I checked the mail first-a letter from American Express addressed to one of my other names demanding immediate payment of $3,504.25 or else they would wreck my credit rating for openers, a package on the latest FM transceiver bands from the U.S. Law Enforcement Assistance Administration addressed to the Crime Prevention Foundation, and a check for $771.25 from the Social Security Administration addressed to Mrs. Sophie Petrowski (the unfortunate Mr. Petrowski’s only survivor), proving to me that despite a lengthy sojourn in the federal joint the Mouse was continuing his one successful scam. There were also four handwritten letters containing the requisite ten-dollar money order in response to my ad promising information about “mercenary opportunities in foreign lands for qualified adventurers.”

I threw the American Express garbage where it belonged, put the Petrowski check inside a handsome envelope engraved with Law Offices of Alexander James Sloan, and typed the Mouse’s righteous name and institutional number on the outside. Stamped with my bold red Confidential Legal Mail, the envelope next went into my postage meter, a machine which could never be returned to Pitney Bowes for service. I understand the Mouse has a friendly guard who will cash these for him, obviously a future roommate. I added the four would-be mercenaries’ names to my Rolodex, took a manila envelope for each and enclosed a Rhodesian Army recruiting poster (Be a Man Among Men!), an Exxon map of Afghanistan, two phone numbers for bars in Earl’s Court, London, and the name of a hotel on the island of Sao Tome off the coast of Nigeria. As usual, none of them had enclosed the self-addressed, stamped envelope. The world is full of crooks.

The buzzer sounded, telling me either I or the dope-crazed hippies in the lower loft had a customer. I switched the toggle over to Talk, and hit the Play switch on the cassette recorder. A sweet female voice lilted out of the recorder and into the microphone connected to the downstairs speaker, “Yes please?”