the
Nevada desert. You grabbed them from Palveri."

"I got nothing to do with it," Sand said.

Malone looked around and found a chair and an ashtray. He grabbed one
and sat down in the other. "I'm not from Castelnuovo," he said. "Or
Palveri, or any of the Mafia boys. If I were, you'd know it fast
enough."

Sand regarded him from under eyelids made almost entirely of
scar-tissue. "I guess so," he said sourly at last. "But what do you
want to know about the stuff? And who are you, anyhow?"

"The name's Malone," Malone said. "You might say trouble is my
business. Or something like that. I see an opportunity to create a
little trouble--but not for you. That is, if you want to hear some
more about those buttons. Of course, if you had nothing to do with
it--"

"All right," Sand said. "All right. But it was strictly a legitimate
proposition, understand?"

"Sure," Malone said. "Strictly legitimate."

"Well, it was," Sand said defensively. "We got to stop scab trucking,
don't we? And that Palveri was using nonunion boys on the trucks. We
had to stop them; it was a service to the Brotherhood, understand?"

"And the peyotl buttons?" Malone asked.

Sand shrugged. "So we had to confiscate the cargo, didn't we?" he
said. "To teach them a lesson. Nonunion drivers, that's what we're
against."

"And you're for peyotl," Malone said, "so you can make it into peyote
and get enough money to refurbish Brotherhood Headquarters."

"Now, look," Sand said. "You think you're tough and you can get away
with a lot of wisecracks. That's a wrong idea, brother." He didn't
move, but he suddenly seemed set to spring. Malone wondered if, just
maybe, his precognition had blown a fuse.

"O.K., let's forget it," he said. "But I've got some inside lines,
Sand. You didn't get the real shipment."

"Didn't get it?" Sand said with raised eyebrows. "I got it. It's
right where I can put my finger on it now."

"That was the fake," Malone said easily. "They knew you were after a
shipment, Sand, so they suckered you in. They fed your spies with
false information and sent you out after the fake shipment."

"Fake shipment?" Sand said. "It's the real stuff, brother. The real
stuff."

"But not enough of it," Malone said. "Their big shipments are almost
three times what you got. They made one while you were suckered off
with the fake--and they're making another one next week. Interested?"

Sand snorted. "The hell," he said. "Didn't you hear me say