ps.

Then he stopped. The Mongol, his eyes red with a combination of vodka
and bull-roaring rage, was charging toward him, his hands outflung and
his fingers grasping at the air. "Warmonger!" he was shouting.
"Capitalist slave-owner! Leprous and ancient cannibal without culture!
You have begun a war you can not finish!"

"Ha!" Malone said, feeling inadequate to the occasion. As the Mongol
charged, he felt a wave of intense pragmatism come over him. He
reached back toward the bar, grabbed a bottle of vodka and tossed
several glassfuls into the giant's face. The Mongol, deluged and
screaming, clawed wildly at his eyes and spun round several times,
cursing Malone and all his kin for the next twenty-seven generations,
and grabbing thin air in his attempt to reach the _Amerikanski_.

All of the customers appeared to have discovered urgent engagements
elsewhere. There was little for the Mongol to collide with except
empty tables and chairs. But he did manage to swipe one of the
lumpy-faced men on the side of the head with one flail of his arms.
The lumpy-faced man said "Yoop!" and went staggering away into
Petkoff, who spun him around and threw him away in the general
direction of the bandstand. The diversion provided Malone with just
enough time to start moving again.

Four uniformed men were making their way toward the ladies' room from
the opposite side of the restaurant. They were carrying a stretcher,
which seemed pitifully inadequate for the carnage Malone had just
left.

He blocked their path. "Where are you going?" he said.

"You are American?" one of them said. "I speak English good, no?"

Behind him, Malone heard a yowl and a crunch, as of a body striking
wood. It sounded as if somebody had fetched up against the bar. "You
speak English fine," he said, feeling wildly out of place. "Have you
been taking lessons?"

"Me?" the man said. "It is no time for talk. We got to get lady for
hospital."

"Lady?" Malone said. "For hospital?"

"Miss Garbitsch her name is," the stretcher-man said, trying to get
past Malone. The FBI agent shifted slightly, blocking the path. "We
wait outside one revolution--"

"One what?"

"When hands revolve once," the man said. "One hour. Now we get call so
we take her to hospital."

It sounded suspicious to Malone. He heard more yells behind him, and
they sounded a little closer. The sound of running men came to his
ears. "Well," he said happily, "goodbye all."

The stretcher-