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    "Miss Aurora," he says. "I beg your pardon. I am merely attempting to confrm reservations which were already made…"

    "By whom?"

    "By your partner. He was given instructions to reserve all twenty-three of your tables for a very special dinner, after your regular working hours, fve nights from this evening."

    "What kind of 'special dinner'?" I ask him.

    He looks slightly annoyed. "You weren't informed?"

    "No, I wasn't. Nobody mentioned this to me." Glancing at Poogli, who adamantly shakes his head. "Who is this reservation for?"

     Rokoko smiles. "A good friend of Mr. Gutierrez."

    "That sure narrows it down. Anybody I know?"

    "I sincerely don't think so. But that's unimportant. The point is that there are certain…dietary requirements that would have to be met."

    "I'm listening."

    "In particular," and now Rokoko can't restrain his evil grin, "there are certain…meats which we would want to see prepared in your restaurant's singular fashion."

    Now my hackles are up, and my temper is climbing. I can see Fonzie's hand in this, and it's the hand that I don't like. My partner is a fairly remarkable man, and his charm is only heightened by his hunger for authenticity. But meat is a serious issue in Oz, and not

only just for me.

    "I'm sorry," I say, "but as I'm certain you know, we only serve goomer meat…"

    Rokoko rolls his eyes. "That's not what Mr. Gutierrez said."

    "Well, Mr. Gutierrez isn't here. I have no idea what he told you. And you know what? I don't care. If he has some sneaky meat deal going on with you guys—whoever you guys are—you might as well forget it. Nobody here will cook it, and nobody here will serve it."

    "Oh, be reasonable," he insinuates slyly, leaning into the word with his entire body. "After all, you've lived on Earth. You know what these recipes actually call for…"

    "Excuse me. I was a vegetarian for ten years before I even got to Oz. For what it's worth, I stopped eating cows and chickens and pigs long before they started throwing me birthday parties.

    "But why am I explaining this to you? The simple fact is that it's wrong, and you know it."

    "Wrong." He snorts dismissively.

    "Yeah. Wrong. Look it up." I take a step forward now. "And while you're at it, why don't you take a fuckin' hike?"

    He tenses, insulted. I like that a lot. If there's a battle to wage, let's get it over with now. I can feel the air contract, preparing for the scent of blood to drench it.

    He doesn't take the bait, but hatred simmers in his veins.

    "You are not welcome here, Mr. Rokoko," I tell him. "And either are your mysterious 'friends'. Which means your special dinner reservation doesn't exist, and never will.

    "I suggest you spend the evening sitting on a tack."

    Rokoko sighs and licks his chops, black rodent-eyes locked on mine. "Too bad," he says, sneering and turning to go. He fashes his fangs.

    Just on impulse, I show him mine.

All this went down ten minutes ago, give or take. And the more I think about it, the more pissed-off I get.

    Maybe I shouldn't get too mad at Fonzie just yet. It's entirely possible—well, at least remotely possible—that he didn't have anything to do with it. In the early days, god knows, he was insanely indiscreet; that this restaurant survived at all is a recombinant miracle of charm, yum and vision. I mean, you can't go telling chickens how much better some chicken would taste with this sauce. It's insulting as hell.

    He's gotten a whole lot better, and more sensitive to the issues, but the simple fact remains that he is jonesing for beef. I know the feeling, vaguely, but I know too many cows. And, goddamit, so does he! I mean, I've seen him firt with Bessie!

    And I don't care how good his mama's recipes are.

    When Rokoko left, I watched him broadcast his charms at Pinky and Pim. They responded with predictable terror. It seems fairly clear to me that there's no one Rokoko wouldn't eat.

    Oh, Fonzie…what have you gotten us into now?

We've been moving almost nonstop for two days. Four hours to sleep every night, which I've hardly been taking advantage of. I'm a fucking wreck: my feet are sore (even with hiking boots and two pairs of socks) and I've probably got permanent scars on my shoulders from the straps of the backpack weighted down with all the extra gear. To top it all off, I'm probably going to be dead by sometime tomorrow afternoon, judging by the way things are going. And for what? This is so incredibly frustrating. They made me come. I HAD NO CHOICE.

    Okay. Let me back up a little bit. Here I am again. Fire. Too tired to sleep. Wired, or something.

    Alright.

    Okay. In the morning, after I last wrote, I woke up to the languorous sound of futes. Kimbod (of Ev) was up in an old oak tree, legs akimbo, tucked into a wide spot between several large branches. The song that came from his fute was beautifully eerie, like some chill breeze from an ancient summer, hanging in the air somehow, magically, for centuries. The tree was gently swaying, obviously digging it.

    Gombo, the winged monkey, was sprawled on a big carpet near the ashes of the campfre, harmonizing on a similar wooden fute. Obviously, these guys had no trouble entertaining themselves during downtime.

    Ralph sauntered up to me, quietly, sleep still creasing his features, and asked, "Well, whataya think?"

    Everything was taking on grand, hallucinogenic proportions.

    "What do I think about what?" I said.

    "Whatever."

    I decided to change the subject. "I met your friend last night."

    His eyes widened considerably. "You met Nick? No. Shit. When was this?"

    "After you went to sleep. I couldn't, so we stayed up and had astronomy lessons. Is he, uh—" I searched for the proper phrasing.

    Ralph looked around once, quickly. "Nuts?"

    "Well, no, that's not what I was asking." I tried again, so as not to sound ridiculous if I was wrong. "Is he who I think he is?"

    "Uh huh." He smiled, and started a little two-step, quietly sang, "If I only hadda heaaaaaaart." Ralph nudged his lips with his index fnger, maybe to remind himself to shut up, covered his mouth for a second. "I thought you'd get a kick outa that. Yeah, well, he does have a heart, a big one, and he's also nuts. Somewhere between wacky, happy-go-lucky nuts and dangerously insane, depending on who he's with, and what's going on." He pointed at me. "I fgured he'd like you."

    I was beginning to think maybe Ralph, too, was a few dollars short of cab fare, but reserved comment. He had saved my life after all, and seemed to know with deadly accuracy what was going on here. I, on the other hand...

    "I told him what you wanted to tell him."

    Ralph looked at me warily. "How did you know what I wanted to tell him?"

    "Well, I didn't. He asked me what you wanted to tell him, and I told him I didn't know, so I sort of gave him a rundown—"

    "You didn't tell him about—" He looked around, lowered his voice. "—Gutierrez, did you? Did you?"

    My look told it all.

    Ralph spun in a circle, did a petulant child dance. "Awww, fuck. Fuck!"

"What?"

    "I was going to tell him that the Ogres were dangerously close, nothing more. You have screwed the pooch, pal. Not only have you compromised U.S. intelligence—there's no telling what—he—"

    Just as I was about to tell him that U.S. intelligence had been compromised for some time, Nick strode out of his tent, in all his glory, looking about ten feet tall, gleaming in the morning sun. He was much scarier in the daylight.

    His boys gathered around him from out of nowhere: the fve I'd seen before, and a few others who must have been in their tents the night before. They hung around him, waiting for him to speak.

    Nick stood stark still for about thirty seconds, then said, "We move out." He eyed Ralph and me, waved the hilt of his ax absently in our direction. "You, too." Then he spun around on his heels and went back into his tent.

    The band of merry men immediately started into a frenzy of activity, pulling tents down, packing gear away.

    I'd just about had it. I don't like being led around by the nose, even if I am on unfamiliar turf. Past a certain point, I'd rather take my chances. And this was getting just too weird for me.

    "Look," I said to Ralph, "I'm sorry if I told Nick something I wasn't supposed to. Thank you for saving my ass so far. But I think it's about time for me to cut out. Now, if you're going with these guys, good luck and all that, but I've got a friend in Emerald who's expecting me. If you—"

    He was shaking his head, smiling that smile of his. "Are you crazy? It wasn't a request, man. He wants us along, we go along. Wherever. You don't argue with the Tinman. Or you don't—exist, get it?"

    I thought about it for a few seconds, thought about my frst meeting with Nick the night before, the bone-chilling certainty that this creature could do away with me without batting his remaining eyelash. I thought about it.

    "What do you think they're having for breakfast around here?" I asked.

    Less than an hour later, we were heading northeast, frst through the genuine forest that the oak grove had stuck out from, then crosscountry over broad, fat hills with sparse patches of trees that look sort of like Sonoma valley, or Marin.

    Three hours into the march, Ralph went up to Nick and talked to him for a few minutes. Then he hung back to where I'd been quizzing Kimbod about the fute music.

    Ralph was looking miserable. I'd begun to get a sense, which has increased with time, that it is a bad thing when Ralph looks miserable. We backed up to the end of the line.

    "This sucks," he said, "this really sucks."

    "What sucks," I asked, "besides being kidnapped by Colonel Kurtz over there, heading at full speed in the opposite direction from where we're going? What could possibly suck?"

    "Well, for starters, I thought we were just going to do some reconnaissance, but now it turns out—why the hell did you have to tell him about Gutierrez?"

    I was really sick of hearing that guy's name. He had been bad luck since before I got here. I mean, he was the one who got beheaded and all, but he was continuing to put a serious dent in my plans. I told Ralph as much.

    "Well," he said, "I forgive you; you didn't know what you were saying. I should have warned you. I was tired, it was late."

    "You forgive me. Oh good, I was worried. Ralph, where are we going?"

    He said it like he didn't quite want me to hear it, turned his head kinda sideways: "Hollow Man's Fortress."

    "Hollow Man's Fortress. Hollow Man...Hollow Man... doesn't ring a bell."

    He looked pained. "You wouldn't have heard about him. Nobody's been really worried about him until recently. Wasn't much to worry about, outside of the usual Bad Guy stuff. There's always been wicked witches, and plenty of wanabees hanging around when one of 'em slips on a banana peel or gets it with a bucket of water or whatever it is that happens when they lose their edge

    "Hollow Man's an outworlder. Some say he came over from across the Deadly Desert; people in Ix will tell you he came from across the Ocean. Farther than our survey maps go, anyway. He's become a very nasty wizard, or warlock, or some kind of shit. Bad,

whatever it is, real bad.

    "He started out as a little straw boss up in a town to the extreme northeast, Togollu. But he's working fast. Now he controls half of Munchkinland, and he's working on getting the rest of it, and beyond. And—oh—he's that jolly green giant's fearless leader, if you hadn't fgured that out already."

    I hadn't. Call me stupid, but there was a lot going on right then. I chewed on that for a few seconds, then started in again.

    "Okay.. Hollow. Man. Hollow Man. Why the name? Is he indeed—hollow?"

    Ralph looked at me really strangely, as if I'd said something to spook him all of the sudden. "Yeah. He is. At least that's what I've been told. He calls himself Bennie, how about that? Spells it B-h-j-en-n-i-g-h, but it sounds the same. He started out pretty normal looking, for an evil bastard, and gradually started going...all black. Wait. I'm not saying this right."

    We all started climbing up a particularly gnarly hill right then, so conversation stopped for a little while, as we had to devote all of our attention to breathing. When we got to the top, everybody rested for a few minutes, and Ralph continued.

    "He's not like, black on the outside, like a black man—"

    "No, I guess they would call him the Black Man if that were the case."

    "Shut up. They say when you look at him, into where his eyes used to be, it's dull black. More than that. Like the absence of light. And when he opens up his mouth, you can't see teeth, or that little thing—"

    "Uvula."

    "Thank you. It's just black. And little things foating in the air, dust, smoke, just kind of suck in towards him, like there was some kind of vacuum, or gravity pulling them in."