The dog is a hell of a lot better than a burglar alarm. The copswouldn't rush into this neighborhood in the middle of the night anyway,and with Pansy on the job the burglar would still be there when anyoneshowed up. She's a Neapolitan mastiff -- about 140 pounds ofconcentrated hatred for all humanity except me. My last dog was aDoberman named Devil. She bit some clown and I got hit with a $100,000lawsuit, so she had to run away from home. She never had a license andI'm about as judgment-proof as a man can get, but this lawyer I refercases to sometimes told me that I should give my next dog a name thatwouldn't sound so negative. I thought of naming her the NeapolitanHomicide and calling her Homo for short, but the lawyer told me younever know who is going to be on a jury, especially in New York -- so Icompromised and called her Pansy. A lot of my clients don't like thedog, but that doesn't amount to a whole hell of a lot of people.

When Pansy came back downstairs, I shut the back door and got out herfood. I only feed her the dry stuff, but she still slobbers like apolitician near money. That's why I have the floor covered in Astroturf-- it handles anything, you just wash it off. A lot of my clients thinkthat's low-class too, but, like I said, there aren't enough of them tomake a difference.

I told the dog to stay where she was and went to check the other office.Actually, it's just the next room, but there's no connecting door andthe outer door was sealed shut years ago. I just use it when people Idon't want to see knock on my door -- once I stayed there for threedays. It has a private john, a fridge, a hotplate, and even a TV withearphones. Not bad -- but the only ventilation is the little window thatopens off the fire escape where I climb in so I don't use it too much.

I don't make a lot of money at what I do, but the overhead is no problem-- I have my own form of rent control. By accident, I once found outthat the landlord's son did something to some people and they've beenlooking for him ever since. I found the kid too, but his own motherwouldn't recognize him. The landlord bought him a new face, got himstarted in business, and the kid was golden -- except that I knew abouthim and I told the landlord I did. I haven't paid rent in about fouryears. There's no ethics problem -- nobody ever hired me to find thelittle weasel.

I checked the mail first -- a letter from American Express addressed toone of my other names demanding immediate payment of $3,504.25 or elsethey would wreck my credit rating for openers, a package on the latestFM transceiver bands from the U.S. Law Enforcement AssistanceAdministration addressed to the Crime Prevention Foundation, and a checkfor $771.25 from the Social Security Administration addressed to Mrs.Sophie Petrowski (the unfortunate Mr. Petrowski's only survivor),proving to me that despite a lengthy sojourn in the federal joint theMouse was continuing his one successful scam.