I didn't have much money. But I leaned forward. "A twenty-dollar tip if you lose that gray car!"

"Fifty dollahs," said the cabby.

"Fifty dollars!" I said.

We sped forward. We swayed and tire-screeched around trucks. We cut desperately in front of cars whose brakes shrieked as they stamped down to miss us.

Every sway was agony to my tortured and bruised body. Gods, would I be glad to get out of New York—if I made it!

We got onto Woodhaven Boulevard. We roared through the wintry Forest Park. We rocketed past Kew Gardens. We blasted by Aqueduct Race Track.

We came screaming into the passenger terminal of John F. Kennedy Airport. I looked anxiously on the back trail. They still might come. I paid the cabby. I then had only eighteen dollars left!

"What airline?" said a black porter with a cart.

"I don't know," I said.

He was loading my baggage on his small truck. "Well, you c'n take yo' choice, then. They's Pan Am. They's TWA. But if'n it's TWA, we bettah git anothah cab 'cause this is Pan Am. Now, me, f'um mah study of the crashes..."

I thought fast. Four o'clock. Maybe only one plane left at four. "What goes to Rome or London or someplace at four?"

"Well, ah thinks they is one fo' Rome at fo'. But if you ain't too partickler, me, I'd go to Trinydad wheh it is mo' wahm."

"Rome. Take me to that counter."

He did. It was long, long before plane time.

"Inkswitch?" said the clerk. "We don't have any reservation in that name. I will call central..."

I wasn't listening. I had been casting glances back toward the door.

THERE THEY WERE!

I hysterically threw three one-dollar bills at the porter. "Take care of my baggage!"

I fled.

Darting through a troop of Girl Scouts, colliding with a woman carrying a Pekingese who gave me a shove, I was propelled into the midst of an Olympic ski team. It was a lifesaver. They gave me such a vigorous rejection that I went like a bowling ball into a crowd of priests. The confusion was so great, all I had to do was keep rolling and I was in through the door of a men's washroom.

I hastily got a coin out and with an agonized sigh of relief I was safely inside a john.

I sat there for a bit. I hurt so much, I forgot to pull my feet up. Then I remembered the technique and did so. It was just in time.

Two pairs of heavy boots!

The two tough men were coming down the line of locked toilets, looking under the doors!

They didn't see me.

They were in a hurry.

They went on.

Only then could I permit myself to suffer. The bruises were just one big general pain from the cab ride. I was sure the cuts were bleeding again from the bowling-ball trip. What one had to go through just to execute his simple duties!

Stifling a sneeze, I abruptly remembered that I had forgotten to phone the New York office and get Raht to turn on the 831 Relayer. Without it, I would be blind about Heller.

I had lots of time before four o'clock. The problem was how to get out of this place and to a phone without being spotted.

Getting brave, I left the john cubicle.

There was a man, a very big man, over by a wash bowl. He had a rather extensive kit spread out and he was shaving with an old blade razor.

He was facing sideways to the entrance door. He had hung his hat—a sort of hunting hat with two bills front and back—and his coat—a black and white checkered mackinaw—on a hook quite close to the door.

Being of a cunning frame of mind, I knew that he would shortly wash his face. He would have soap in his eyes for a moment. I waited. Sure enough, over he bent.

Quick as a flash, I had the hat and coat. Quicker, I slid out of the washroom, expertly getting them on at the same moment.

The odd, red cap was awfully big. It fitted easily over my own hat. The loud-checked mackinaw was huge, more like an overcoat on me. Adequate disguise!

I peered cautiously about. Yes! There they were, the two tough men! But they were facing the other way, looking along lines of people.

I got to a coin-change machine and converted ten dollars to change. I certainly was low on cash.

Adequately masked by the hat and coat, I slid into a glass-enclosed phone kiosk. I dialled the New York office.

"Put Raht on the phone," I said.

They had some idiot clerk from Flisten on their reception: I could tell by the crazy way he had of pronouncing his S's: He made them into Z's. "I am zorry. The poor Raht iz in the hozpital ztill. Complicationz. The pneumonia iz not rezponding to the penizillin. Hiz condition iz critical. Whom zhall I zay called?"

I was furious! I was zo zizzling, I znapped ztraight over into gutter Flizten. An idiot like that couldn't hope to understand Standard Voltarian, much less plain English. "Vacations! Vacations! That's all you people ever think about!"

"O Demons of the green abyss!" he said in Flisten. "This must be Officer Gris!" He sounded scared. That was better!

"Now listen to me," I snarled at him in Flisten. "You order Raht to stop faking and handle the Empire State and make him report in or I'll have him filled full of red Tabasco Signal Corps! And listen, you idiot, if I ever catch you speaking Flisten again on an Earth phone line I'll make you listen to A Night on Bare Mountain with rolling pins! Got it?"

He had it. It was the most terrible curse I could think of. He was gibbering!

I hung up, feeling a bit better.

Madison! I ought to call Madison and tell him what a magnificent job he had done. A PR triumph! And also that I was leaving. Then Bury wouldn't know where to send the snakes.

I inserted the coins and hit the buttons. Amazing! It was Madison himself who answered. "Thank you for calling right back, Mr. Underslung. What progress have you made in getting the Whiz Kid an Oscar for underhanded driving?"

"No, no," I sneezed. "This is Tabasco Smith, I mean Mr. Smith. Madison, I absolutely had to call and tell you what a magnificent job you have done. You are a wonder. Thank Gods for PR and please tell Mr. Bury I have gone off on a long trip to spy on the Signal Corps for Miss Agnes."

"Job done?" he said, sounding mystified. "But this campaign isn't over, Smith, far from it! It has a long, long way to go yet to achieve lasting image. Wait until you see tomorrow's papers! They will say that he made so much money betting against himself in the race that he will give the bribe in full to the Kansas farmers."

There it was again, the thing which I hadn't understood before. "What's all this about Kansas farmers?"

"You don't get that?" he said, amazed. "Good heavens, you surely are a long way from professional. My orders are to make his name a household word and to make him immortal. Since the image of 'the man who started World War III' was ruined, I have had to take a different tack. The one I am working on now is 'Jesse James.' He was a famous outlaw who fought the railroads in Kansas by robbing trains and gave the loot to the farmers. He is one of the great American folk heroes. Deathless. So if I can give Wister a Jesse James-type image, all will be well. It can change, though. PR is a fluid subject, Inkswitch, and above all we've got to keep that front page no matter how many natural cataclysms get in the way. If I try very hard and stay with the fundamentals of professional PR, the Whiz Kid will make it, but it will take time. Now if you will get off my phone, I'd appreciate it. I'm shorthanded today since Hoodward was shot at the airport by Faustino's men and Ted Tramp's wife is having a baby. I'm expecting calls from various racing associations to get the Whiz Kid debarred from every track in America so we can come back the next day and claim they are just terrified to race against him. And for the day after that, I have to get riots organized by those who lost bets and riots take a lot of advance time. So I need all my phones!"