He dared not waste a moment. He threw a few clothes into an overnight bag and left. An hour later, he was locking the door of a small hotel room, undoing the guide-dog harness at last, and saying to Kilroy, "Under the name of Sanders.

Kodiak Sanders. I wonder how long they'll take to find us?"

The dog, of course, did not answer. On the other hand, he did manage to look quite sympathetic, almost as if he understood his master's plight.

The news channel had no mention of body parts in pots. He wondered if they could so soon, or would. The police might want to find more than just a hand before they made the crime public. Maybe they would want to find him. Or perhaps they already knew where he was. Every footstep in the hall made him look up, and when the steps stopped, as if some burly cop were about to knock, he cringed.

Someone barked. He jumped, and then he realized that the sound had come from the TV set still on before his eyes. A businessman was kneeling before a hydrant, and someone was saying, "...Cleveland." A moment later he was staring at a stage adorned with the "Strange America" logo and watching the host make antlers with his hands and say, "We'll be right back," in a pa.s.sable imitation of Bullwinkle's voice.

The screen winked out. He stared at Kilroy where he lay curled upon the room's thin rug. "They're everywhere, aren't they? s.p.a.ce aliens. Or flakes."

The dog c.o.c.ked his head, rose, and trotted to the window. He put his forepaws on the sill and whined.

"Do you need to go for a walk?"

He reached for the harness that was the only reason the hotel had permitted Kilroy on the premises, but the dog only pressed his nose against the gla.s.s.

Mickey looked, and in the distance he saw a glowing ball fall out of the sky, hover over Roswell Park, and settle out of sight.

"Is that it?" On any other day, he would have screamed with joy. For all his searching, for all the investigations he had pursued for his books and t.i.ts'n'Tats, he himself had never seen a flying saucer. Not one.

The dog returned to his position, turned around three times, and lay down once more.

"It's probably just another cloud of swamp gas."

But he stayed at the window, staring into the empty sky.

8. Banana Splits and Lemon Drops

"I'm sorry," said the teller. She looked barely old enough to have anything to be sorry for. "A check this size will have to clear before you can have the money. Come back in three days."

Mickey sighed. "I should have expected this, right?"

The smile she gave him was far too tired for nine in the morning.

"Just take it out of my savings," he said. "Then, when the check clears, deposit it."

"Your pa.s.sbook, please."

He stopped his hand halfway to his shirt pocket. "I didn't bring it with me. But you've got me in your computer." He pointed at the screen be~~side her.

"Just..."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Mr. Gorgonzola. You must have your pa.s.sbook to make a withdrawal."

"I need that money!"

She shrugged and glanced toward the line growing behind him. A ripping sound drew her gaze and his toward the bank's entrance, where a middle-aged man had apparently just bent over to retrieve a parcel. The seat of his charcoal-gray pants was split by a white crescent the shape of a banana.

The man froze in his position for just a second. Then he straightened, made an exasperated face at the hard-faced blonde who was the bank's security guard, and marched toward the loan department.

"Is there a difficulty here?" The bank's manager was leaning over the teller's shoulder.

"I just wanted to cash that check, but..."

"Of course." The manager peered at the check and patted the teller's back.

"Go ahead, dear." Then he gave Mickey a wink and an abrupt, conspiratorial nod.

"I enjoyed your last book."

Mickey was tucking the bills into his wallet and walking toward the bank's revolving doors when a police officer entered, scanned the room, and marched toward the manager's office in the rear.

Mickey had left Kilroy in the hotel room because he had feared just such a moment. If anyone was looking for him, they would also be looking for a dog.

Without the dog, he would have that much more chance of escaping notice and staying free.

Unfortunately, he was in the wrong place. Before he could reach the door, the manager's voice cried, "Stop him!"

He was only a yard from the security guard. But instead of grabbing for him, she reached for the automatic in the holster on her belt. Her skirt fell, revealing frilly lemon-yellow panties and a curve of haunch far more feminine than her face.

Not surprisingly, she grabbed for her skirt. Mickey, forgotten for the moment, charged into the revolving door. As it swung him to the street outside, he thought he heard someone bark.

He did not remember seeing the hydrant at the curb the last time he had visited the bank. But he had no time to dwell on that thought, for a squad car was coming toward him down the street.

The tinted windshield let him see only that there were two cops in the car.

As it drew abreast, he recognized the cops who had visited his office. Custer, the thin one, was behind the wheel. Abe, his fat buddy, held the mike to the car's radio in one hand.

Custer held up one hand and waggled the fingers.

Abe smacked him on the shoulder and gestured furiously.

The car stopped with a lurch. Its siren growled. Its lightbar began to strobe blue and blue and blue.

Mickey was already running. His goal was a narrow pa.s.sageway down which he was sure the police car could not possibly follow him. He glanced behind. The car was crosswise in the road, kept from completing its turn by a bakery van.

The high backsides of apartment buildings, all red brick and tiny windows, blocked his view as he dove into the pa.s.sageway. A moment later it dumped him into an alley flanked by closed metal doors and open loading bays full of garbage cans.

No one was in sight when he seized a shadowed corner in one of those bays to catch his breath. It could be only moments before the squad car reached one end of the alley, which was quite wide enough to let it through. Abe would use his radio to call other cars, and the pa.s.sage he had used would be blocked. He felt trapped already.

Unless... He tried the door that led into the depths of the building. It opened, and he was in a hallway adorned by the pipes that festooned the walls and ceilings. The only other person present was a single janitor bent over some unidentifiable bit of pipe. The seat of his pants gaped as widely as had that of the parcel-dropper in the bank.

"You ripped your pants," he said as he pa.s.sed.

The other man gave him an unshaven glare that said he knew.

It didn't take Mickey long to find the building's lobby and recognize the street he had fled. A squad car, its lightbar strobing, was pa.s.sing by.

He turned the other way, back the way he had come, back toward the bank. He hoped there would be no one to recognize him. The manager would be back at his desk, or explaining to his employees and customers that there had been no robbery, or... The cops would be elsewhere, hunting, lying in wait.

The hydrant in front of the bank was no longer alone. An elegantly dressed blonde was kneeling beside it and yapping enthusiastically. Beside her stood a top-hatted b.u.m with a loop of rope in his hand.