"Drag up a chair," Tharpe said. I don't know why he's called Saucerhead. He don't like it much but ranks it higher than "Waldo," which a parent or two hung on him.

I planted my behind. Tharpe's companion observed, "Seems you're less than welcome here. Are you diseased?" He wasn't just gloomy, he was forthright, a social handicap worse than bad breath.

"Ha!" Saucerhead snorted. "Ha-ha-ha. That's good, Licks. Hell. This's Garrett. I told you about him."

"The mist begins to clear." But not around him, it didn't.

"I'm starting to feel a little hurt here," I said. "You're wrong." Louder, "You're all of you wrong. I'm not working. I'm not into anything. I just thought I'd drop in and catch up on my friends." They didn't believe me.

At least nobody cracked wise about me not having any friends.

Saucerhead said, "If you'd come around and socialize sometimes, instead of just when you're up to your crack in crocodiles, maybe folks would smile when they saw you."

Grumble grumble. Hard to argue with that. "You're looking good, Garrett. Lean and mean. Still working out?"

"Yeah." More grumbles. I don't much like work. Especially not workout-type work. I figure in any rational world a man will get all the exercise he needs catching his share of blonds, brunettes, and redheads. Got it so far? I'm Garrett, investigator and confidential agent, not animated by any overwhelming ambition, with a penchant for figures of a certain kind and a knack for stumbling into things friends and acquaintances don't find enthralling. I'm a young thirty, six-feet-two, ginger-haired and blue-eyed, and the dogs don't howl when I go by, though the hazards of my profession have left traces which give my face character. I say I'm charming. My friends disagree, say I just won't take life serious. Well, you do too much of that and you end up as dark as this friend of Saucerhead's.