I turned my attention to the other viewer.

The Countess Krak was walking down a hall in an apartment building, carrying a plastic shopping bag.

She went out the main entrance door.

I freaked! I had been so engrossed with Heller, I had missed what she must have been doing! That condo scene was unmistakable! It was where Madison's mother lived!

Bang-Bang opened up the door of the old cab and the Countess Krak got in. Bang-Bang started the cab up and drove away.

"Any luck?" said Bang-Bang.

"Oh, he was the man, all right. But she's too naive to live, Bang-Bang. She thinks her son was a sensitive child. She thinks he's dead."

"Well, Jet did find an empty on the dock, that had been fired only minutes before. I think that plain-wrapper whirlybird was trying to arrest him for speeding, all right, and hazed him into the drink. And maybe they fired a shot into him as well. Or maybe they fired the shot, hit him and he went over the edge."

"Well, we're not going to get anything more out of Mrs. Madison."

I flinched. Had the Countess Krak killed her?

"I think Jet's right," said Bang-Bang. "It leads straight to Bury."

"She did mention," said the Countess, "that just before he left that day, he had a call from a Mr. Smith."

My blood congealed. Thank Gods, Mrs. Madison had never seen me personally that I recalled. But this was too close!

"There's a million of those in New York," said Bang-Bang.

"Somebody from Bury's office," said the Countess Krak. "I wish Jettero weren't so set about not taking this

Bury on."

"It would mean a frontal assault on the whole Rockecenter outfit, including the government," said Bang-Bang. "The casualties would be unacceptable."

"Bang-Bang," said the Countess Krak, "pull up beside the next phone kiosk you see. I'm going to phone Swindle and Crouch and ask for Mr. Smith."

He stopped by a delicatessen on East 45th Street and she made the call.

"Smith?" the Swindle and Crouch receptionist said. "We have no Smiths."

The Countess Krak went back to the cab. "The other address I got was 42 Mess Street. Drive down there, Bang-Bang."

This was certainly hard on my exhausted nerves.

Bang-Bang bounced off assorted vehicles and got them to 42 Mess Street.

It was now just a deserted loft. The Countess stirred around through the papers on the floor. It had all manner of scrap Whiz Kid releases. But the furniture, the phones, the news lines all were gone. The place had degenerated to an empty ruin.

As they drove back uptown, the Countess Krak said, "Well, so far as we can tell, J. Walter Madison is dead and we have shut down the operation, at least there in that place. But we do know one thing for sure."

"What's that?" said Bang-Bang.

"Madison's mother states that Madison worked directly under a Mr. Smith from the office of Swindle and Crouch. That office doesn't have a Mr. Smith. Somebody knew Madison was dead or missing and closed 42 Mess Street before anybody else suspected he was gone. I've got the hour and date of the last press releases they issued. That was probably this same Mr. Smith that called his mother. So the one thing we know for sure is that somewhere in this mess there is a man who is using the fictitious name of Smith."

Bang-Bang said, "That's not very much." I dis­agreed. I thought it was absolutely, HORRIBLY TOO MUCH!

"It's enough to keep me looking," said the Countess Krak.

Oh, Gods, was I glad I was at sea!

But wait. I couldn't stay at sea forever. Even though I had no place to go, I knew that sooner or later I would have to make a stand.

If the Countess Krak was allowed to go on running around loose, one day she would connect it all up to me and then, no matter where I was, I would be a goner.

It was her fault, after all, that I was at sea.

And only because, through incompetent help, I had not nailed her before.

If I were ever to get out of this, I would have to overcome all odds, forget past failures and finish off the Countess Krak.

That was as vivid to me as the ache which plagued my bones.

I was not just sitting here, helpless.

I glared at the two-way-response radio. With it I could issue an order to Raht.

If I gave him a wrong order and he missed, she would kill him and then I really would be helpless. So I had to be very careful if I told Raht to do anything.

So the question remained: What could I tell Raht to do that would GUARANTEE her end? I must think of something.

Day followed day as we made our way across the smooth and picturesque sea. It was progressing toward the end of April, a calm part of the year, and we were in the calmest part of the Atlantic. The water was blue, the sky was blue, the yacht was white, the clouds were white. Captain Bitts, when I commented to him that I saw no ships, informed me that this was the most unfrequented belt in the whole ocean. Even the whales had a chance, he said, and sure enough, on the fifth day we saw one-a monster-much to Teenie's delight.

And that wasn't all that was delighting Teenie. That very night she plagued me with questions about how could whales possibly do it? Was their equipment in proportion to the rest of them?

"They lay eggs," I said.

"They do not," she said. "They are mammals. They do it just like we do."

"No you don't, Teenie," I said. "I am exhausted. Go to your room and sleep just this one night. Between you and the sports director I don't know whether I'm going or coming."

"Well, all right," she said. "But just let me settle this one question of zoology. I found this book in the library and it simply did not show the vital elements. On such subjects I am quite an expert, you know: it was my major at Bassar. To complete my education, I must establish the relative proportions of whales."

"Oh, Gods," I said. "What now? Teenie, will you PLEASE go to bed and stop pestering me!"

She was standing there with the end of a white-edged ruler thoughtfully caressing her lower lip. "If I could establish your relative proportions, I could get some idea of that of whales. So if you will just let me measure you, I promise faithfully to go to bed."

Oh, Gods. "Well, (bleep) it, go ahead then," I said, "but don't be all night."

Her robe fell on the floor as she said, "Oh, fiddlesticks, Inky. I can't do it. It wouldn't be fair to whales. You're just a dishcloth."

The starburst chandelier glowed dimly in the ceil­ing. "To keep my part of the bargain and go to bed," she said, "you'll have to cooperate. Take a few puffs of this Hawaiian. That won't hurt you."

A cloud of marijuana smoke rose up.

The ruler was lying on the floor. I said, "Wait! Wait! You have a bargain to keep!"

The stars shone through the open port. "Ooooooh!" groaned Teenie in a shuddering voice as marijuana smoke poured out.

The curtain was hanging very still. I said, my breath short, "You didn't keep your part of the bargain!"

The ruler was lying there on the floor. "Oh, I'm keeping it," she said, and her hand reached for it and picked it up.

A bowl of fruit in a silver basket shone in the light from the nightstand. "Oh, hell, Inky. You're not cooperating at all! You're just a punctured balloon."

My hand was dangling down toward the floor. "Teenie, please go to bed."

The bhong was sitting on the table. Her fingers applied a lighted match to it. "Just another puff or two, Inky, and I'll be able to finish it and complete my bar­gain."

The ship's wake hissed as it purled by. "Oh, Inky, aaaaaaahhhhhh!" came Teenie's shuddering moan.

She was in my bathroom, combing her ponytail at my mirror. "Aren't I being a good girl these days, Inky? I'm not even scratching your face the way I used to." She admired herself in the glass. "And I'm putting on some fat now that I'm not eating out of garbage cans." She was fixing the rubber band around her ponytail. "I don't even bruise you anymore. You should appreciate me, Inky."