."

"I'll love it," Malone said. "Especially that connecting bath. It
would have been terrible to have an unconnecting bath. Sort of
distracting."

"Okay," Boyd said. "Okay. You know what I mean." He stared down at
Malone's hand. "You know you've still got your lighter on?" he added.

Malone looked down at it and shut it off. "You asked me to hold it,"
he said.

"I didn't mean indefinitely," Boyd said. "Anyhow, how about grabbing a
cab and heading on down to the hotel to get your stuff away, before we
check in at 69th Street?"

"Good idea," Malone said. "And besides, I could do with a clean shirt.
Not to mention a bath."

"Trains get worse and worse," Boyd said absently.

Malone punched the redcap's buttons again, and he and Boyd followed it
through the crowded station to the taxi stand. The robot piled the
suitcases into the cab, and somehow Malone and Boyd found room for
themselves.

"Hotel New Yorker," Boyd said grandly.

The driver swung around to stare at them, blinked, and finally said,
"Okay, Mac. You said it." He started with a terrific grinding of
gears, drove out of the Penn Station arch and went two blocks.

"Here you are, Mac," he said, stopping the cab.

Malone stared at Boyd with a reproachful expression.

"So how was I to know?" Boyd said.

"I didn't look. If I'd known it was so close we could've walked."

"And saved half a buck," Malone said. "But don't let it bother
you--this is expense-account money."

"That's right," Boyd said. He beamed and tipped the driver heavily.
The cab drove off and Malone hailed the New Yorker doorman, who
equipped them with a robot bellhop and sent them upstairs to their
rooms.

Three-quarters of an hour later, Boyd and Malone were in the offices
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on East 69th Street. There
they picked up a lot of nice, new, shiny facts. It was unfortunate, if
not particularly surprising, that the facts did not seem to make any
sense.

In the first place, only red 1972 Cadillacs seemed to be involved.
Anybody who owned such a car was likely to find it missing at any
time; there had been a lot of thefts reported, including some that
hadn't had time to get into Burris' reports. New Jersey now claimed
two victims, and New York had three of its own.

And all the cars weren't turning up in New York, by any means. Some of
the New York cars had turned up in New Jersey. Some had turned up in
Connecticut--including one of the New Jersey c