Judith smiled when she saw it. I didn't. I live in a moderately tough part of town, and I figured there was at least one chance in three the skin was no joke. Wonderful smells greeted us just inside the entrance. The only trouble with Hanese restaurants is that so much of what they serve is forbidden to those who observe the Law. Sea cucumbers I can live without, but I've heard so much about scallops and lobster that I'm always tempted to try them. But how can a man who'd break what he sees as God's Law be trusted to uphold the laws of men? I was good again. So was Judy, whose job and whose life also took discipline.

Still, you can't really complain about hot and sour soup, beef with black mushrooms, crispy duck, and crystal-boiled chicken with spicy sauces. Everything was good, too; this was a place I'd visit again. While Judy and I ate, I told her about the Devonshire dump.

"Three cases of apsydua this year?" she said. Her eyebrows went way up, and stayed way up. "Something's badly wrong there."

"I think so, too, and so does the dump administrator - fellow named Tony Sudakis - even though he won't say so where a Listener can hear him." I sipped my tea. "You deal with magic more intimately than I do, maybe even more intimately than Sudakis: intimately in a way different from his, anyhow. I'm glad you're worded, it tells me I'm right to feel the same way."

"You certainly are." She nodded so vigorously, her hair flew out in a cloud around her head. Then her eyes filled with tears, "just think of those poor babies-"

"I know." I'd thought about them a lot I couldn't help it.

Vampires and lycanthropes have their problems, heaven knows, but what hope is there for a kid with no soul? None, zero, zip. I drank more tea, hoping it would cleanse my mind along with my palate. No such luck. Then I told Judy what Charlie Kelly had said about a bird telling him something might be amiss at the dump. "He wouldn't give me any details - he wanted to be coy. What do you suppose he meant?"