"Listen," Juno told him, "those two guys have had more things in their whiskey than ever got wrote down in books jerks like you read. They're tough, the little punks."
"Well, if they do wake up, I'm sure you can take care of the two of them. So there's the situation, Mr. Gish, and the only trouble is that Mrs. Jones won't tell us where Mr. Brimstine is. She started to, but then she shut up like an air lock. We've pleaded with her, we've implored her, we've promised her things. I've done my best to explain to her just how cosmically important it is that the Green One be served and worshipped properly, so that he will be able to change the world. Señor da Silva flattered and jollied her, and Dr. Opperly was friendly as anything. But she just won't talk."
"I sure won't talk to nuts like you," the female wrestler told him wrathfully. "If you hadn't started acting so squirrely, I'd have probably spilled it straight off. But I'm not the sort of person who likes to be jollied or anything else—"
"'Scuse please," Dion interrupted. "No jolly, really mean. Much like you, Juno Jones. Big strong woman."
"And I don't enjoy nut talk," Juno said to Sacheverell, ignoring da Silva. "Every crazy reason you gave me for talking made me that much surer I wouldn't." She took a drink and turned toward Phil, her elbows on her correspondingly large knees. "Now, with you it's different," she said. "You got a nut's idea of food, but outside of that you're pretty human. And I gotta admit you're a gutsy little guy, because I saw you go up against Brimstine and from what I hear you did some more of the same later. But the main thing is that you own this crazy cat, or at least you was looking for it when I first met you. And I don't believe you had any nut ideas about it, though I thought so at the time. That right, Phil? Or are you planning to do something cosmic with that cat?"
"I just want to find it," Phil said honestly.
"That settles it for me. It's your cat and you got a right to know where it is, even if you get killed trying to get it and I get into all sorts of mucking trouble for telling you. You want I should tell you in private, Phil, or just say it right out in front of all these screwballs?"
"Thank you, Juno," Phil said quietly. "Just say it right out."
Juno opened her mouth—and then said, "Oh, Lord."
Phil turned around. Jack and Cookie were just coming in from the hall.