Pak slowly took off his coat. He stood rubbing his hands together for a moment, then pulled out the chair behind his desk and sat down. "I don't remember setting up an appointment with you two." He looked from one man to the other. "Or is this a friendly call? Maybe you want to repay the money you owe me. You do, you know. You both do. I haven't forgotten. And, oh, say, is that your car down there? It's in my spot." Pak slammed the flat of his hand down on the desk. "Move it."

The man who was sleeping yawned and opened his eyes at the sound. He glanced at me without interest. "Yeah, well, we'll take custody now, so don't worry about your parking spot." He stood up and moved toward the foreigner.

"No one is going anywhere until I make a phone call." Pak rarely balked at surrendering custody. There was something funny in his manner; it made me uneasy when he acted strange like this. "We've been tramping around in the snow for hours. I'll be damned if the two of you will just take over after sitting here and napping all night. You want to play, find yourself some orders, and they better be written orders," he paused. "Pretend to be useful for a change instead of just pushing people around." Pak picked up the phone, listened for a moment, then put it down again.

The two of them smiled together, as if one were a mirror image of the other. A moment later, the first one's face fell back into anger. His mouth moved a few times, but nothing came out.

"Phones are down," the second one said and yawned again. His overcoat had a nice fur-lined hood on it. "You know you can't keep him, and you know why. So don't be a dope."