But he obtained a professional guide, and he had at least oncebeen on the straight road, the True Way.

Childe did not remember having been on the straight road. Andwhere was his Virgil? The son of a bitch must be striking for higher pay andshorter hours.

Every man his own Virgil, Childe said, and, coughing (likeMiniver Cheevy), pushed through the smog.

Somebody had broken the left front window of the Olds while hewas with Sybil. A glance at the front seat showed him why. The gas mask wasgone. Hecursed. The mask had cost him fifty dollars when he purchased ityesterday, andthere were no more to be had except in the black market. The maskswere sellingfor two hundred or more dollars, and it took time to locate a seller.

He had the time, but he did not have the cash in hand and hedoubted that his check would be accepted. The banks were closed, and the smogmight disappearso suddenly that he would not need the mask and would stop payment ofthe check. There was nothing to do except use a wet handkerchief and a pair ofgoggles hehad worn when he had a motorcycle. That meant he must return to hisapartment.

He made up a pile of handkerchiefs and filled a canteen withwater as soon as he was home. He dialed the LAPD to report the theft, but, aftertwo minutes, he gave up. The line was likely to be busy all day and all night andindefinitely into the future. He brushed his teeth and washed hisface. The wash rag looked yellow. Probably it was his imagination, but the yellowcould be the smog coming out. The yellow looked like the stuff that clouded hiswindshield in the morning after several days of heavy smog. The air of Los Angeleswas an ocean in which poisonous plankton drifted.

He ate a sandwich of cold sliced beef with a dill pickle anddrank a glassof milk, although he did not feel hungry. Visualizations of Sybilwith Al troubled him. He didn't know Al, but he could not bar shadowy imageswhose onlybright features--too bright--were a rigid monstrosity and a pair ofhairy, never-empty testicles. The pump-pump-pumping sound was also only ashadow, butit would not go away either. Shadows sometimes turned out to beindelible ink blots.

He forced himself to consider Matthew Colben and his murderers. At least, hethought they were murderers. There was no proof that Colben had beenkilled. He might be alive, though not well, somewhere in this area. Or someplaceelse.

Now that he was recovering from his shock, he could even thinkthat Colben might be untouched and the film faked.

He could think this, but he did not believe it.

The phone rang. Someone was getting through to him, even if hecould getthrough to no one. Suspecting that only the police could ram througha call, hepicked up the phone. Sergeant Bruin's voice, husky and growling likea bear justwaking up from hibernation, said, "Childe?"

"Yes." "We got proof that they mean business. That film wasn't faked." Childe was startled. He said, "I was just thinking about a fraud.

How'd you

find out?" "We just opened a package mailed from Pasadena." Bruin paused. Childe said, "Yeah?" "Yeah.. Colben's prick was in it. The end of it, anyway.

Somebody's prick,

anyway. It sure as hell had been bitten off." "No leads yet?" Childe said after some hesitation. "The package's being checked, but we don't expect anything,

naturally. And Igot bad news. I'm being taken off the case, well, almost entirelytaken off. We got too many other things just now, you know why. If there's going tobe anywork done on this, Childe, you'll have to do it. But don't go offhalf-cocked and don't do nothing if you get a definite lead, which I think youain't goingto get. You know what I mean. You been in the business."

"Yes, I know," Childe said. "I'm going to do what I can, which, as you said, probably won't be much. I have nothing else to do now, anyway,"

"You could come down here and swear in," Bruin said. "We need menright now! The traffic all over the city is a mess, like I never saw before. Everybody'strying to get out. This is going to be a ghost town. But it'll be amess, abloody mess, today and tomorrow. I'm telling you, I never seennothing like itbefore."

Bruin could be stolid about Colbert, but the prospect of thegreatesttraffic jam ever unfroze his bowels. He was really being moved.

"If I need help, or if I stumble--and I mean stumble--acrossanythingsignificant, should I call you?"

"You can leave a message. I'll call you back when--if--I get in. Good luck, Childe."

"Same to you, Bruin," Childe said and muttered as he hung up, "OUrsus Horribilis! Or whatever the vocative case is."

He became aware that he was sweating, that his eyes felt as ifthey'd beenfiled, his sinuses hurt, he had a headache, his throat felt raw, hislungs werewheezing for the first time in five years since he had quit smokingtobacco, and, not too far off, horns were blaring.

He could do something to ease the effects of the poisoned air, but he could do little about the cars out in the street. When he had left his wife's apartment; he had had a surprising amount of trouble getting acrossBurton Wayto San Vicente. There was no stop light at this point on Le Doux. Cars had to buck traffic coming down Burton Way on one side and going up on theother side of the divider. Coming down to the apartment, he had not seen a caror even a pair of headlights in the dimness. But, going back, he had had to becareful in crossing. The lights sprang out of the gray-greenness with startlingrapidity asthey rounded a nearby curve of Burton Way to the west. He had managedto find a break large enough to justify gunning across. Even so, a pair oflights and ablaring horn and squealing brakes and a shouted curse--subject to theDopplereffect--told him that a speeder had come close.

The traffic going west toward Beverly Hills was light, but thatcomingacross Burton Way between the boulevards to cut southeast on SanVicente was heavy. There was panic among the drivers. The cars were two deep, then suddenlythree deep, and Childe had barely had room to squeeze through. He wasbeingforced out of his own lane and against the curb. Several times, heonly got byby rubbing his tires hard against the curb.

The light at San Vicente and Third was red for him, but the carscoming downSan Vicente were going through it. A car going east on Third, hornbellowing, tried to bull its way through: It collided lightly with another. Fromwhat Childe could see, the only damage was crumpled fenders. But the twodrivers, hopping out and swinging at each other, looked as if they might drawsome blood, inept as they were with their fists. He had caught a glimpse ofseveral frightened faces--children--looking through the windows of bothdamaged cars. Then he was gone.

Now he could hear the steady honking of horns. The great herd wasmigrating, and God help them.

The deadly stink and blinding smoke had been bad enough when mostcars suddenly ceased operating. But now that two million automobiles weresuddenly onthe march, the smog was going to be intensified. It was true that, intime, thecars would be gone, and then the atmosphere could be expected tostart cleaningitself. If it was going to do it. Childe had the feeling that thesmog wasn'tgoing to leave, although he knew that that was irrational.

Meanwhile, he, Childe, was staying. He had work to do. But wouldhe be able to do anything? He had to get around, and it looked as if he mightnot be able to do that.

He sat down on the sofa and looked across the room at the dark goldenbookcases. The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, the two great boxedvolumes, was histreasure, the culminating work of his collection unless you counted acopy ofThe White Company personally inscribed by A. Conan Doyle, once thepossession ofChilde's father. It was his father who had introduced him at an earlyage tointeresting and stimulating books, and his father who had managed topass on hisdevotion to the greatest detective to his son. But his father hadremained a professor of mathematics; he had felt no burning to emulate TheMaster.