"This is too easy," Keats' voice murmured dubiously. "Maybe it's another trap...."
"You're always going to imagine traps, Mr. Exterminator, whether they're there or not. You and Lockard both—people who run must have something to run from, and half the time it's not there and half the time, of course, it is; only you never know which is which—"
"You talk too much," the man behind him snarled. "Shut up and keep moving."
"Back again?" the Vinzz at the door asked. The present Carmody was a little startled. Somehow he had thought of the Vinzz as too remote from humanity to be able to distinguish between individual members of the species. "I'm afraid neither of you is qualified to play."
"No reason why we shouldn't have a private game, is there?" John Keats demanded belligerently.
The Vinzz' tendrils quivered. "In that case, no, no reason at all. If you want to be so unsporting and can afford it. It will cost you a hundred thousand credits each."
"But that's twice what I had to pay last week!" Keats protested angrily.
The Vinzz shrugged an antenna. "You are, of course, at liberty to take your trade elsewhere, if you choose."
"Oh, hell," the temporarily poetic-looking killer snarled. "We're stuck and you know it. Let's get it over with!"