like I said I would, did you?"

Reanne, whose face was now directly under where the hanger was touching her, let out a snort through her nose.

"Shit, bitch. Don't go making it worse," The Bench shot between clenched teeth. He shoved the twisted hanger directly into her ass half an inch. Jarred couldn't believe Reanne's response. Her invol-untary effort to escape the hanger almost touched her nose to her cunt. Jarred laughed at the improbability of it, catching himself as he saw the hanger pop out. The Bench pushed it back in, this time two to three inches, then paused as her body bucked wildly to and fro trying to escape the penetration.

The Bench allowed the end of the hanger to move with her movements so the spiral end couldn't be dislodged. He waited pa-tiently for her bucking to die down.

"Why do you make me do things like this to you, bitch." There were tears in his words. He let her get used to it, settle down, and then gave the hanger a thrust and it disappeared six more inches into her body. Jarred had never heard the likes of the sound that came from her throat. It hit the washcloth and went up through her nose, coming out as sort of a high piercing wail. He looked at her face and was amazed at the amount of liquid pouring out of her tightly shut eyes. He wondered if she would pass out, but the piercing noise kept coming out of her nose, changed only by the di-rection of the airflow.

He had to hold her arms and legs with all his might as The Bench, once in deep, began to take advantage of the twists to get as much reaction out of Reanne as he could. When she started to settle down, he began to pull it in and out, letting the twists tear the tissues of her ass into little spurts of blood.

Finally, when she stopped reacting, lying limp under the force of being bent double, he took the hanger out, caked in bits of feces, errant hairs heavy with blood, and threw it across the room. Jarred flinched as it came by his right shoulder.

"Sorry, kid. Now come on over here," he said, pointing to the other side of the bed.

Jarred moved around the end of the bed, his stomach pounding, not able to take his eyes off Reanne who was conscious, but seemed in some sort of trance, a trace of a smile on her lips. When he freed her legs, she straightened her legs over clenching buttocks as she tried to put time between her and whatever had happened to her.

"Take it out," The Bench ordered when he got to the edge of the bed beside Reanne.

He hesitated a second, not sure what The Bench meant.

"Pull your prick out, kid." He went up to the head of the bed and pulled Reanne into an upright position, grabbing her roughly by the jaw. "I want you to put his cock in your mouth and suck like there's no tomorrow, understand?"

Reanne, wild-eyed, nodded her head vigorously.

The Bench squeezed her jaw even tighter, then, taking the washcloth by its corner, yanked it out.

"Do you understand?" he repeated.

"Yes, yes," she started to sob, but caught herself when she saw The Bench's hand moving back toward her mouth, turning her head, and trying to locate Jarred penis through her tears.

"Go on, kid, go on, stick it in," The Bench urged him on. "She's not going to do anything to you."

Jarred had a picture of Reanne taking revenge by biting him in half when he put it in her.

The thought wasn't conducive to sex.

"She's not going to hurt you kid," he said, turning to Reanne, "are you?" He uncuffed her hands.

Reanne rubbed her wrists and quickly reached over, grabbed the top of Jarred's pants, unzipped them, and reached in to pull out his softened member, shaking her head vigorously.

"Tell him you're not going to hurt him. Tell him, damn it!" The Bench demanded.

"I wouldn't hurt you. I just want to suck you off. Please let me suck you off."

Jarred had a fleeting image of sitting in front of his father's smile as her lips closed around him, and the sensation eliminated all images of reality from his mind but the image of Marlisse's cleav-age when she'd first opened the door.

He felt the liquid following the sensation into his crotch, and re-alized if he didn't do something fast, he was going to come in-stantly, before she could even get it all the way in her mouth, and The Bench would forever think he was just a kid who couldn't please a women.

He forced the afternoon's betting slips before his closed eyes and began to tabulate them all over again, the numerical process of identifying and then adding the figures diverting his attention from what was going on between his legs, allowing him to regain his hardness, and thrust deep into her throat.

After what seemed a long time, he got the rhythm of it, moving back and forth with her head, adding two bits to a dime and totaling out only to repeat the calculation. He knew he had it stabilized and knew he could go on for an hour or more like this when a piercing wail interrupted his rhythm. The pain in the cry paralyzed him and a burst of pleasure instantly blossomed out the end of his prick, filling his body with a pleasure he never imagined possible.

He opened his eyes to see what happened. The Bench buried his fist in Reanne's hair and twisted so hard the cry, with her throat full of cock, came out her nose. The cry of pain produced such in-tense pleasure, he grabbed a clump next to The Bench's hand, trying to increase it.

"Had to make you come, kid," The Bench said. "Haven't got all day, and there isn't much sense in sticking it in a bitch unless you're going to get off. You think fucking is about thinking, you're crazy. Fucking is about fucking, and thinking about what your fuck-ing is the way to get yourself off."

He gently removed his hand from knotting Reanne's hair, Jarred following suit.

"And anyway, what kind of a return would I get on my baby here if everybody wanted to spend all night pumping away, and not get their rocks right off, huh, baby. You got to learn all the tricks to get the guy off fast so you can get on with another one. You got Jeremy's number now, don't you?"

He helped her lie back onto the bed. She was soaked in sweat, and The Bench had to wipe his hand off on the sheet, avoiding the reddish brown snail trail she'd left behind when he'd pivoted her over to do Jarred.

"It's about time," he said to Jarred. "You want to tie her off?"

Jarred looked confused.

"I'll do it," Reanne said, coming alive at The Bench's words. For her, Jarred noted, it seemed the past twenty minutes never hap-pened. Her eyes were wide, her face expectant as she rubbed the sweat into her hair.

The Bench took a thin rubber tube out of his pocket, threw it on the edge of the bed, went over to the dresser and lit a small candle under a metal dish already encrusted with a tarry substance. After a minute, he took the dish off and picked up a glass syringe, holding it up to the light to see if it was dry. He put the tip of the syringe's needle into the liquefied tar and drew it up into the glass tube. He took the needle of pleasure over to Reanne, who'd tied the tube around her arm and was holding the inside of her arm out for easy access. Jarred noticed the puncture sores on her arm as she ea-gerly awaited another puncture.

Holding her arm firmly, The Bench eased the needle in, easily scoring a hit on Reanne's fresh firm veins. "It's like pricking a vir-gin," The Bench said to Jarred with satisfaction. He drew some of her blood into the syringe. "You penetrate and draw the blood." He jiggled the plunger back and forth, watching the blood mix with the tar. "You play with it a little and," he pushed the plunger steadily in, "ram it home, giving her the ultimate ecstasy."

Jarred watched eagerly, looking into Reanne's eyes. In an in-credibly short time, seconds, her eyes began to cloud over. The muscles of her face relaxed and a sweet smile began to play on her lips. She sighed, sinking back onto the bed.

"Daddy's given baby her candy," The Bench murmured. "Daddy's always good to his little girl when his little girl is good and listens to what Daddy says and does what Daddy tells her to do."

He took the needle out, put the cuffs back on Reanne, and waved Jarred to follow him. In the living room, he handed Marlisse the syringe.

"Clean this out," he said, taking the drink she offered and sat down on the couch, continuing to issue instructions. "Clean her up a bit. I had to corn hole her, so change and wash the sheets. And, oh yeah, you had a big dildo, didn't you?"

"You mean that humongous one you couldn't even get in me."

"Yeah. Find that and set it out for me. Next time she gets uppity, I'm going to shove that up her ass whether it'll fit or not." He turned to Jarred. "Now, where were we? Oh yes, talking about my new job. You think you can keep your mind on business?"

"Yes," Jarred lied. He couldn't get his mind off what happened in the other room, less than ten feet away. However, because the memory wasn't the reality of Marlisse attracting his gaze, he gave The Bench a respectfully steady gaze.

"As I was saying, we key the numbers into the last four num-bers of the daily stock exchange volume. We tally up the amount put on each number, choose the one that'll cause the least loss and we phone it into the pressman who changes the reported numbers to our number. I've got five blocks before I take over the entire op-eration this side the river, which makes five books, and the one you run on Bay Street is doing so well, I'm going to have to break it into two books. With only four numbers to work with, I'm taking too many big hits."

Jarred's mind was racing. He didn't quite understand what The Bench was getting at. If he controlled the number going into the pa-per, how could he take a big hit? The difference between under-standing, and not understanding, is only a split second, but if he was the one who didn't understand, it might as well be eternity.

"You pick the number according to the least loss possible . . ."

"It's the least total loss. The other four books might have nick-els bet on say 1234, but every body on the Bay Street book might have 1234. I don't lose much on the other books, but I lose my shirt on Bay Street. I end up ahead, but not by as much as if I could con-trol all of the books equally." He stopped and turned his head. "Marlisse!" The shout startled Jarred. She rushed in and took The Bench's glass. Jarred averted his eyes, closed them for a second to see Reanne's ecstatic face dissolving into Marlisse's as he stood triumphantly over her nude form, hanger in hand.

"So what do you think?" The Bench's voice brought Jarred back to reality.

"I think I'd like to fool around some more with Reanne."

"Oh. You know who she is. Right. You would. You've been keeping track of her for me for years. I single them out so no one will have anything to do with them. It destroys their self-esteem, makes them depressed, just the material I want. Well, you solve my problem, you can do anything you want to with her short of disfig-uring her. She's got too much money in her for that. So what do you think?"

"Combine the books," Jarred replied.

"That's why I'm taking over all the books this side of the river. But I can't combine them. They're neighborhood operations with the profits for the most part going back into the neighborhoods. The war is increasing business so much, we have to create more books, not less."

"Increase the number. Make it five digits rather than four," Jarred suggested.

"The volume on the stock market is going up, but not enough we can round it off to a hundred thousand. We can't increase the num-ber."

"You fix races, too, don't you?" Jarred asked.

"I don't," The Bench replied.

"But somebody does, right?"

"Yes," The Bench said, taking his drink. Jarred watched Marlisse's buttocks propel her back to her tasks in the other room, the twisted hanger mentally protruding from their middle. "I'd have to cut somebody in to do that."

Jarred blotted out the vision of Marlisse's buttocks, quivering with pain, waiting. He focused on The Bench taking a long pull on his bourbon. "If you're taking unavoidable hits with a large number of books, and you want to keep the large number of books, then coming up with a way to take less of a hit with the larger number of books, you'll have some money to spare won't you?"

"I guess so, yes," The Bench said, mentally calculating.

"Then you come out ahead, your partner fixing the races comes out ahead. You can even get it back by playing the tips, which you'll have because of the partnership."

"It sounds good," The Bench said. "but it seems there'll be an awful lot of people involved. Neighborhood businesses are controlla-ble. This seems too big to control. Let me think about it awhile. Come back tomorrow."

The Bench didn't get up, but Jarred did, excited he'd been asked back, knowing with a foot in the door, he could get back into the room and find out some more things about how Reanne behaved, re-acted to being turned out, what the process of turning out involved.

When he got back to the club, he went into the hallway, entering the first door on the right rather than the door leading to the fur-nace room. With the war, the growth in business, and the new re-sponsibilities of becoming the Bay Street Bastards, they'd taken over the entire ground basement set of apartments, moving the three families to other apartments as the war mobility created va-cancies.

The apartment on the right was used for the girl's auxiliary and there were several sitting around doing girl things when he walked in. He took one who he'd been with before by the hand and led her into the bedroom.

"What's your name?" he asked, as she automatically pulled her skirt up to slip her panties down. "No. Don't do that," he com-manded.

"Janella," Janella said, stopping, surprised, her panties down to her knees, and let her dress fall back down.

"Take your clothes off," Jarred ordered.

"You just said to stop."

"I meant to stop doing it like you were doing it. Undress. Take everything off," he ordered.

Janella started to lift her skirt again, then hesitated, looking up at Jarred. He could see her face was turning pink.

"Go on," he said.

"Turn around," she insisted.

"Turn around?" Jarred cried. "What the hell for?"

"You're embarrassing me," Janella replied.

"How could I be embarrassing you? I've been inside you, for crying out loud."

"Take your own clothes off, then," she said.

Jarred started getting mad. "You don't tell me what to do. I told you to take yours off, and I . . ." He stopped, shrugged, and began to unbutton his shirt.

"What does it feel like?" he asked, stopping at his underpants.

"What does what feel like?" She'd taken her clothes off, but was using her dress as a shield, hiding behind it.

"You know, when I'm inside you."

"It's exciting at first. But then . . ."

"But then what?"

"Well," Janella said hesitatingly, "I just . . . its sort of a mat-ter of . . ."

"Of what?" Jarred demanded.

"Of waiting for you to finish up," she replied.

"You mean I'm no good?"

"It's not that," she replied anxiously. "It's just you, well, you don't give me a chance to stay excited. And then you're just pushing and shoving and it's not like when I do it to myself."

Her words had an immediate effect on Jarred, and the effect was visible as he saw Janella's eyes go instantly to his crotch.

"Do you want me to suck it?" she asked.

Jarred did, but he waited. "What do you do to yourself?" he asked.

"I make myself feel good down there," she replied.

"How. Show me." Jarred was insistent.

Janella flushed again, this time her face turning bright red. "I can't . . ."

"You can put my cock in your mouth, but you can't show me how you get pleasure?"

Janella was clutching her dress tightly in front of her, her knuckles white on the soft material. Jarred suddenly saw Reanne's ass, high in the air, the unwilling receptacle of a bent wire hanger, and realized Janella was having a similar reaction. He walked over and took her hand, forcing it down between her legs. The dress dropped away as he pushed her back on the bed. She resisted for a second, then began guiding his hand down, using her other hand to slip under his shorts, then under his balls.

Jarred felt her hand snake between his legs, but his mind was on the feeling he was receiving from the finger she was guiding over the top of her entrance onto the hard knot nestling in her warmth. When his finger made contact, he thought he'd plugged her into an electric outlet. Her obvious pleasure rocketed to his crotch, making him come instantly. She let the sticky fluid roll down her wrist, catching it up as she gently rubbed him, at the same time forcing her nubile nubbin back and forth on his finger with her hips.

His pleasure hadn't been as intense as with Reanne, but he re-sisted the urge to grab Janella by the hair and make her scream. He was too interested in what she was doing, what she was having him do to her. The feeling fascinated him. It was like she had a little prick hidden between her legs, soft just like his when it wasn't be-ing used, ready to spring into action when properly stroked.

When he'd finished with Reanne, when he finished with any girl, he dropped the memory, couldn't wait to do something else. But now he'd come, and he wanted to do more, see more.

Janella saw him look at her, hesitate, look down at her, and hesitate again. She pulled her hand away from his crotch and put it behind his head, drawing his face down between her legs. The mem-ory of Reanne's face forced into her crotch drifted through his mind. His neck muscles went stiff, horrified at the logical conse-quences of his motion. He wasn't a woman. He didn't suck piss. But Janella's steady pressure allowed his curiosity to overcome his resistance and he buried his face in her, his tongue frantically try-ing to replace his finger on the source of her pleasure.

"I know I said you could do anything to her, kid, but don't do that," The Bench yelled, grabbing him by his shoulder and pulling him away from Reanne when he tried to do the same thing to her he'd done to Janelle. "That's not what I want her to enjoy."

Jarred didn't object. He watched over the following days and weeks as The Bench put her through her paces. There was a never-ending procession of men marching in and out of the apartment, Jarred acting as towel boy to be inconspicuous. He met everybody who was anybody taking a piece of the new girl in town. They stuck her in every conceivable place, biting her, pinching her savagely, her sexual humiliation broken only by the beatings she received when the drugs began to wear off, and the moments of bliss pro-vided by the next, and more potent injection after The Bench al-lowed her to experience the horrors of withdrawal.

The men, and occasional women, who took advantage of the turning out party, were from the legitimate world, the underworld, and the world in-between. Jarred recorded every name and noted every act. He devoured Marlisse's body as she cleaned up the room, bed and Reanne after she got the hit, becoming so excited, he was the first in her when she was moaning with the pleasure from the imaginary world created by the needle.

But he liked the sessions when the drug was wearing off the best, the times when she became irritable and recalcitrant, and he and The Bench would have to administer punishment. The Bench changed from the hanger to the oversize dildo that tore the tender tissues of her asshole. Her pain, from her muffled cries and the copious tears staining her cheeks, unbearable to her, was music to Jarred's ears.

He liked the hanger himself, and he perfected its movements so she would black out from the agony, seeming, as time went by, to drop into some floating subspace where she actually seemed happy. He extended its use to all her orifices, finding it particularly useful on the nubbin Janelle so graciously educated him about. All he had to do was start to the closet to turn her into a begging, tearful puddle of flesh, offering to do anything for him or to him to escape the coming punishment.

Gradually, Jarred saw Reanne's attitude turn from one of re-sentment and hostility to one of ennui. She lost her personality, her will to live. She became listless, and during the sex acts dreamed up by the endless procession of people, began performing so per-functorily, she drew rebukes.

Jarred expected The Bench to step up her punishment sessions in response, but he did the reverse. He began to cuddle her, hold her closely, shorten the time he forced her to endure the withdrawal from the drugs, and cut down on the people he let at her, using Jarred's observations to bring in only the less harsh ones. How-ever, punishment already accompanied the cuddling. It appeared Reanne was starting to crave the punishment to get the cuddling.

Jarred watched as she slowly came out of her listlessness, her personality coming alive as The Bench gave her loving attention. Reanne began to center totally on him, honoring him with long loving looks, trying to anticipate his wishes, treating him with deference and gratitude.

He asked The Bench if the dependence on drugs brought the change. The Bench said the change couldn't have been brought about as quickly without the drugs, but it could be done just as success-fully without them. He said he picked girls for their looks, then isolated them as they grew up. Some could take it, never losing their self-confidence, and these he just abandoned. Others, how-ever, like Reanne, had additional problems, family, social, heredi-tary, he really didn't know, that predisposed them to depression, and after they were conditioned, the only way they could avoid the depression was to be dominated by someone who cared for them.

They lived to do his bidding and, strangely enough, the Bench added, they lived to be punished for their misbehavior. It made them happy. It banished their depression. As a result, they'd go out on the streets and debase themselves for him, then come home to his tender ministrations.

Jarred watched as The Bench brought the process to completion. Giving her a hit, the two came into the living room to talk about the book consolidation while Marlisse did her job. The consolidation was well underway, proving successful beyond their wildest dreams.

"Tra-la-la!"

They both turned. At first glance, Jarred thought Marlisse brought in a twin. Focusing, he realized the stunning mirage was Reanne, made up to perfection and outfitted in one of Marlisse's form fitting dress. The breath caught in Jarred's throat as his eyes bounced from firm breasts to flat stomach to rounded hips to stun-ning buttocks to stomach tightening thighs.

"Pretty decent, huh?" Marlisse asked, as Reanne came over and tentatively put her hand on The Bench's shoulder. He patted the back of her hand in acceptance, smiling up at her.

Marlisse went about her business, but Reanne stayed with her hand on The Bench's shoulder, a little kid waiting to ask a big favor from an adult.

The Bench winked at Jarred. "What is it, baby?"

"Am I Daddy's good little girl?"

"Sure you are, Baby."

"Do I look beautiful like Daddy wants me to look?"

"Sure you do, Baby."

"Then could you tie your Baby down and pleasure her. I've been good, haven't I. Could you?"

"I can't spare myself," The Bench replied. "Jeremy will do it."

"That would be nice. I don't like to be selfish."

The Bench got up and went to the bar table. "Time to celebrate," he said to Jarred. "She's graduated. The only thing that'll get her off is pain. There isn't a thing you can do to her that she won't want done again. Except sex. When it comes to sex, she knows she has to do it to please me, to get me money, which means get it over with, get the guy off as fast as she can. It's money in the bank."

Jarred took the duplicate of Marlisse into the back room and did what he'd been mentally doing to Marlisse all along on his other ob-session, Reanne. It'd been wonderful, Jarred thought as the Stra-toLiner began to ascend into New York. Thinking of his youth amused him. He could still picture Marlisse the first time on the landing and wonder what she'd actually looked like before The Bench had gone to work on her. He wished he had time in New York to drive around and look at all the prostitutes that hung around the UN. They were experts at projecting an image of sex. He, however, could see two images, the image of sex, and the image of the girl beneath the sex-ual representation.

Before he could see Marlisse as she actually was, or had been, she left for another man, or maybe just joined one of the many cir-cuits people with her abilities and needs were driven to after people like The Bench finished with them and moved on to the next.

The Bench was a victim of his own success, with the combined books eventually joining hands across the Hudson, and then going region wide. The Bench went to California after the war, and then on to Las Vegas. He'd moved from a series of enterprises that could've landed him in jail to enterprises that were more or less tolerated. He altered The Bench's disposition of girls, keeping a rotating stable of the finest girls, examples he kept in their per-fection awaiting his every whim, instead of just one. They were now located at Jarazonia, his riverside residential headquarters from which he dictated the internationalization of the Amazonian and the conquest of the world.

The StratoLiner came to a smooth stop in front of the gate lo-cated just off the end of the runway. Jarred was the first to leave the cabin. He walked casually over to the lounge area of the Stra-toTerminal and took a seat behind a planter. He ordered a glass of white wine and waited for the Senator to find him.

Ever since Block nationalized the church Karen Carenson set up to cover her international activities on behalf of worldwide nation-alistic interests, the fundamentalist operations in the United States once again sprung to life, attempting to divide and conquer on the basis of the forever smoldering free choice issue.

By pointing to the confiscation of church assets, the anti-choice forces mounted a campaign against governmental interference in private activities. Political units all over the country became the target for the establishment of what were called Free Life Zones, where moral imperatives dictated behavior.

The Free Life Zones were set up parallel to political committees fronted by ruling councils dictating morality. Parallel groups were established to enforce morality. The Free Life Councils admitted their enforcement arms were extra-legal, but argued the only way to limit actions was to adopt the Free Life Code of Morality so the duly constituted authorities could take over the enforcement. "No More Lynch Mobs!" the slogan went. "Let the Police do their job."

Senator Mesne Shade, a long time independent, introduced a bill to make the entire country a Free Life Zone. "For morality," he'd shouted, as he dropped the bill into the hopper. He had as little in-terest in the Free Life Zones as Jarred. Neither did he care about the pro-life faction on behalf of which it seemed to operate. He had only one goal in mind, to be reelected. He couldn't possibly carry out all the reforms he'd gone to Washington to accomplish if he were back in his rundown storefront composing ads touting his legal expertise for insertion in the weekly shoppers.

"Mr. Jarred."

The Senator stood in front of Jarred, holding his distinctive straw hat nervously between his hands.

"How does the vote look?" Jarred asked, making no offer for the Senator to sit down and join him.

"I can get it out of committee this time, but I don't think it's going to stand a chance of passing."

"Well, we can't have everything. How many news columnists have you got supporting it in the local papers across the country?" Jarred asked.

"It'll get good coverage. It may be a mere pip in Congress, but to the local trade, it'll seem like the most important issue inside the beltway. But, well, I'll need lots of money to pay them off."

"How much?"

"Twenty-five thousand or so. For them. My expenses are tre-mendous."

Jarred produced the briefcase, putting it next to where the Senator was holding his straw hat.

"Two hundred thousand."

"That should do nicely for now," Mesne said, grabbing the handle before his hat settled on his head.

Jarred watched the Senator's back disappear behind the plant. He toyed with his wine. The money would buy ten, fifteen, maybe a hundred local governments. Some would have topless places that'd be forced to close. Others would ban sales on Sundays. But all would fanatically police the right of women to terminate pregnancies, even banning the pill. The sale of condoms would crawl back under the counter, become a snigger, something outside the scope of man-hood. Thousands, hopefully millions, of girls would become pregnant at a time when they couldn't afford it, weren't prepared for it, or plain just didn't want a lasting remembrance of a booze filled night with someone who half raped them. In their mental anguish, they'd rend their own innards asunder.

The fact that it'd be their own hands wielding the twisted, tor-turing hanger wouldn't diminish Jarred's pleasure, only his ac-countability.