The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

That's right, David." She smiled sweetly. Bea isn't what you'd call pretty, but she can look almost angelic sometimes: being sure you're on the right path will do that for you, I guess. She went on, "I figured it would be better to have both of them in your hands than to make two people run back and forth checking with each other all the time and maybe working at cross purposes."

"Okay," I said; put that way, it made sense. Bea didn't get to be boss of my unit on the strength of an angelic smile; she has a head on her shoulders.

The easiest way to handle the issue would be to work up two scenarios," she said: "one for the leprechauns' environmental effects without worrying about the Chumash powers, the other assuming those Powers do still manifest themselves here." 'Yeah, that makes sense." I scribbled a note on a scrap of foolscap on my desk. "Thanks, Bea."

"Any time," she said, sweetly still, and went off to inflict impossible amounts of work on someone else. To be fair, I have to admit she worked like a team ofPercherons herself. And she had put her finger on the most efficient way to handle the two studies side by side. They still wouldn't be easy or quick. I'd have to design simulations approximating the immediate effect of leprechauns on the thecology of Angels City with and without taking into account the Chumash Powers. Then an EPA wizard would animate the simulations and follow them under the crystal ball as far into the future as he could, noting changes every year or two until the images faded into uncertainty.

I'd have to justify every assumption I used in my initial simulations, too. The people who wanted to import leprechauns in carpetioad lots and the folk who were convinced bringing in even one wee fellow would disrupt the local thecosystem would both be preparing their own models and running them under crystal balls. I'd need to demonstrate that mine were the most accurate representations of what was likely to happen.

All of which meant that I didn't get out to Bakhtiar's Precision Burins that afternoon, let alone Chocolate Weasel.

And neither I nor anybody else did any fancy spellchecker sniffing around the Devonshire dump to try to find out just what (if anything) was leaking out.

People long for the days (or at least they say they do) when the king ruled instead of reigning, when the power of the barons was undiluted, when the prime minister kept quiet and did what he was told. They say the government's gotten too big, too complex.

Maybe they're right some of the time. I couldn't teD you for sure; politics is a brand of theology that never excited me. But I will tell you this: some important EPA work wasn't getting done because my department didn't have enough people to deal with projects as fast as they came up. Am I supposed to assume we're the only government outfit with that problem?

I know I worked overtime that night; I made it to the synagogue with bare minutes to spare before the rabbi started singing L'khah dodi to welcome in the Sabbath. Judy was sitting so close to the front on the women's side that she didn't even see me come in. I didn't manage to nod at her - let alone say hello - until the service was done.

"I was afraid you weren't coming," she said after we hugged.

"Work." I made it sound like the four-letter word it was.

"Listen, have you eaten yet?" I grimaced when she nodded.

"All right, you want to come along with me anyhow? I'll get you pie and coffee or something. I flew straight here from the office."

"Sure," she said. "Where do you want to go?"

We ended up at a Lenny's not far from the synagogue: a step up from the Golden Steeples, a step down from a real restaurant. I just wanted to feed my face - and they do have pretty fair pie.

And besides, I thought, remembering Henry Legion, it wasn't a place that was likely to have a Listener planted in it.

I hadn't called Judy back to tell her about the spook: by the time he got out of my flat, I was imagining people (and Things) listening to my phone calls. When I was through, she stared at me for a few seconds. Then she said, "You're not making that up," in a tone of voice that meant she'd been wondering right up to the end.

"Not a bit of it." I was a little hurt she had trouble believing me, but only a little, because I would have had trouble believing a story like that from anybody else. I mean, people don't just start having visits from spooks with threatening manners… except I did. I added, "From what he said, maybe I shouldn't be telling you any of this."

"David Fisher, if you even thought of keeping me in the dark, I'd show your picture to a mirror and then break the mirror," she said indignantly.

"I sort of expected as much," I said. "Thing is, from what Henry Legion said, it's liable to get dangerous."

"You didn't worry about that when you took me to the Thomas Brothers fire-"

I tried to interrupt: "I didn't take you there; you invited yourself."