It was an unfortunate remark. I suddenly went into alarm. "A bloodhound?" I said. "Is that anything like a Great Dane?"

"Same color. Just a little smaller, that's all."

Oh, Gods, the full implication of this hit me like a club. That woman, Bucket!

If the medical advice was to seek a bloodhound when one had the clap, then this would also include Great Danes!

Had that Great Dane had the clap?

Had Bucket had it?

Did I now have the clap?

I told myself how irrational it was. But I couldn't shake it and I sat there at the window through the night, watching for the land yacht, trying miserably to accept the fact that I probably was not only going to go crazy because of goats but also would cave in and have my bones rot from dog-carried clap. It was an awful thing to have to face. I knew my career was probably coming to an end. But I would be true to duty to the last and, crazy and rotted away though I might be, still an Apparatus officer.

At least I could put a crown on my shining record by ridding the universe of a scourge known as the Countess Krak. But somehow it didn't help. Somewhere in my career, had I gone wrong?

Was there somebody else I had failed to maim or kill? I was being punished for something, I was sure. But it was not because I had not tried to do my Apparatus duty always, like now. I was sure of that. It was just that the Gods are treacherous. They had it in for me.

In the afternoon of the fatal fourth day, after a ceaseless and worried vigil of the highway, with Torpedo twitching and whining on the bed, I walked over to the viewer and there she was!

She was looking at the same blue-misted mountains she had been gazing at, at noon on the first day!

She had not shifted location in all that time!

And there was Bang-Bang's voice, "Miss Joy! Miss Joy! I found him!"

She turned and I listened intently. This was the clue I needed so crucially to reach her and kill her before Heller arrived.

Bang-Bang was scrambling up the rocky path. He was all out of breath. He sank down on a rock near her, trying to get his wind so he could talk.

"Oh, Bang-Bang!" said the Countess. "This is wonderful news. We can get this done before Jettero arrives. He'll be so proud of us! But come on, tell me."

"Can't get my breath," he wheezed. And then he said, "He wasn't in a rest home or retirement home. No wonder it took five hundred calls. He's in a private hos­pital owned by a doctor friend. He's sort of hiding out. But we better hurry, 'cause they say he may not have long to live."

He paused to catch his breath and ease a stitch in his side. I gritted my teeth at this delay. It was Krak who didn't have long to live if I could get that address. That was where she'd keep her rendezvous with death.

He fumbled in his pocket for a paper scrap. He read it to her. "He's in Room 13, Altaprice Hospital, Redneck, Virginia. That's only thirty-five miles west of here!"

"Quick," said the Countess. "Race back and tell the crew to pack it up and get the show on the road! We're on our way!"

I grabbed my maps.

I had her!

She was SOUTH of me! Those (bleeped) retired Greyhound bus drivers had cannonballed her down here to her operating area in what must have been eight hours from Hairytown! She must be in the Smith Mountain Lake resort area southeast of Roanoke, Virginia. And she had been phoning, phoning, phoning from there in comfort while I tore all over the Middle Atlantic states! How she must be laughing!

She deserved to be killed and defiled at once!

It would be easy! There was ample time before Hel­ler could arrive. Redneck was only twenty miles south and east of where I was.

I turned to give Torpedo his orders. I would not accompany him on the actual kill. But it was too easy, now.

I opened my mouth to speak.

There was a knock on the door!

The blanket I was using to hide the viewers had fallen to the floor. I was trying to untangle it.

Torpedo sprang up like a ghoul off the bed and opened the door.

A cop was standing there! He had on a black plastic jacket and white motorcycle helmet. He glared at Torpedo. "That your black Ford out there? It's the same license registered to this room. You left it parked out on the highway verge. It's an offense! Move it before I give you a ticket!"

He turned his back on Torpedo to point to it, stepped toward the balcony rail to do so. It was a fatal action.

Before I could move or call out even if I would have, Torpedo acted!

The hit man snatched a knife out of his belt!

His left arm reached out and grabbed the cop's throat to stifle any cry.

He plunged the knife to its hilt in the cop's back!

He dragged the cop back into the room. He dropped him. He closed the door.

The cop kicked a couple of times and was dead. The knife must have cut his heart in half from behind.

Torpedo turned the body over on its face and, before my horrified gaze, unfastened its belt and began to pull down its pants.

"No, no!" I cried.

Torpedo's hand snaked to the dead cop's holster and I was suddenly confronted with a cocked gun. "You try and stop me!" snarled Torpedo.

I pzed in horror at what he was doing. And then the idiocy of his action hit me.

"You (bleeped) fool!" I screeched at him. "Your target is right south of here. She's in your grasp! Shoot her and do it to her! Get out of here! She'll be arriving

at Altaprice Hospital, Redneck, Virginia, in just an hour or two! Get going!"

"I got to test this out," he panted.

He finished what he had begun.

I expected to hear calls outside or sirens.

"Oh, would that prison psychologist love this!" chortled Torpedo. "(Bleeping) a screw! Clap and all!"

"Get out of here!" I screamed.

He got up grinning ghoulishly. "That just whetted my appetite. Now I can go for a real kill!"

He grabbed his rifle case and bullets.

He tore out of there.

A moment later, I heard the Ford starting up. Torpedo was on his way.

I looked at the dead cop on the floor. I didn't want to touch the corpse, disease contaminated as it was.

I was paralyzed with the thought of being caught here with that. I opened the door a crack. There was no one in the parking area. The dead cop's motorcycle was sitting there.

Acting swiftly, I hauled the corpse outside. Masked by the railing and its covering vines, I dragged it down a short flight of stairs and dropped it. I pulled up the pants. I left the knife in the back.

Carefully, I made sure there was no trail of blood, eradicating the few spots that I found. I put my room to rights.

The dead cop lying out there with his sightless eyes made me sort of frantic.

I had no transportation. I could not ride that motorcycle. I was not going to abandon my baggage.

(Bleep)! What a thing to happen in the middle of a hit!

Inspiration! I went out to the motorcycle and picked up its radio. I called the dispatcher.

"This is Inkswitch. I'm a Fed. Someone seems to have killed your motorcycle cop. You better come and get him. This is the Mucky Motel."

Minutes later squad cars were there. They looked at my credentials. "The suspect is a black man," I said.

"We knew it!" said their chief.

"I found this poor fellow lying here," I said. "I saw the black man racing away on the other side of the field. He has this officer's gun. I knew I should call you to form a posse."

"We'll get the (bleepard)," said the chief.

"I'm on a secret Federal case, myself," I said. "So keep me out of it."

They didn't really hear me. They were already tearing off across the field, obliterating the absence of the footprints.

I joined them to make it look good.

After an hour, they took my description of the black man, carefully photographed the corpse and cleaned the area up.