“I know too much. They’re afraid I may fall into the wrong hands. Con Ed tried to kidnap me last year.”

“I can’t stand the torture any longer. I’m really a spy for AT T. In drag. My real name is Nellie.”

He laughed again, still deadpan. “You’re all right, Nellie. I’m a pure Cherokee.”

“Nobody’s pure anything these days.”

“I am. My mother named me Sequoya.”

“No wonder you’re hiding the name. Why’d she play a dirty trick like that on you?”

“She’s romantic. She wants me to remember that I’m the twentieth in direct descent from the mighty Chief.”

Fee-5 came into the trap, playing the intellectual bit now; hornrim spectacles without lenses, stark naked and covered with spray-can graffiti, applied by herself.

“What’s this thing selling?” Guess asked.

“No, she’s a realsie.”

“Gas,” Fee told the bar and turned great dark eyes on us. “Benny Diaz, gemmum.”

“It’s all right, Fee. He speaks XX. An educated type. This is Dr. Sequoya Guess. You can call him Chief. Chief, this is Fee-5 Grauman’s Chinese. Talk about names!”

“Great grief is a divine and terrible radiance which transforms the wretched,” Fee said in somber tones.

“What is it and what’s it grieving for?” Sequoya wanted to know.

“Could be anyone. Newton, Dryden, Bix, Von Neumann, Heinlein. You name it. She’s my girl-Friday.”

“Also Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday,” Fee said, belting down her gas. She pierced the Chief with a clinical look. “You want to fondle my boozalum,” she said. “Go ahead. Don’t deny your manhood.”

Sequoya pulled off her spectacles and perched them on one of her boozalums, which were recent and a source of great pride. “That one’s a little cockeyed,” he said. “What kind of name is Fee?” he asked me. “Short for Fee-Fie-Fo-Fum?”

“Short for Fee-mally.”