There was Raht, waving us further on. We stopped in the shadow of a big helicopter.

"What kept you?" said Raht. "We been paying overtime. I thought you were in a hurry!"

"Get this baggage aboard!" I screamed at him.

"When they've been paid," said Raht.

I raced back to the office and showered out hundred-dollar bills. I raced to the cabs and showered out twenties.

The baggage started to move aboard. I even helped.

In the scramble, I lost the identity of the box that held Heller's viewer.

Oh, my Gods, was I already too late?

We piled in.

Teenie said, "Hey! So this is how you run your white-slave ring. Choppers! How updatey!"

"What's that?" said the chopper pilot, turning around in his seat.

"Don't pay any attention to this (bleeped) kid!" I raved.

"If you're doing something illegal," said the pilot, "You'll have to go back to the office and pay extra."

"No, no!" I cried. "We're trying to save a man's life. And even that isn't illegal in New York."

"Might be," said the copilot thoughtfully. "There's several guys I know of it would be illegal not to kill. There's a woman, too. You ever hear of the mayor's wife?"

"Oh, Gods, please start that engine!" I wept. "I'll pay you both an extra hundred, personally."

"Well, where do we go?" the pilot said.

Yes, there was that! I had the address written on a piece of paper. I shoved it into the pilot's hand. "And get ready with your ladder! We've got to snatch him off a roof."

They started up. We soared into the air. The skyscrapers of Manhattan pressed against us to our left, the East River to our right. Below us stretched Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, a multilane white ribbon, crowded with cars.

The UN buildings flashed by. North of there, the pilot turned inland. I watched anxiously.

High-rises were going by under us.

The pilot pointed. "There's your address," he yelled above the roaring beat of blades.

I looked.

I stared.

There was nobody on the roof!

We hovered.

"I bet he thought you weren't coming," said Raht.

I glared at Teenie. It was her fault.

Then I dived for the pile of baggage in the back of the big cabin. I anxiously pawed through my boxes.

The viewer fell out. I grabbed it. I turned the volume up all the way.

HELLER WAS PARKED BELOW LOOKING AT THE HIGH-RISE!

"I'll go in and ring the bell," said Heller. "You cover me, Bang-Bang. If he's home, he might come out shooting when he recognizes who it is."

"NO!" said the Countess Krak in the back of the cab. "There's no sense in making this into a shooting war. He probably is not home, as it's working hours. I'll just take my shopping bag and go up and see his mother."

"I don't like it," said Heller. "You don't have to fight in wars. It isn't ladylike."

"I've done just fine lately," said the Countess Krak.

"That you have," said Heller, "and I admire you and Bang-Bang for it no end. But this guy is the worst rat I have ever heard of. He actually pretended to be my friend. And all the time he intended to knife me. He's as bad as an Apparatus 'drunk.' I'd better go."

"Inky," said Teenie. "If you're in such a God (bleeped) hurry, this is no time to be watching a crime drama. You're weird!"

"This is a crime drama that will fry your God (bleeped) ponytail and put it in a shredder," I said. "Shut up and let me think." And I tried desperately, my screams muffled by the throb of the chopper rotors.

"Well, well," said Raht, looking over my shoulder at the viewer. "So that's what the 831 Relayer serves to boost! An eye bug!"

"Shut up, you silly (bleepard)," I hissed. "You'll get us both vaporized for a Code break!"

"Better you than me," said Raht. "Hey, look here!" He was pawing through my baggage. "Another one!" He turned it on. He glanced at mine and then back at his. "You've got the lady bugged, too!"

"Well, what do we do?" the pilot shouted back at us. "Go home?"

"Christ, no!" I yelled at him. "Keep hovering. Let me think!"

My life was hanging not by helicopter blades but by a thread. Heller and Krak-especially Krak-would tear this planet apart if they found out I was behind their woes.

I looked out the window, forcing myself to overcome the nausea caused by height.

There was the orange cab! I could even see Corleone Cab Company on its door. ONE WAS OPENING! HEL­LER WAS GETTING OUT!

I started praying in Italian, suppressing my impulse to scream in Voltarian. Maybe Jesus Christ would overlook my many sins and come to my rescue like a good fellow. Heller was always praying and he was winning. It just could be that it did some good! For I was completely out of ideas.

"What's that chopper up there?" said Heller.

"Probably a police plain wrapper," said Bang-Bang, getting out. "They cruise around the East Side all the time to disturb the residents."

"That rules out shooting, Jettero. Let me take this shopping bag and show his mother the latest in head-wear. After all, she's a woman. This is where I come in."

THE BACK DOOR OPENED! KRAK WAS GETTING OUT!

"Oh, Jesus Christ," I prayed in Italian. "I will be a good boy. I will burn Teenie's joss sticks on your altar. I will lay off swearing!" Then I stopped and slumped. There was neither hope nor solution. The Countess Krak was on the pavement, walking toward the high-rise entrance door. Bang-Bang and Heller, like a skirmish line, were flanking her. It was all up. I might as well start writing my will.

MADISON SOLVED IT!

The Excalibur open touring phaeton came flashing out of the underground garage at sixty miles an hour, exhaust pipes flaming!

Madison had apparently despaired of being rescued from the roof and, seeing "Corleone" on that cab, had panicked and fled in his car!

It barely missed knocking Bang-Bang down!

"It's him!" Heller shouted. "Get in the cab!"

They converged upon the old hack.

The doors weren't even shut when Heller had it moving.

He turned on a dime and, tires screaming, shot after Madison.

"Our man!" I screamed at the pilot. "He's in that open car! Follow him!"

The chopper spun on its blades and moved after the phaeton.

Madison was heading east, tearing around corners. He was trying to get to Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive, where his speed would count for something.

After him streaked the cab.

A new problem churned in my mind. That Excalibur might look like a 1930 has-been with all its separate exhaust pipes, long hood and huge chrome lamps, but I knew how fast it could go. Everything under that antique veneer was the most modern high-speed machinery ever built into cars. It could do phenomenal speeds. And Madison, hunched over the wheel below us, was driving with all his might, his brown hair whipping in the wind.

But behind him came that old cab. True, it was slower. True, its cornering was nowhere near the Excalibur's. But it was driven by a championship space pilot.

Oh, Gods, it wasn't solved after all. Madison would not look up. He was in pure panic. He could only go so many miles on that multiple lane for which he was heading.

"GO TO CONNECTICUT!" I screamed at him, unheard. Oh, if he would only turn north, he stood a chance of outdistancing the cab and then we could switch on a bullhorn and tell him to stop while we picked him up. It was his only chance.

He raced closer to Franklin D, Roosevelt Drive. He rocketed up an approach ramp, chrome flashing in the sun.

HE TURNED SOUTH!

Oh, Gods, he was done for. He would run out of freeway! Sheer panic must be driving him!

We followed, high above him.

The orange cab was up the ramp and flying south in pursuit.

Madison was diving in and out of startled traffic, doing at least a hundred miles an hour.