at the time, Kane soon found that he had only circled on the fringes of it. This was only the beginning.

"Here we are, here were are, gang!" someone shouted as they piled out of the cabs and Kane was being hustled toward the suddenly formidable glint of a revolving door.

So here we are, Kane thought. It was nice being here all right. He was glad, very glad. But it sounded as though someone might swoon over the fact.

There was some difficulty with the revolving door. No one seemed able to move first, and there were spontaneous group lunges ending in jamming chaos in which someone hurt their arm. Kane thought it was the fat man, Ben.

"We're hurt!" Jenny screamed.

"Oh—it's not bad," Ben said, laughing all the time he was groaning. "Just bruised a little, gang. We're just bruised a little."

Kane grabbed his advantage and ventured alone through the revolving doors into the lobby. A pair of desk clerks nodded across the lobby. A group was emerging from behind drapes and beyond them Kane saw an ornate, subtly lighted, cocktail lounge.

Kane was heading for the elevator when the gang overtook him.

Laura had hold of one of his arms, and Phil the other.

"We're having cocktails," Laura said.

Phil repeated it, and Ben and Jenny joined in. The young man, Clarence, was singing as he herded the others toward the drapes of the cocktail lounge, and they were all whisking Kane away before he could voice any protest.

"What'll the gang have?" the waiter asked, smiling. Only he wasn't really smiling at any of them, Kane thought. He had picked out a center point of focus and was smiling at that so as not to appear to be smiling at any one, but at everyone.

"Martinis!" several voices said.

The waiter nodded, whirled away.

"Ah, waiter," Kane said. "I'll have a double shot of Scotch. No ice."

The waiter seemed shocked, unable to come to grips with Kane's seemingly simple order. "But—but I thought you said Martini."

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