about that! Only fifty G's! Well, fine, send the crew along in that.... Yeah, we're parked temporary in Kings-land Point Park.... Easy to locate, the thing is big as a house.... Yes, we'll wait right here for the crew.... Oh, yes, sure, Mike. Put it all on the Squeeza credit card-wages, the second motor home, the lot.... Bye now."

I was almost fainting! He had just run up what might become an eighty-thousand-dollar bill! With all Krak's other purchases, Mudur Zengin might begin to run out of money and cost me my half-million deposit certificate!

Bang-Bang was handing the credit card back to the Countess Krak.

"What did Jettero say?" she plagued him.

"To make sure you were comfortable and safe," said Bang-Bang. "And it occurred to me that spring is on the land and if we had a crew you could just spend these four days wandering around the fields as we loafed along southward and pick wildflowers and enjoy the views. Beautiful country this time of year. You'll love it out in the open."

All worries were swept away for me. Bang-Bang unwittingly had set her up as the easiest target in the world!

"It's getting awfully dark," said the Countess Krak. "Doesn't this craft have any glowplates?"

"You mean lights?" said Bang-Bang. "The generator hasn't been started. Let's see. It must be one of these switches here." He was looking over the vast array of panels in reach of the driver's seat. He found it and pushed a button.

My screen flickered!

The roar of an engine starter.

MY SCREEN WENT OUT!

Interference! It must be coming from the generator's carbon brushes! It might be suppressed for Earth-type radio but it certainly jammed the wavelength and type that I was operating on!

I couldn't see or hear a thing!

I swore. But Torpedo could find them and I knew that even if they moved, they would be easy to trace, for I had their destination: "Stone wall" could only mean Stonewall Biggs, the County Clerk of Hamden County, Virginia. And only one major highway and then a few country roads could take them to Fair Oakes. They could be followed or intercepted with ease.

I had one other vital thing to do. I picked up the phone and called the Service Department of the telephone company.

"This is the butler of Dr. Agnes Morelay," I said. "I have a mobile telephone," and I gave the number. "Dr. Morelay has instructed that the service be put on vaca­tion status as it is not in use."

"Right away, sir," the girl said. "We will take it out of service."

I smiled. Heller would not be able to call them. They would not be able to call. And they probably wouldn't even find out their phone was disconnected now.

It would take Mike Mutazione plenty of time to set them up to get going. They were sitting ducks.

It was time for my evening stint. I threw a blanket over the viewers. This was one project which, all said and done, was going extremely well!

Enjoy your last hours on Earth, Countess Krak. Shortly you will be out of the way for keeps!

I

I peeked into the front room. The next lesbian couple had arrived. The husband-a thin, American Indian girl-was apparently named Chief Malcomb. The wife was a plump high-yellow they were calling Bucket.

Miss Pinch was taking a stylish blanket coat off the husband. She was saying, "You're going to love this, Mal­comb. Psychiatric Birth Control is for the (bleeps). It's as big a fraud as psychiatry itself, and that's saying some­thing! You just have NO idea how marvelous natural sex can be!"

Malcomb said, "I'm scared half to death."

That did it! I rushed into the room. I yelled, "I don't want to see any dead, staring eyes! I can't stand it! I can't stand it! I can't STAND IT!"

They looked at me with some alarm. But I was not to be gainsaid!

I knew what I had to do. I made Miss Pinch phone out right then for a rental electrocardiograph. Only when it had arrived and I had it fastened on Malcomb's wrists, with the portable machine positioned beside the bed where I could watch the needle clicking and drawing on the paper the heartbeat of the girl, would I consent to remove my clothes and begin to do my duty.

Even then, I had my attention on that needle to such an extent, making sure that she was not a corpse, that I hardly knew what I was doing.

Miss Pinch, with pursed lips, didn't approve at all.

But the needle swung when the woman screamed and I watched it carefully. Her heart was still beating.

I mopped off my brow, sitting at last on the side of the bed. I felt it had been a near thing. Maybe I should also have one on my wrist: my heart was beating fast enough!

It was even worse with Bucket, the lesbian wife. She was certainly no virgin but, even so, I had to bat the needle several times to make sure it wasn't stuck.

Frightening!

All in all, they must have found it pretty unsatisfactory, even though they admitted afterwards that they had never had anything feel that way before.

After they'd gone, Miss Pinch lectured me about my duties and how I lacked gratitude for the huge pay I had been drawing.

"We almost didn't make it, Inkswitch," she said reprovingly. "You don't understand the critical situation with that Bucket woman. That's twice we're having to change the mind of that poor thing. She used to do it every day with her Great Dane and sex is a big thing for her. You're a soldier in a hard campaign and this is not the time to go soft!"

"With a Great Dane?" I said. "You mean a Danish man."

"No, no. A Great Dane is a dog and dogs have peculiar (bleeps): they swell up huge with a bulb in them and lock in. It's one of the Psychiatric Birth Control methods and it's pretty big competition. You have no idea how that psychiatrist worked on her. He was so solicitous for her plight, he went to the greatest possible lengths. He even gave her the Great Dane out of a government grant from the National Institute of Mental Stealth-they help the needy, you know. And we had an awful time: the

Great Dane bit everybody who came near her and we had to get him run over with a hit car. Then the psychiatrist caught her on the bounce and got her enamored with Malcomb, using a policeman's billy as a dildo. And Malcomb had to do so many weight-lifting tongue exercises to build it up that she sprained her jaw. And your poor performance tonight, that was aimed to get into her with natural sex, might have sent that poor woman to the dogs again. It's a hard campaign, Inkswitch, and you've got to stiffen up and fill the gap!"

I was pretty contrite. But when bedtime came and I insisted Miss Pinch and then Candy wear the machine straps, they kept getting passionate and their writhing around disconnected the straps. This, of course, stopped the electrocardiograph needle, and supposing in horror that I was now doing it to a corpse, I would leap off.

Miss Pinch acidly declared that I had not earned my money that day and refused to pay me. They even made me sleep by myself on a sofa in the back room.

I was lying there wondering what could possibly have gotten into me when the phone rang.

"Torpedo here," he said.

Expecting some marvelous good news, I said, "Are you calling from Hairytown?"

"No. I'm in Harlem."

"WHAT? Listen, you idiot. The target is in a huge land yacht with paper-thin aluminum sides that wouldn't stop a spitball!" And I gave him the license number and description. "It's parked right this minute in Kingsland Point Park, seven-tenths of a mile due west of North Hairytown, overlooking the Hudson. You could walk right in, put the rifle against her head and bangp, your job is done. You better get going! For Gods' sakes, what delayed you?"

"I had to get a rifle and I got a beauty. It's a Holland and Holland double-barrelled elephant rifle,.375 H & H Magnum. Blow the side off a barn! It's got a Bausch and Lomb superpower night scope, hit anything up to a thou­sand yards. It took time to steal them but they work great."