"Patty explained to me what Mike was really doing. 'This crowd is just marks, dear - people who come out of curiosity or maybe have been shined in by some of our own people who have reached one of the inner circles.' Jubal, Mike has the thing rigged in nine circles, like degrees in a lodge - and nobody is told that there actually is a circle farther in until they're ready to be inducted into it. 'This is just Michael's bally,' Pat told me, 'which he does as easy as he breathes - while all the time he's feeling them out, sizing them up, getting inside their heads and deciding which ones are even possible.  Maybe one in ten.  That's why he strings it out - Duke is up behind that grille and Michael tells him every mark who just might measure up, where he sits and everything.  Michael's about to turn this tip... and spill the ones he doesn't want.  Dawn will handle that part, after she gets the seating diagram from Duke.'"