ctacular way and--"

"I think you've figured it out most accurately."

"Some of it fits together. Uncle Peter was no doubt responsible for the
Zinsky boys coming to our reception. We'll get the dope on that when we
catch up with him. But the blonde must not have known what was going to
happen, so she tipped Hands off that he could find the whole Zinsky mob
at the reception. He decided it would be a good place to settle certain
matters of his own."

"But why did Uncle Peter want them there?"

Joy glanced at me with love in her eyes. "Darling, we're going to be
wonderful companions through life, but most of the fun will be strictly
physical. Mental exercises aren't your forte."

"When Red Nose Tessie makes a date with a guy," Bag Ears said, "she
expects the guy to keep it."

"The blonde Cora is no doubt heading for a rendezvous with Hands
McCaffery," Joy went on. "And she's taking our dear uncle with her."

"Okay," Bag Ears replied. "So we mind our business and keep our noses
clean and live a long time."

Joy was weaving through traffic, trying to keep the roadster in sight.
"Turn on the radio," she told me. "There might be some news."

I snapped the switch and we discovered there was news indeed; an evening
commentator regaling the public with the latest:

"--an amazing mass phenomena which leading scientific minds have
pronounced to be basically similar to the flying-saucer craze. Relative
to that--you will remember--otherwise reliable citizens swore they saw
space ships from other planets hovering over our cities spying on us.

"This phase of the hysteria takes an entirely different turn. It seems
now that these otherwise entirely reliable citizens are seeing other
citizens explode and vanish into thin air. The police and the newspapers
have been deluged with frantic telephone calls. In the public interest,
we have several persons here in the studio who claim to have seen this
phenomena. Your commentator will now interview them over the air.
You--you, sir--what is your name?"

"Sam--Sam Glutz."

"Thank you, Mr. Glutz. And will you tell the radio audience what you
saw?"

"It wasn't nothing--nothing at all. That is--this guy was running down
the street like maybe the cops was after him--I don't know. Then--there
wasn't nothing."

"You mean the man disappeared?"

"He went pop, kind of--like a firecracker only not so loud--and then
pieces of him flew all over and they disappeared and there wasn't
nothi