“Then that’s swell,” Jack said, “I’m all for it. We’ll be glad to get rid of him.”

Juno, who had been frowning for a long while, now rocked her head like a puzzled bull. “Gee, Jack, I dunno,” she said. “I don’t like it at all.”

“Juno -” Jack began threateningly.

“I don’t like the idea of tossing the little guy to the wolves,” she finished defiantly.

“To the wolves, Mrs. Jones?” Dr. Romadka asked dangerously. “That’s done to save others. Please explain -”

But at that moment Sacheverell came hustling forward with great determination. There were no longer any traces of sympathy in the stern glance he fixed on Phil. “I think that Anton and Jack are quite right,” he announced, seizing Phil by shoulder and elbow and marching him toward the door. “I’m tired of your deceptions, Mr. Gish. You go right along with Anton and his friends, and no nonsense.”

Phil heard a grunt of satisfaction from Dr. Romadka. He tried to twist away from Sacheverell, but the latter pressed even more closely to his side, so that his face was next to Phil’s ear, and suddenly whispered, “Up the stairs, two flights.”

The next moment, Phil felt himself pushed away, while Sacheverell reeled with a yelp into Dr. Romadka, who was stooping for his black bag, and at the same time managed to upset the antique floor lamp that dimly lit the hall.

Then Phil was racing up the creaking stairs in the sudden darkness, helping himself along by yanks at the rickety balustrade, while behind him he heard shouts and racing footsteps. Nearest were those of Sacheverell, who was crying manfully, “There he goes! After him, everyone!”

Phil raced along the backstretch of corridor and up the second flight, Sacheverell flapping at his heels like a green bat. At the top he grabbed Phil and shoved him through a door. For a moment their faces were close.

“Out the window and over the beam,” Sacheverell whispered. “Dare anything forhim. ”

The door was swiftly shut and he heard Sacheverell yell, “He’s gone up in the attic. Follow me.” Phil was in darkness, facing a tall window dimly aglow from outside, while about his feet rats who had taken refuge in the room scurried frantically.

He walked over to the double-paned thing of wavy, ancient glass. He had read more than one comedy scene involving the impossibility of opening such primitive windows, but this one came up easily enough and all the way. He ducked through and crouched on the sill outside, steadying himself with one hand.

Around him was nineteenth-century, musty smelling wood and slate. Opposite him, about twenty feet away, was the top-level street, busy with speeding electrics. Joining the two was a metal beam about eight inches wide, faintly outlined in the glow from the car’s headlights. The beam was grimy with dirt. It based itself in the brick chimney that rose just beside the window. In fact, one of Phil’s feet was on it. Below were two stories of mostly darkness.

What happened next may very well have been made possible by the fear-abolishing, nerve-steadying drug Juno had put in his whiskey, though Phil laid it to the influence of Lucky and to Sacheverell’s grotesque yet strangely thrilling injunction. Certainly Phil was no athlete and had, if anything, a touch of acrophobia.

At any rate, he slowly got to his feet, let go the window, poised himself for a moment, and then ran lightly across the beam. He rolled clumsily over the railing at the other end and sprawled on the sidewalk.

At the same instant a needle of glaring blue lanced up through the dark behind him. It cut through the beam at an angle, spat redly for a moment against the black “roof” a few feet above the Akeleys’ house, and winked out.

The beam held for a moment, then slowly slid past itself at the cut. The chimney fell lazily. There were yells and one scream came from below. The roof of the Akeley place slid forward a foot – and stopped. Dust mushroomed up.

Then Phil was racing down the street to a cab parked a quarter of a block away. He was thinking that, whatever those orthos of Moe Brimstine’s boys were, apparently Dr. Romadka’s friends had them too. He couldn’t help sparing a thought for the plight of the group in the reeling attic. He could almost hear Juno’s titanic curses.

Then he was piling into the cab.

“The Tan Jet,” he told the driver. “It’s a kind of night club.”

“Yeah, I know,” the latter said in a voice heavy with knowledge, fixing on Phil the sad, resigned gaze one reserves for those who insist, against all good advice, on running to their dooms.

IX

SOMEONE singing, “Turn of the Century Blues” in a sultry, melancholy voice was all that Phil could hear as he walked down the dark ramp and into the hardly brighter Tan Jet. No live or robot doorman was on guard, at least no obvious one, and no hostess came hurrying up. Apparently customers were supposed to know their way around.

There were a lot of them. They sat in small parties with a truculent quietness that sneered at and challenged the frantic hustle of the times and the belief that the hustle was leading anywhere. There were no juke box theatres in the corners, no TV screens visible, and the booths didn’t seem to be equipped with handies. Four live musicians softly blew and strummed old jazz instruments, while a single amber spotlight shone on the coffee colored, deceivingly languid songstress, whose sequined dress went all the way to her wrists and chin.

I’m sad-crazy, sweetheart, tonight,

My heart is heavy in the sodium light…

A young man and woman coming from opposite shadowy walls sighted each other. “Lambie Pie!” he cried. She stood stock still as he walked up to her and gave her a slap that rocked her red-ringletted head. Then, “Loverman!” she cried and slapped him back. Phil could see his eyes roll ecstatically as the red flamed in his smacked cheek. They linked arms ritualistically and made off.

And it don’t help, sweetheart, to know

That the whole world went crazy -

Moon-mazy and space-hazy -

About a hundred years ago,

So -

At that moment Phil spotted the dark sheen of Mitzie Romadka’s hair and cloak at the far end of the room. He started toward her, suddenly feeling a trifle uneasy.

Put away my sky-high platform shoes

And don’t bring me any happy news, For -

I’ve got those turn of the century -

Turn of the millennium -

Blues!

As the listeners softly hissed their applause, Phil stopped a few feet away from Mitzie’s table. She was with three young men, but they sat away from her pointedly, as if she were ostracized.

The three young men, without lifting a finger, showed more of the mystic toughness that seemed to be the specialty of the joint than any other people in it. They had the quiet dignity of murderers. When Mitzie turned to see what they were looking at, she sprang up with the delighted cry of “Phil!” though there was alarm in her eyes. She wasn’t wearing her evening mask. She walked over to him and slapped him stingingly with her left hand.

He whipped up his hand to slap her back, hesitated, and barely managed a sketchy pat. She glared at him but turned back with a bright smile, saying gayly, “Fellows, Phil. Phil, meet Carstairs, Llewellyn, and Buck.”

Carstairs had a head that bulged at the top like a pear. He wore thin bangs, the effect of which was not effeminate. He remarked lazily to Mitzie, “So this is the clown you blabbed tonight’s plans to.”

Llewellyn looked very British and was very black. He said, “You also seem to have told him we’d come here later. Puzzles me why he didn’t bring the police.”

Buck was hawk faced and had a Kentucky accent that sounded as if it had been learned from tapes. “P’lice never tried to pick up anybody in the Tan Jit, yit,” he observed. “Not here, Otie!” This last remark was addressed to a gaunt, mangy dog which thrust its head from under his legs and snapped at Phil.