The Golden Globe

Toby was in charge of love and absolute loyalty, and I could return nothing less to him.

"Is man no more than this?" I shouted. "Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here."

And I began tearing my clothes.

It seemed unusually quiet as I exited the stage. You expect a few slaps on the back, a wink, a thumbs-up. Some encouragement, acknowledgment that things are going well. There was none of that, and for a moment I was worried. Then I saw the faces of the cast and knew the silence meant something else. They were moving out of my way. Some did not even dare to look at me. They were afraid of intruding on me, afraid that anything they might do or say would short-circuit the magic. Theater people are intensely superstitious, always alert for the potential jinx, the careless word or gesture that will shatter someone's concentration.

I think they were a little afraid of me.

"It's a wonderful performance, Sparky."

"I wish you'd quit calling me that."

"It's how I think of you. How I remember you. I really was a fan, you know."

Incredible as it may seem, I believed him. And I also believed he appreciated Shakespeare, and my performance as Lear. How a man raised in such a perverted society could still cherish the arts of a common humanity I will leave for the reader to research, accept, or disbelieve, as takes your pleasure. But his desire to see the end of the play was my only current hope of salvation, his only window of weakness. I didn't dare question it.

"You know I'm going to kill you, don't you?" I asked.

"I know you're going to try." The prospect didn't seem to disturb him.

I had nothing to do for a while. The King sits out most of Act Four. On the stage, Gloucester was having his eyes gouged out. Cornwall would soon meet his Maker. Time to start laying my plans.

Believe it or not, I was hopeful.

Toby was in Izzy's lap, but refused to be cradled. With someone he likes, Toby is capable of sprawling over your hand and arm, limp as a noodle, completely trusting you not to let him fall. Or he can be a shameless beggar, licking your face, wagging his tail, angling for a handout.

Not now. He sat stiffly, looking from Izzy's face then over to me. He was saying, "Why don't you ditch this jerk?" When Izzy's hand moved in Toby's fur, the little lip curled slightly and the tips of his teeth showed. He was far too well-bred to bite the hand of a guest, but clearly he'd like to. With Toby and Izzy, it was hate at first sight.

I don't think Comfort hated Toby. I don't think he viewed Toby as a feeling thing at all. Anyone can tell a dog lover. A dog lover can't keep his hands off a dog. Put one in his lap and he will stroke, scratch, laugh when his face is licked, sometimes coo and gibber like a fool. Comfort held Toby like he would hold a pillow.

"I was wondering if we could talk," I said.

"It would be out of character to plead for your life."

"Not plead. But maybe we could bargain."

He laughed. "Money doesn't tempt me, and you don't have any. What else do you have to offer?"

"I wondered if we could talk about the frog."

He was silent for a while, his eyes narrowing.

"I'd meant to ask you about that," he said. It was as if he was looking for a trap of some kind, and I didn't get it.

"Ask what?"

He shrugged. "What frog?"

"What..." It seemed we weren't communicating. I opened my hand, where the evil little netsuke had been resting. The tiny frog still crouched on the skull, his eyes still unsurprised at all they saw. It felt warm and alive. Ivory is a very sensual surface. I could hardly keep my thumb from caressing it.

I started to toss it toward him and a palm-sized, deadly-looking black pistol materialized in Comfort's free hand. I'm sure it hadn't been there before, and I'm sure it hadn't been up his sleeve, but where it came from and how he got it without apparent movement will have to remain a Charonese secret. He was very fast.

So I carefully set it on the arm of his chair. He looked at it, made the gun vanish (how did he do that?), and gingerly picked it up. He stroked the frog with his thumb, then set it back down.

"Very pretty," he said. Pretty is not the word I would have used, but I'm not Charonese. "What does it have to do with me?"

Here the script calls for the protagonist to sit for a moment in stu

"Well, she never reported it to us," he said, with a slight smile. "If she had, we would have come for it, taken it from you, and broken both your arms. You'd have been repaired and on your way in a few hours."

"But—"

"We were called in by the governor of Boondock. You do remember visiting Boondock, don't you? Certainly you remember the young lady you met there. I saw her picture, and I certainly wouldn't have forgotten."

"But she was—"

"Nineteen, and engaged to a banker's son. Boondock is an independent city-state within the Outer Federation. It was established by a religious cult about a century ago. They have some unusual customs there, one of which is legally mandated obedience to one's parents until the age of majority, which they say is twenty-five years."

"I didn't—"

"As in so many other places, ignorance is no excuse. I'm sure your producer handed out a booklet before your arrival, concerning local customs; they always do. And like most passengers, you threw it away along with the booklet the shipping line gave you concerning emergency evacuation procedures. But you really should have read it, Sparky. Your brief affair with the girl upset a lot of political plans concerning an upcoming arranged marriage. Family honor demanded reparations.

"We Charonese are the only broad authority beyond Pluto. We're the only ones with enough discipline to maintain strict standards over such a vast region. Each enclave has its own rules and its own enforcers, but when someone flees a jurisdiction, as you did, we are called in. We work only by contract, and the governor's policy with us sets out prescribed remedies for different situations. First, we guaranteed to hunt you down. As I'm sure you have learned from your researches, we always get our man."

"Hunt me down and kill me," I said.

"Hunt you down. The governor was a bit cheap, though, and didn't pay for death in this instance. I'm not sure we would have written such a policy, anyway. We tend to operate more on an eye-for-an-eye basis. Almost Biblical, you might say."

"Biblical."

"Exactly. Since there was no way for us to take your virginity and ruin your marriage prospects, of course, we would have used other methods. The usual penalty would be three days of pain, followed by a year's incarceration."

"So you never intended to kill me."

"I blame myself, really," he said. "I assumed you knew that, back on the Brita