"The point, John, is this," Eppick said. "I have a client, and he's hired me to make a certain retrieval on his behalf."

"A retrieval."

"That's exactly right. And I looked around, and I looked at old arrest records, you know, MOs of this guy and that guy, I still got my access to whatever I want over there, and it seemed to me you're the guy I want to help me in this issue of this retrieval."

"I'm reformed," Dortmunder said.

"Have a relapse," Eppick suggested. "Recidify." Picking up the picture, he returned it to his coat pocket, then pushed the business card closer to Dortmunder, saying, "You come to my office tomorrow morning, ten a.m., you'll meet my employer, he'll explain the whole situation. You don't show up, expect to hear knocking on your door."

"Urm," Dortmunder said.

Rising up out of the booth, Eppick nodded away, grinned in an amiable fashion, and said, "Give my hello to your friend Andy Kelp. But it's just you I want to see in the morning."

And he turned and walked out of the bar to the outer sidewalk, leaving behind a sopping dishrag where there once had been a man.

2

WHEN DORTMUNDER'S BREATHING had returned to normal, he twisted around on the seat to look for Kelp, who had already departed for the back room. He knew he was supposed to follow the others back there now, where, instead of the original agenda, they would expect him to answer a whole lot of questions. He didn't think he'd enjoy that.

Facing the other way — toward the street, in fact — trying to decide what to do, he was in time to see another arrival push through the door, this one distinctive in every way. If people come in sizes, this guy was jumbo. Maybe even colossal. What he looked mostly like was the part of the rocket that gets jettisoned over the Indian Ocean, plus a black homburg. In addition to the homburg, he wore many yards of black wool topcoat over a black turtleneck sweater that made it seem as though his massive head were rising out of a hillside.