"Up to your old tricks again?"

"What old tricks?"

"You know what tricks. There's new material on you here."

So, I thought.

"Where from?"

He frowned and banged his pipe against the ashtray in irritation.

"That doesn't concern you,” he said. “As an old friend, I'm warning you. Knock it off, knock it off for good. If they get you a second time, you won't get off with six months. And they'll kick you out of the institute once and for all, understand?"

"I understand,” I said. “That I can understand. I just don't understand what bastard could have squealed."

But he was looking through me again, puffing on his empty pipe and flipping through the file. That meant that Sergeant Lummer had returned with case #150.

"Thank you, Schuhart,” said Capt. Willy Herzog, also known as the Hog. “That's all I wanted cleared up. You're free to go."

So I went to the locker room, pulled on my lab clothes and lit up. All along I kept thinking where the rumor could have come from. It had to be all lies if it came from within the institute, because nobody there knew anything about me and there was no way that anyone could. If it had been a report from the police—again, what could they know there except for my old sins? Maybe they had gotten Buzzard? That bastard, he'd drown his own grandmother to save his skin. But even Buzzard didn't know anything about me now. I thought and thought and didn't come up with anything very pleasant. So I decided the hell with it. The last time I had gone into the Zone at night was three months ago, and I had gotten rid of most of the stuff and had spent almost all of the money. They hadn't caught me with the goods, and I was too slippery for them to catch me now.

But then, just as I was heading up the stairs, I suddenly saw the light, and saw it so well that I had to go back to the locker room, sit down, and have another cigarette.