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. My therapists have to work hard to reorient the poor slobs. It's not funny.'
Mr Koshchei did not appear to listen. He leaned back in His old wooden swivel chair, making it creak - and, yes, I do not know that the creak came out of my memories - and looked again at my memoir. He scratched the grey fringe around His bald pate and made an irritating noise, half whistle, half hum - also out of my buried memories of Doc Simmons, but utterly real.
This female creature, the bait. A volitional?'
'In my opinion, yes, Mr Chairman.'
(Good heavens, Jerry! Don't you know?)
'Then I think we may assume that this one would not be satisfied with a simulacrum.' He hummed and whistled through His teeth. 'So let us look deeper.'
Mr Koshchei's office seemed small when we were admitted; now there were several others present: another angel who looked a lot like Jerry but older and with a pinched expression unlike Jerry's expansive joviality, another older character who wore a long coat, a big broad-brimmed hat, a patch over one eye, and had a crow sitting on his shoulder, and - why, confound his arrogance! - Sam Crumpacker, that Dallas shyster.
Back of Crumpacker three men were lined up, well-fed types, and all vaguely familiar. I knew I had seen them before.
Then I got it. I had won a hundred (or was it a thousand?) from each of them on a most foolhardy bet.
I looked back at Crumpacker, and was angrier than ever - the scoundrel was now wearing my face!
I turned to Jerry and started to whisper urgently
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