“Get that slinky walk, Mr. Billig,” Moe Brimstine was urging. “What a gorgeous babe, eh?”

She tossed her head, stopped six feet short of Phil, took out a lipstick, looked straight ahead of her, and very carefully made up her lips. At the same time something cold and sucking closed on the fingers of Phil’s left hand. He instinctively flipped it, and a tiny pink octopus sailed through the air toward the girl and flattened itself against something in the air about two feet short of her.

Phil watched it clinging there and felt his mind swell to bursting, as if he’d had another shot of Tan Jet lemonade. Then he got up, walked cautiously forward, and fell.

There was an invisible flat surface, extending as far as he could reach, between himself and the other half of the room. He realized he was on the viewing side of a one-way mirror bisecting the room. Dora, standing so close he could otherwise have touched her, turned, and as she did so, her skirt brushed the other side of the surface. He saw it was at least two inches from the side to which the octopus still clung. A mirror would hardly be that thick. It must consist of two panes probably with the space between them evacuated. For as he realized with a new surprise, he must not be hearing their voices directly, but a miked and transmitted version of them, which in turn must be binaural, so that they would be heard in depth and the proper direction.

Confirming this, he noted that the voices did not localize quite as perfectly as they had seemed to before he had caught on to the illusion. Also, the depth effect was a bit too rich, as if the mikes were more than ears-distance apart.

He also saw that all sources of illumination were beyond the panel.

But now that he knew they were not ignoring him, but simply unaware of his presence, he felt very much the burglar and very uneasy. He looked nervously back along the corridor he’d traveled and ahead along its darker and straighter continuation that, also this side of the panel, led out of the room. He asked himself why Billig should have the setup arranged and the sound turned on so that he and Brimstine and Dora could be spied on. It didn’t make sense. Although he was protected, Phil felt a shiver legging it up his spine.

He might have left the spy chamber but at that moment Moe Brimstine put down a phone and said excitedly, “He’s coming!” whereupon Billig at once stopped pacing and became as cool and unworried as dark tranquil water. He pointedly did not look at the archway beyond him, though Brimstine did.

A man came through the archway and stopped. He held his spine and the expression of his face very straight.

His hair was touched with gray and his face showed years of worry – but not Billig’s kind.

Billig looked at him with a questioning smile that barely stopped short of a smirk. He waited a moment and said softly, “Under the circumstances, I suppose you do not care to use your name, but -”

“It’s Dave Greeley,” the other said bluntly.

“ – but I do suppose that you come from the Federal Bureau of Loyalty and that you are fully empowered to deal for the services and the president?”

The other nodded once.

“Mr. Greeley, Mr. Brimstine,” Billig said with a gracious wave of his arm that reminded Phil of the swaying of a snake. “Mr. Greeley, Dora… er, Dora Pannes.”

The government man barely acknowledged the introductions.

“Mr. Billig,” he said, “you tell us you have the green cat. If you have, we’ll buy it.”

“And what will you pay?” Billig murmured.

“The Moreland-McCartney letters, proving the graft those senators received from Fun Incorporated, plus all related recording and microwave tapes. Similar material in sixty-odd other cases, which I hardly need enumerate to you in detail.”

“Not enough,” Billig said softly.

Greeley hesitated. “Of course, I could appeal to you,” he said in a different voice; “simply as Americans, as citizens of this hemisphere facing a deadly danger -”

“Please, Mr. Greeley,” Billig said with a chuckle.

Greeley shut his lips tight. When he opened them, his earlier voice spoke.

“Letters of confidence on all the indicted officials, dated today and signed and thumbprinted by the president and all the service heads, with confirming vocal recordings and pictures of the recordings being made. Naturally our experts will have to examine the cat before the exchange is made. They can be here in twenty minutes.”

“That is better,” Billig murmured, “quite a bit better. But not enough.”

“What else do you want?” Greeley demanded angrily, but it seemed to Phil that he knew.

“The witnesses, delivered into our hands,” Billig said. “O’Malley, Fattori, Madelin Luszcak, and the thirty-odd – no, I’ll be precise – thirty-four others.”

“That’s out,” Greeley said sharply. “I can’t offer to pay you in human lives.”

“Who mentioned anything like that?” Billig asked mildly. “I didn’t, did I, Moe? It’s just that we’d feel safer with the witnesses in our protective custody rather than yours.”

“You know what you’d do to them,” Greeley said.

Billig shrugged. “You wouldn’t have to think about it. In any case, there are ways to forget.” And he glanced at Dora, who flashed the FBL man a lazy, provocative smile.

Greeley flushed. For a few seconds he seemed to be concentrating on his breathing. “Look here, Billig,” he said finally, “don’t get the idea that either I or the government feels anything but loathing and detestation for you. Fun Incorporated has corrupted a third of a nation, and we have your headquarters here and in twenty cities so well cordoned a wasp couldn’t get out. The sole reason we haven’t smashed you is that you tell us you’ve captured something that is a little more dangerous to America than even your rotten organization. But our patience is wearing thin. We suspect a bluff, in spite of those green hairs you sent us. Make a deal while you can.”

“The chemical and physical analysis of the hair must have shown your experts something very interesting,” Billig murmured with a reflective smile. “Like you say, Mr. Greeley, we have something you can’t do without. Something worth roughly – shall we say a third of a nation? It seems to me that we are letting you off very cheaply. Consider what the Russkies might be willing to pay. So I’m afraid the witnesses are an essential part of the exchange. In fact, I’m certain.”

“I’m warning you,” Greeley flared, “that I’m in full charge of Project Kitty under Emmet and that I’ve advised Emmet and the president to break off the deal and raid if you insist on that condition.”

“You’ve advised,” Billig replied, “and you’re under Emmet. I’m only interested in what Barnes and Emmet have advised.”

Greeley looked as if he wished he were deaf and dumb. His hands clenched and slowly unclenched. He set himself to speak.

Just then a phone-light blinked. Moe Brimstine snatched it up, obviously prepared to roar out a rebuke and slam it down. Instead he listened silently, and kept on listening. Greeley watched him intently.

At that moment, Phil heard the soft kiss of a door slitting open and faint footsteps drabber in quality than the binaural richness of the stuff he’d been listening to. He looked down the straight dark corridor on his side of the panel. Some forty feet down it, where it ended in a T, light now flooded across. Then Phil saw Dr. Romadka cross the corridor at that point. The analyst was still carrying his black bag. In the other hand was a gun. He disappeared from sight.

“You better take this, Mr. Billig.”

Phil switched around just in time to see Billig grab the phone from Brimstine with a glare. “Three of them?” Billig’s words were staccato. “And a fourth man and a girl, they said? And what did they tell you the fourth man wanted? I don’t care if it sounds silly!What? ”

Holding the phone, Billig spared Greeley a glance. “We’re going to have to delay making final arrangements for a few minutes,” he said curtly. “Dora will entertain you.”