When he had buckled the harness onto his dog, he said, "In the center drawer. Pa.s.s me the gla.s.ses."

Bert Camen obediently opened the drawer and held up a pair of dark sungla.s.ses. "But you're not blind."

"You're the one who mentioned disguises," said Mickey.

"That was you. I just said 'walls.' But what on Earth do you want a disguise for?"

"Research. You'd be surprised what you can get away with when no one believes you could possibly be watching. Ready, Kilroy?"

The dog faced the door eagerly.

"He does not look like a guide dog," said Bert.

"He'll do." Mickey reached across his old friend to turn off the computer.

"He always has."

Bert followed him into the hallway before asking, "What are you researching?"

"G.o.d knows. Answers, I guess. Why those cops came around to lean on me.

What that hydrant-woofer thought he was up to. Whatever. Or maybe I'm just not working on that proposal."

Eyes hidden by dark gla.s.ses, back straight, one hand on the harness handle, Mickey Gorgonzola was every inch a blind man. Yet he saw it all, and a sense that somehow the rules that had always governed his world had changed told him that if he did not run across another hydrant-woofer, he would surely find something just as strange.

For the moment, he saw nothing unusual, though there were certainly plenty of fire hydrants. He had never realized how many of them adorned the city's streets, as if they grew like mushrooms after rain.

Near the corner, facing each other across a wire-mesh litter receptacle, two hard-hatted construction workers screamed insults at each other. Ten feet beyond them a hydrant leaked a shallow puddle from one of its firehose connectors. A young woman in a tight sweater, a short skirt, and rose-patterned panty hose rolled a newspaper into a tight cylinder, leaned over the hydrant, lifted the rolled paper, and belted it across the leaky connector. "Bad!" she cried. "Bad dog!" She hit it again.

When her paper was a soggy ruin, she straightened up, crossed the few feet that separated her from the city's wastebasket, and chucked it in. Then she grinned at the gaping construction workers, dusted one hand against the other, and stepped into the crosswalk.

Did that strolling executive look familiar? He had the silvery sideburns, the attache case, the freshly pressed suit. But there was another, and another, as alike as the proverbial peas. Mickey could not possibly be sure unless one of the dozens and hundreds and thousands of corporate look-alikes went down on his knees and began to howl at a hydrant.

Not one of them obliged, even though there were plenty of hydrants available. s.p.a.ce aliens welcome. Instant service. No waiting.

On the other hand, there didn't seem to be any lack of strange people on the loose today. He had never before seen anyone scold a fire hydrant for leaking, just as he had never seen anyone bark at one. Now he had seen both in two days.

He was near the city's park when he saw a thirtyish man clad in a brown sweater over gray slacks walking backwards and singing an unrecognizable tune.

The words--"N-aye-sh-nus eim raa oo-ie..."--seemed nonsense until Mickey played them backwards in his mind.

The singer did not seem to notice when Mickey began to follow. He kept singing as he threaded his way among the other pedestrians, and when he reached the corner he stopped just as if he could see where he was going.

That was when a business executive, carrying a gleaming attache case, flagged a pa.s.sing cab and, as the cab's door swung open, faced the singer, bowed low, and barked once.

Before Mickey could react, the executive was in the cab and disappearing into the city's depths.

4. Bullwinkle Lives!

Mickey Gorgonzola was the only person on that street who seemed startled by what had just happened. Everyone else ignored both the singer and the barking executive.

Was this business executive the very one that had barked at the hydrant outside his office? He had the same silvery sideburns and a very similar suit and attache case. Yet Mickey could not be sure. Executives were like bureaucrats and airline ticket clerks and customs agents. He couldn't tell them apart unless they were wearing nametags.

And if they were the same? What connection could there possibly be between a backwards singer and a business executive who barked at fire hydrants?

He swore that he would not stay ignorant if he could help it. Something strange was going on, and after all, he had long since made the pursuit of the strange his business.

He had never caught it, but maybe this time...

When the backwards singer turned toward the city's business district, Mickey and Kilroy were not far behind. In the next several blocks, Mickey saw nothing strange except a department store mannequin with its thumb to its nose and, on the wall of a small art gallery, a picture of a bakery box with its lid open to display a dozen shapely b.u.t.tocks.

When he looked ahead once more, the backwards singer was not in sight.

Mickey swore out loud as he told himself that it didn't matter how the artist had produced "Sarah Lee's Best Buns." Painting or photo or computer graphic, he shouldn't have let himself be distracted.

Had the singer simply turned the corner just ahead? When he reached it, Mickey took off his dark sungla.s.ses and peered down the side streets.

"You're not blind at all!" gasped an elderly woman with a half-full canvas shopping bag hanging from the crook of one elbow. "The nerve of some people!"

"Shh!" he said. "Undercover work, you know."

"Oh!" She nodded and stepped back against a storefront to watch him scan the flow of pedestrians to the left. "Are you shadowing someone?"

"I can't say," he said. "It's secret. But watch the papers." Then he turned to scan the street to the right.

"Oh, I will!" she said. "Are you from the FBI? I used to watch Eliot Ness, oh, a long time ago."

"Shh," said Mickey.

She whispered huskily: "Your dog doesn't really look much like a seeing-eye dog, you know."

Mickey shrugged at her.

"Or are you a reporter? I read t.i.ts'n'Tats every week!"

There was no sign of his quarry in either direction.

"Kilroy? Can you smell him?"

The dog tugged at his harness. Mickey put his gla.s.ses back on his face.

"Good luck!" cried the woman as they turned right, leaving her behind to marvel at how close she had come to secret police work and to continue thinking that he was an agent of the FBI or CIA. Or that he was one of Larry Castle's colleagues.

Two blocks later, he and Kilroy turned a corner and found the singer just ahead. A boxy speaker slung above the door to a pet shop emitted birdsong and animal noises. The shop's window held a large cage crowded with parakeets.

As the singer pa.s.sed the window, the parakeets flapped their wings in unison, flew against the wires of their cage, and erupted in a cacophony of avian curses, even though the singer was not at the moment performing his schtick.

They repeated their eruption when Mickey and Kilroy pa.s.sed the shop.

A few minutes later, the singer ducked into a real estate agency. Before Mickey reached the building and had to decide whether to follow the other inside, he was out again and leading the way once more across a street and around a corner to a music shop. Mickey had just time enough to wonder whether it were possible to buy backwards lyrics, and then the singer was on the street once more. His hands were empty.