I held up a handful of recordings. "These are the survivors of a grueling test I put them through. If I could listen for more than fifteen seconds I made a copy. We will now refine the process even more. Anything we can bear for thirty seconds goes into the second round."

I popped one of the tiny black chips into the player and sat back. Atonal musical thunder rumbled over us and a soprano with a voice like a pregnant porcuswine assailed our ears. I popped the recording out, ground it under my heel, then went on to the next one.

By late afternoon our eyes were red-rimmed with tears, our ears throbbing, our brains numbed and throbbing as well.

"Is that enough for the moment?" I asked sweetly and my answer was a chorus of groans. "Right. On the way in here I noticed that right next door is a drinking parlor by the name of Dust on Your Tonsils. I can only assume that is a little joke and they intend to wash the dust from their clients' tonsils. Shall we see if that is true?"

"Let's go!" Floyd said and led the exodus.

"A toast," I said when the drinks had arrived. We lifted our glasses. "To The Stainless Steel Rats — long may they play!"

They cheered and drank, then laughed and called for another round. It was all going to work out hunky-dory I thought.

Then why was I so depressed?

Chapter 5

I was depressed because it was really a pretty madcap plan. The idea had been to allow a week for our publicity to peak, for some musical awards to be made-then the crime had to occur. In that brief period we were not only going to have to find some music, but we would have to rehearse the stuff and hopefully gain at least a moderate level of ability. Some chance. We were cutting it too fine. We needed some more help.

"Madonette, a question." I sipped some more beer first. "I must admit to an abysmal ignorance of the mechanics of making music. Is there someone who sort of makes up the tunes, then writes down the stuff that everyone is going to play?"