"Because such people have to be whittled down to size occasionally. They serve a useful purpose in society but they can't be allowed to get out of hand again."
"You win. But you still haven't told me what you want with Mike."
"I'm going to take him in hand," she laughed, and dodged into a crowd of tipsy merrymakers as he reached for her.
They took a compressed air car to the City Hall, a vision in black marble which towered at the very top of the mountain. Sadie's crumpled safe conduct got them past guard after frowning guard, but they saw several less fortunate citizens being booted down the wide steps.
They were escorted into a 100-foot-long chamber. At the end of it, a colorless man in a colorful uniform was almost hidden behind a desk three sizes too large for him. It was Mike, all right, but a Mike considerably changed by his success. That is, he no longer sniggered sadistically; he frowned sadistically. He still gnawed the knuckle of his left forefinger, however, with the same nervous gesture he had used when he had been bodyguard to the brutal boss of Dead Man's Delta.
"Well?" he barked when their guards had placed the visitors before his chromium and plastic throne.
"Well yourself," the patrolman snapped. "Send your gorillas away."
Mike gnawed in indecision, then gave the order.