"Vug and Toscin will be glad to see me," he said. "But they'll never believe me." He lay down. Retief strapped his feet together and stuffed a handkerchief in his mouth.
"Why are you doing that?" Magnan asked. "We need him."
"We know the way. And we don't need anyone to announce our arrival. It's only on three-dee that you can march a man through a gang of his pals with a finger in his back."
Magnan looked at the man. "Maybe you'd better, uh, cut his throat," he said.
Illy rolled his eyes.
"That's a very un-Nenni-like suggestion, Mr. Magnan," Retief said. "If we have any trouble finding the casino, I'll give it serious thought."
There were few people in the narrow street. Shops were shuttered, windows dark.
"Maybe they heard about the coup," Magnan said. "They're lying low."
"More likely, they're at the palace picking up their knives."
They rounded a corner, stepped over a man curled in the gutter snoring heavily and found themselves at the foot of a long flight of littered stone steps.