Not one of the restaurant's other customers seemed to notice.

"That's new," said Rocky. "The last time I was in here they didn't do that."

The waitress returned with the bill and accepted Bert's credit card. As she was crossing the room toward the cash register, a small man emerged from the kitchen. He was bald and paunchy, and he bent forward as he walked. For a moment, Mickey thought he was severely hunchbacked, but then he recognized what the man wore strapped to his shoulders. It was a backpack sprayer of the sort used by firefighters.

He pointed. The little man was standing precisely where the waitress had stood to sling their leftovers against the mural. The sprayer's nozzle was in his hand, and a stream of greenish, sudsy fluid was washing the food into a gutter at the base of the wall.

"I don't get it," said Bert.

"I bet you should," said Rocky. "After all, you're a theater critic. And if this isn't dinner theater..."

The last of the hash slid down the wall. The little man aimed a last squirt into the gutter, barked once, and returned to the kitchen.

Before Bert could answer Rocky, the waitress returned. As he signed the credit card slip, Mickey shrugged. "Let's get out of here. I don't want to lose that guy."

6. Fast as Fast Can Be

The Marriott lobby was empty except for a bored-looking desk clerk, a young man with a broom, and a couple emerging hand in hand from the bar. A wall clock said the time was half past twelve. There was no sign of Bullwinkles or Elvises.

All the bar's booths were now occupied. They found a table with a view of the lobby and ordered coffee.

"We have food too, you know," said the waitress.

"What does the C stand for?" Bert was staring at her nametag.

"Chessie." The waitress wrinkled her nose. "The kids used to call me Cheesie. Stilton Cheesie. You want any lunch?"

"We went to the Wallow," said Rocky.

She wrinkled her nose again. "They're strange."

"What about your Bullwinkles?" asked Mickey.

"They're just flakes. Little kids playing dress-up. Nothing else?"

They shook their heads, and she left. But before she could return, Mickey stiffened like a dog on point.

The backwards singer was standing in the lobby, neatly framed by the bar's doorway. He seemed to be speaking to someone just out of sight. He was wearing a hard hat that sported a set of realistic deer antlers.

Rocky turned to look. "I thought you said they were mooses."

Mickey shook his head. "That's him."

"Maybe he's the chief," said Bert. "And chiefs have to be different. Or he's only an honorary Bullwinkle."

The singer was moving now, walking rapidly toward the hotel entrance.

"I've gotta go," said Mickey. He fished a handful of coins from his pocket and spread them on the table. "Enjoy the coffee."

Where had he gone?

Mickey and Kilroy had not been far behind the backwards singer when they emerged from the hotel. They had had no trouble keeping him in sight for block after block, even though their quarry set a fast pace.

When they had reached the city's Roswell Park, the singer had turned through the gate and immediately begun to run along a curving path. Mickey had begun to run as well, but then he had thought of how it must look: A blind man and a guide dog pursuing an antlered jogger through what pa.s.sed in the city for forest. The image might carry a freight of mythic symbolism, but most urbanites would surely see something far more alarming. He doubted he would get very far before a bicycle cop pulled up beside him.

So he walked.

So he watched the singer draw further and further ahead and finally disappear around a clump of evergreens.

The path cut across a corner of the park. When he reached its end and peered down the street to right and left, there were only normal pedestrians in view. No antlers jutted above the crowd. There was no sign of the singer.

But there was a fire hydrant. An elderly woman, dirt deeply engrained in the creases of her face, her hair in tangled strings, leaned against it, wrapped in a filthy blanket. One hand clutched a brown paper bag.

He sighed. He might as well join her.

Would she know the difference if he bought a pint of decent booze and offered to share?

She might, he thought. After all, the papers insisted that the homeless were fallen. They had once been higher. They had had homes and families and perhaps even enough money for Medoc instead of Thunderbird.

Kilroy was sniffing the blanket.

She opened bloodshot eyes and muttered, "Nice doggy." Then she looked at Mickey. "Hey, bubby. Dja know wha' I shaw las' nigh'?" Her open mouth showed filthy, eroded teeth, and her breath was noticeable even at Mickey's distance.

"A fahr hydran'! Walkin' dow' a shtree'!"

He couldn't help the noise he made: "Huh?"

But her eyes closed and she said nothing more.

"Lost him?"

The voice startled Mickey into looking up. He was once again at the corner of the hotel's block, and Bert and Rocky were facing him. "Yeah," he said. "We got to Roswell and--" He gestured. "He just ran away from me."

Rocky took his arm and turned him in the direction she and Bert were going.

"It's probably just as well."

"Back to the office, eh? Back to work?" When she nodded, he added, "I'd rather get to the bottom of this. It's as strange as anything I've ever investigated. And it seems a lot more real."

"So it's strange," said Bert. "There's a lot of strange things in this world. You've got to lighten up a bit. Stop taking it all so seriously."

"You don't understand." Mickey described once more the weirdness of the barking executive, the backwards singer and his encounter with another--or perhaps the same--barker, the Bullvis Brotherhood. "I've never seen such things before in my life, and I've been looking for a long time. I'm beginning to think I've found my s.p.a.ce aliens at last, right in my own backyard!"

"Oh, no!" said Rocky. "Not that again! They're just flakes, normal weird humans. The city is full of them and always has been."

"There's more of them lately, and they're weirder," insisted Mickey. They hadn't been far from his office. The building was already in sight two blocks ahead. "And I've never, ever heard of walking fire hydrants."