It clenched the wallet in its teeth.

It ran off the stage!

THE DOUBLE RACED AFTER IT!

The audience howled with laughter.

I screamed into the walkie-talkie, "FOLLOW THAT CAT!"

Ignoring the red lights, security men were all over the stage, racing across it after the cat.

I leaped up and sped after them!

On their trail, I burst out of an outside door just in time to see the cat streaking down a long flight of steps. The double was speeding in its wake.

A van, different from the one they had had before, was sitting at the bottom of those steps!

Yikes! The cat had planted Unit B on the double and had the Unit A on itself! The follow-compellers!

The cat was almost to the van!

ZWOOOP!

The double, racing down the steps, seemed to fly into a bundle of whirling arms and legs. He hurtled toward the bottom.

He lit!

The security guards were streaming down the steps.

ZWOOP! ZWOOP! ZWOOP! ZWOOP! ZWOOP!

They were skidding like they were on a toboggan slide!

I was running forward.

I was going down the steps.

Bang-Bang had the double by the collar and was throwing him into the van.

The security men were landing in a disorderly pile.

ZWOOP!

My own legs went in six directions at once and I rocketed down the steps in a power dive.

I landed on my head.

Security men were all around me in piles.

The security officer at the top screamed, "GET THAT VEHICLE NUMBER!" Then he started down.

I looked at the speeding van. It was roaring down an alley and away.

IT HAD NO LICENSE PLATES!

The security chief landed near me with a thud.

I couldn't account for any of this.

What had caused such a catastrophe?

And then I looked at the steps.

The cat could run down them but nobody else could.

THEY WERE COVERED WITH BANANA PEELS!

The Eagle Eye Security officer picked himself up off the pavement. He was shaking his fist down the alley in the direction the van had disappeared. "I'll get you if it's the last thing I ever do!" he screamed. He whirled. "What make of van was that?" he roared at his men.

They were unscrambling themselves and picking banana peels off their messed up uniforms.

"Transvan!" said one.

"Econoline," said another.

"Quicklay," said a third.

All they could agree upon was that it had no license plates, was white and was basically commercial. I already knew there were tens of thousands of such vans in New York.

"You goofed!" I screamed. "You let them get away!"

"Please God!" cried the security officer, "give us another chance." He was pointing to the process server and the two Bellevue attendants who had come up, strait-jackets in their hands. "I'll get that process served and that fiend committed if I have to do it myself!"

"Go ahead!" I said. And he rushed off to phone police and put up roadblocks and get helicopter coverage and do the other things they do.

I made my way back to the "Weirdo World" talk show, where Tom Snide was ending off his half hour with slides of famous outlaw lovers of history. He seemed to be pretty annoyed that his audience of hand-picked females were talking to one another about the cat. "In short," he said, "when you look at some of these skinny runts and compare them to a virile type like me, you wonder what women see in such men."

"What a CAT-ty remark!" some blonde in the front row yelled loud enough to get it into the mikes.

Screams of laughter rolled through the TV theater. In vain, the card girl in the housecoat held up her sign:

REVERENT COOS

"We're tired of your PUSS!" another called, not to be outdone.

That started them all off and they were vying for who could get off the vilest puns about the cat.

Snide could look after himself. I grabbed my viewer off the floor where it had fallen and got out of there.

It was up to me, I knew.

I was not in very good shape. My head was hurting from falling on it, my eye had begun to bleed and I was literally seeing red. But an Apparatus officer has to have stamina and overlook his pain. One must have courage.

Besides, I was afraid I might be overdue for my after­noon appointment with lesbians at the apartment. Adora must get no suspicion that I had to figure out how to do in Krak and Heller and run, before the homo education began. Teenie I would get to, somehow, some way.

All the way to the apartment in a cab, I watched the viewer.

A police car screamer was sounding, rising, in the speaker.

The Countess was holding the cat. She had taken off the bow tie and the harness. She was rubbing the cat's ears and petting him and the cat was absolutely grinning! I had heard that witches on Earth had cats but they were usually black, and this cat only had a few black patches amongst the orange and white.

Also, the Countess was not riding on a broomstick. She was riding along in a van with a posh interior. The curtains were closed and she had on interior lights.

"That squad car seems to be interested in us," came Bang-Bang's voice through a curtain, beyond which must have been the driver's seat. "He's checking the license plate."

"They aren't stolen, are they?" said the Countess.

"Hell, no-beggin' your pardon, ma'am. Mike Mutazione has his own stamping machine. You couldn't trace the plates I just flipped on if you were the governor of New York!"

The screamer was dwindling.

"He's gone now," said Bang-Bang.

"You better take us to that hidden place they used to transfer booze in," said the Countess Krak. "We don't have time to play tag with the police. We've got work to do."

If she would just look outside or mention an address, I'd have her! But all she was looking at was that (bleeped) cat. Ye Gods, its purr was so loud in the speaker, I thought for some time it was their engine! What an insufferable feline!

They drove on. I had no way of knowing their destination or location unless they made a mistake and mentioned it.

Eyes glued redly to the viewer, I overpaid my cab at the apartment and stumbled in.

I got out of my disguise, still watching the viewer.

They stopped!

Mister Calico jumped out of the Countess's arms and went through the front curtain. Then Bang-Bang's hand came into view and swept the dividers aside. I could see straight through their windshield.

A warehouse!

But where?

There are hundreds of thousands of warehouses in Manhattan. Still, they might drop a clue.

The Countess Krak must have been sitting in an easy chair that pivoted. When Bang-Bang entered the back, she swung it around.

There, lying on a couch crossways to the van, was the Whiz Kid double.

He was tied hand and foot.

He was gagged.

His black outlaw costume wasn't doing him any good at all. His eyes were wild with fear.

I suddenly detected a new sound. I turned up the speaker volume. Lapping water! This warehouse was over some stream or river! An old bootleg warehouse! It would have a trap door where they could unload small boats up through the floor or dump bodies into the tide!

Gods help the Whiz Kid double, I thought. The deadly Countess Krak was going to end his days as soon as she was through with him! Oh, the poor double! Imagine being in the hands of such a murderous monster! I shuddered. But better him than me.

"Bang-Bang, if you will just step outside and make sure we're not disturbed, I think I can make him talk."

"Pretty bloody, eh?" said Bang-Bang. "In that event I'll also take the cat: he's pretty young to be watching violence, even if he does have a criminal record."

The Countess Krak was taking off the double's gag.

"Does that cat have a criminal record?" spluttered the double. "I thought he was a lawyer!"