When a man dies from a bullet entering his chest, it's a homicide. When a man dies from a meteorite landing on his head, it's a tragedy. Don't use bu… - Rupert Holmes

nothing beats a couple of really stiff banana daiquiris enriched with yogurt. The bananas have tryptophan and magnesium to make your target dozy and potassium to keep them that way. The yogurt delivers melatonin, tryptophan, and calcium, and to seal the deal, they make a 168-proof rum in Barbados that might as well be knockout drops.

"Endiro Giansante, owner of Fawn Street Florists, descended from the store's attic where he was drying pink larkspur to find his new deliveryman, Ludis Lanka, standing near the register holding two ten-dollar bills upright in his hand.

"A man came in, you were upstairs, so I took the order," he beamed proudly.

"Ludis, you're a nice fellow but you're never to deal with a customer. Unless they're Latvian," he added with a smile, "in which case I'd ask you to translate."

By way of confession, Ludis added, "He gave me a two-dollar tip, and reached to his pocket as if he might have to split it with Endiro.

"No, keep the two dollars, but you're a delivery boy, not a salesman. Delivery man," he corrected himself, for Ludis was surely in his twenties or early thirties. He'd only been working there a few days, answering a sign in the window. God knows how the sweet fellow would survive on what he paid him, thought Endiro. He must surely live with relatives.

"Es biju citur," said Ludis, which means "I was elsewhere." Not quite apropos but it was the first Latvian phrase Cliff had learned at McMasters and he'd been told he'd pronounced it well.

"Come along, Mr. Iverson, you must be starved to death," said the dean. He saw my startled look and added dryly, "That's an observation, by the way. Not a decree."