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satisfying the sexual needs of the dregs of humanity who had washed into the teeming slums of Beirut.
    Beirut is at once the gem of the Mediterranean and the cesspool of the Mideast. Ahead of me a door flew open and a greasy fat man staggered out. He was stark naked except for a ludicrous
tarboosh
sitting tightly on his head. His face was twisted into an agony-ecstasy grimace, his eyes glazed with either pain or pleasure, I couldn't tell which. Behind him came a lithe jet-black girl, dressed only in hip-high leather boots, her heavy-lipped countenance a phlegmatic mask as she stalked relentlessly after the fat Arab. Twice she flicked her wrist and twice a three-lashed whip, tiny, dainty and excruciating, slicked out and around the Arab's larded thighs. A gasp of pain escaped him and six tiny rivulets of blood etched his shaking flesh.
    The Arab staggered past me, oblivious to anything but his own torturous joy. The girl stalked behind him, poker-faced. She couldn't have been over 15 years old.
    I told my stomach to forget it and went up the last flight of stairs. Here a single doorway blocked the staircase. I pushed the buzzer. Charlie Harkins had occupied the entire third floor for as long as I had known him. In the few seconds before he answered, a picture of the sprawling squalor of his loft-like apartment flashed through my mind: His brightly-lit bench, with its cameras, brushes, pens, and engraving equipment were always there like an island of calm among the dirty socks and underwear, some of which, I remembered, looked as if they had been used to wipe clean the exquisitely tooled little platen press in the corner.
    This time, it took me a moment to recognize the little man who opened the door. Charlie had changed. Gone were the sunken cheeks, the three-day stubble of gray beard he had always seemed to maintain. Even the dead, hopeless look in his eyes was gone. Charlie Harkins now looked bright, wary perhaps, but no longer as terrified of life as he had been over the years I had known him.
    He wore a lightweight plaid sports jacket, neatly pressed grey flannel trousers and brightly shined black shoes. This was not the Charlie Harkins I had known. I was impressed.
    He ushered me in with a tentative handshake. At least
that
hadn't changed.
    The apartment had, however. What had been a littered mess was now neat and clean. A fresh green rug covered the old scarred floorboards and the walls were painted a neat off-white. Inexpensive but obviously new furniture was placed strategically to break up the barnlike lines of the big room… a coffee table, several chairs, two couches, a long, low, rectangular platform bed in one corner.
    What had once served haphazardly as Charlie's work corner was now partitioned off with louvered panels and, from the evidence escaping through the openings of the partitions, vividly lit.
    I raised my eyebrows, looking around. "Looks like you've been doing pretty well, Charlie."
    He smiled nervously. "Well… uh… business has been pretty good, Nick." His eyes brightened. "I've got a new assistant now and things have really been going all right…" His voice trailed off.
    I grinned at him. "It would take more than a new assistant to do this to you, Charlie." I waved my hand at the new decor. "Off hand, I'd say that for once in your life you've found something steady."
    He ducked his head. "Well…"
    It wasn't common to find a forger with a steady business. That sort of work tends to go in sudden spurts and long stoppages. What it probably meant was that Charlie had somehow gotten into the counterfeit game. Personally, I didn't care what he was doing as long as I got what I came for.
    He must have been reading my mind. "Uh… I'm not so sure I can do this, Nick."
    I gave him a friendly smile and sat down on one of the double-ended sofas that sat at right angles with its twin, making a false corner in the middle of the living room. "Sure you can, Charlie," I said easily.
    Taking Wilhelmina out of her