Just then, the door to the bureau director's office opened and Schick's interview walked out. Schick was over six feet tall, but the bureau director rose nearly four inches higher than that. He extended a big hand and Schick took it. Schick looked him in the eyes, which were a strange deep gray with little yellow flecks. They slanted slightly above broad cheekbones. Karp's nose was fleshy, his mouth full, his chin bold and knobby, his hair neatly cut, medium length, and ash-brown.

"Mr. Karp?" Schick said.

"Yeah. You're Schick. Let's go in my office."

The big man gestured toward the open door, and as he followed Schick he said something in a low voice to the dark-haired woman perched on the desk. She responded with a hearty guffaw. Karp stopped and said something else. Out of the corner of his eye Schick thought he saw the woman make a casual grab for the rear end of his prospective employer-if true, yet another sign that he was not on Wall Street.

Schick entered the bureau chief's office and looked around. In the center of the room a long scarred oak table was surrounded by a dozen or so miscellaneous chairs. At one end was a massive walnut desk, with a battered brown leather chair behind it and two straight chairs before. The desk was cluttered with a drift of russet case folders, assorted papers and yellow pads. Schick noticed his own resume floating on top of the pile.

There was a coat stand in the corner, from which hung a navy-blue suit jacket, a set of sweat clothes, a N.Y. Yankees hat, and a first baseman's mitt. On the wall behind the desk hung some framed photographs: one of a softball team (Karp in the third row), one, cut from an old newspaper, of a much younger Karp shooting a basketball through the arms of an opposing player (caption: "Karp Scores 26 Against UCLA"), a photocopy of a news photograph showing some horsemen in white uniforms charging with lances, and what looked like a "wanted" poster printed in a foreign language. Schick was just leaning over the desk to inspect this last more closely when the door swung open and Karp came in.