In my case, all that transpired was an apoplectic phone call, but with a great many of his other tenants he wasn’t so lucky. They were behind in their rent, and were used to things like eviction notices, so they moved. Just like that, the poor clown had a third of his apartments vacant and not a chance of collecting all the back rent.

I suppose he fired the girl. I suppose she went home and yelled at her mother or threw a shoe at the cat. I suppose the cat ran off and scratched someone. It was that kind of summer, and each day was worse than the last one.

By then I knew that the heat wave wasn’t going to end. I didn’t care what the weather bureau said, it was going to remain hot until I got a new air-conditioner. I was positive of it. Everything was going wrong; all of civilization was gradually crumbling around me. I sat in my apartment and read the Book of Jeremiah and waited for the world to end.

And then, of course, I got a message from the Chief.

I’ll have to explain about the Chief. I don’t know very much about him, but then neither does anyone else. He heads some sort of ultrasecret government agency. I don’t know its name, nor, for that matter, do I know the Chief’s name. As far as I can tell, his outfit handles the sort of operations that call for individual agents left on their own initiative and operating from deep cover. While the Central Intelligence Agency, for example, uses elaborate courier nets, the Chief’s men don’t even know each other. They don’t file formal reports, are forbidden even to get in touch with their own headquarters, and are generally left to work things out on their own.

The Chief thinks I’m one of his men.

Maybe I am. It’s hard to say. He once sprang me from a CIA dungeon somewhere in darkest Washington and since then he has made contact from time to time to hand me assignments.