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standing up and telling them what they all already knew: some son of a bitch had stolen the Byzantine Fire, and some other son of a bitch had stolen it from the first son of a bitch. Zachary had a graphic display—charts and blown-up photographs one after another on an easel—and a pointer, and a kind of stiff mechanical way of pointing at things with the pointer, as though he weren’t quite a human being but was a model put together by the Walt Disney people. A Walt Disney FBI man. “We know,” this fellow (squint at legal pad) Zachary said, “that the first group was Greek Cypriot. Several individuals are already in custody, and the rest should be rounded up soonest. So far, no hard information is available on the second group, though several theories have been advanced.”
    You just bet they have, Mologna thought. He caught Leon’s eye and they shared a millisecond twinkle. It was amazing how their minds meshed like that. Here was Chief Inspector Francis Xavier Mologna (pronounced Maloney), 53 years of age, a God-fearing white male Long Island Irishman, and be damned if the person in all of life whose thought processes most closely matched his own wasn’t some damn 28-year-old smart-aleck faggot nigger called Sergeant Leon Windrift. (Had Leon been only homosexual, he would have been bounced out of New York’s finest long ago. Had he been only black, he’d be a patrolman forever. Being a faggot and a nigger, he could neither be fired nor kept in some damn precinct, which is why he’d risen so rapidly through the ranks to a sergeantcy and a job at Headquarters, where Mologna had first noticed him and stolen him for himself.)
    â€œOne suggestion,” the FBI man—Zachary—was saying, “has been that a second Greek Cypriot group was responsible for the second purloinment.”
    Purloinment?
    â€œThe advantage of this theory is that it explains how the second group had so thoroughly infiltrated the first group as to be aware of their intended disposition of the ruby. There are contending factions, of course, within the umbrella groupage of Greek Cypriot nationalism.”
    Groupage?
    â€œA second theory proposed has been that agents of the Soviet Union, pursuant to the claims earlier put forward by the Russian Orthodox Church in re annexment of the Byzantine Fire, were responsible for the second theft.”
    Annexment?
    â€œIn support of this theory is the fact that the USSR Mission to the United Nations has already denied Russian complicacy in the events of last evening. However, a third potentialism would be a transactage by a dissident factor within the Turkish populace.”
    Complicacy?
    Potentialism?
    Transactage ?
    â€œColonel Bubble of Turkish Intelligence—”
    Mologna raised an eyebrow at Leon, who wrote on his yellow pad Bubul .
    â€œâ€”has assured us of the unlikelihood of this eventuation, but he will keep it under some advisement.”
    Oh, well.
    â€œFourthly, there is always the possibility of coincidentalistic activity. A mere burglar may have stumbled upon the Byzantine Fire whilst engaged in his own depredatory activities. If there are any further suggestions anyone here might care to make, additional theories as to the perpetrators, their motivations, their future intentionisms, we’ll all be happy to hear them.”
    Oh, will we? Mologna and Leon did the eye thing again.
    â€œIn the meantime,” Zachary was saying, pointing this way and that randomly with his pointer, “as both felonies were perpetrated within the parameters of the city of New York, they come within the primary jurisdiction of the New York City police force, which will coordinate interagency activities and assume transcendent responsibility for the investigation. Therefore, I am happy at this time to turn the meeting over to Chief Inspector Mo-log-na of the New York City police.”
    Grunting, Mologna heaved himself to his feet and rested