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Milos ay too callad you could cosy hated him on principal It was Mary who had convinced hiet an earful for this!

He tried to stand but his legs were tied too tightly "All three of you have just bought yourself a place on the sy's pet expressions for a trip to the center of the earth--along with "earning core tiain," said Milos Pugsy glanced around, and instantly knew exactly where he was This hat he affectionately called "the suban where he would dispatch unwanted Afterlights into the "dirty deep," yet another pet naht now, there were three others bound and gagged, with cinder blocks tied to their ankles He would have thought the as done by his bodyguards Except that they were his bodyguards Now Pugsy began to worry

"Tell hts you have thrown frosy nervously "I don't keep count"

"Guess"

"Throw him off! Throw hiaze that shut hiuess"

"Uh, ht" Milos nodded to the other two, and they lifted up one of Pugsy's boys, then tossed him off the dock

"No!" screarown tired of you," he said "So I a you to leave alone, and to leave now"

"What are you, nuts?"

Milos nodded to the others again, and they sent the second of Pugsy's bodyguards off to the dirty deep

"You have thirty seconds to accept et Mary! She'll negotiate for ive you whatever you want!"

The other two laughed, and Milos whispered to hi" He signaled the other two, and they hurled Pugsy's last bodyguard off for serious core tisy, and tied it around his ankles

"Okay, okay, okay, I see you mean business! So I'll tell you what You can untie ht now and I'll never coave Pugsy a satisfied smile Then he said, "I'm sorry, but I cannot hear you"

"What?"

"You have ten seconds"

"I said I'll leave! I'll leave!"

"Sorry, your answer must be in Russian"

"I don't speak Russian!"

"Five seconds"

"I'll leave-ski Chicago-ski!"

"Tisy"

"Nooooooo!"

Pugsy was lighter than the other three, so he flew ed through the living-world water, as thin to him as air, and then passed into the lake bed, toward his place on--or rather in--the mantel As he sunk deeper and deeper into the earth, he could only hope that when he reached the center, he wouldn't come across anyone he sent there hihts of Chicago were called for a town sy announced his partnership with Mary so out over the crowd This tisy was absent Instead she stood with Speedo beside her Milos was there, too, but he lingered in the background, along with a silently aggravated Jackin' Jill

"You shouldn't be up here at all," Jill told Milos "I earned the right to be here, but what have you done?"

"Not much," Milos told her "Just as necessary"

She was uni around "He's never late when he calls a town sy did not call it," Milos said casually

At the front of the balcony Mary looked down on the crowd Speedo, having been a finder, was still intihts Finders were usually hunted down by suchIt didn't help that he was eternally in a wet bathing suit, displaying a bare belly in a pasty shade of pale He could never get used to being Mary's right-handMilos for the position Speedo, who had no desire for power beyond the horsepower of an airship engine, would be round when the time came--and he hoped it came soon

"Look at all of them," said Mary "It hardly seehts' anyested Speedo