izens to marry and propagate.

Thus, the first load of bims from South Akard Street in Dallas found
eager customers. But these babes, who romanced anything in pants on
earth, went on a stand-up strike when they saw and smelled the
Martians. Especially smelled. They smelled worse than Texas yahoos
just off a cow farm.

This proved embarrassing, to say the least, to the procurers.
Considerable sums of money were invested in this human cargo, and the
boys feared dire consequences from their shylocks, should they return
empty-handed.

In our other Confidential essays we told you how the Mafia employs
some of the best brains on Earth to direct and manage its far-flung
properties, including high-priced attorneys, accountants, real-estate
experts, engineers and scientists.

A hurried meeting of the Grand Council was called and held in a
bungalow on the shores of one of Minneapolis' beautiful lakes. The
decision reached there was to corner chlorophyll (which accounts in
part for the delay in putting it on the market down here) and ship it
to Mars to deodorize the populace there. After which the ladies of the
evening got off their feet and went back to work.

_GAMBLING_: Until the arrival of the Mafia, gambling on Mars was
confined to a simple game played with children's jacks. The loser had
to relieve the winner of his wife.

The Mafia brought up some fine gambling equipment, including the
layouts from the Colonial Inn in Florida, and the Beverly in New
Orleans, both of which were closed, and taught the residents how to
shoot craps and play the wheel, with the house putting up sugar
against precious stones and metals. With such odds, it was not
necessary to fake the games more than is customary on Earth.

IV

LITTLE NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL

Despite what Earth-bound professors tell you about the Martian
atmosphere, we know better. They weren't there.

It is a dogma that Mars has no oxygen. Baloney. While it is true that
there is considerably less than on Earth in the surface atmosphere,
the air underground, in caves, valleys and tunnels, has plenty to
support life lavishly, though why Martians want to live after they
look at each other we cannot tell you, even confidential.

For this reason Martian cities are built underground, and travel
between them is carried on through a complicated system of subways
predating the New York IRT line by several thousand centuries, though
to the naked eye there is little differen