"Randy Buck, Nancy," Cynthia Marvel, also known as the Baroness, owner, president and chief executive officer of Marvel Industries, the cosmetic and bluejean conglomerate says to her vice president of marketing.

"Now there is a name I haven't heard in a long time," Nancy responds, "and hoped never to hear again."

"Now Nancy, the world is too small and Randy and I too large for us not to run into one another every now and again.

"I saw him in a restaurant the other day, Nance.

"The big, friendly wave, the ‘how have you been' bit, the whole thing."

"How very nice for the two of you," Nancy observes, drily.

"Yes," Cynthia says, ignoring the sarcasm, "there is something very nice when two old adversaries run into each other in a social setting.

"It gives each of us a chance to gauge how things are going with the other.

"Do we look well or hagard?

"Are we aging gracefully or at all?

"Are we tanned from the sun or pasty from too much time spent in the great indoors?"

"Stuff like that.

"Combinations of observation and intuition.

"Especially interesting when applied to Randy Buck, a man who bears watching."

"A man who belongs in a straight jacket until they give him a lethal injection, the gas chamber, the electric chair, the gallows, the firing sq-"

"Enough, Nancy!

"I get the picture and I agree with you a thousand percent.

"Which should make it all the more disturbing when I tell you that he was looking very well indeed-tanned, fit, radiating contentment."

"Uh-oh," Nancy drawls.

"Well put, kiddo.

"If that sicko pervert creep is all that happy, that can only mean, as Sherlock Holmes, used to say, the game's afoot."