mind you. His air intake ain't
workin', like I said. Mitchell, in Car 87, spots him and heads for him,
figuring there's trouble."

"But no trouble?" asked Flanders.

"Trouble enough. The driver's old lady throws a wrench at him, an' it
goes out the window." He chuckled. "First I heard about it was when that
damn wrench comes down and bounces off the pressure glass, then up to
the side of the building there, and back to the pressure glass. Then it
slides off into the rain gutter."

Flanders looked up at the curve of hard, tough, almost invisible
pressure glass that covered the street. "With all the cars overhead that
we got in this city," Flanders said philosophically, "something like
that's bound to happen every so often. That's why that glass is up
there, besides for keepin' the rain off your head."

"Yeah," Pilsudski said. "Anyway, Mitchell and Warber got there just as
she tossed the wrench. Arrested both of 'em. Now, wasn't that exciting?"

Flanders grinned. "Fred, if the rest of their tour of duty was as dull
as you say it was, then I reckon that must have been real exciting."

"Hah." Pilsudski shrugged. "Well, I'm for that beer. See you tomorrow,
Johnny."

"Right. Take care o' yourself."

As Pilsudski walked away, Flanders put his hands behind his back,
grasping the left in the right. He spread his feet slightly apart. In
that time-honored position of the foot patrolman, he surveyed his beat,
up and down both sides of the street. Everything looked perfectly
normal. Another working day had begun.

He had no idea that he was standing only a few yards from the most hated
and feared killer on the face of the Earth.

The only clue that he could possibly have had to that killer's presence
was a small ovoid the size and shape of a match head, a dark, dull gray
in color, which protruded slightly from a sewer grating six feet away,
supported on a hair-thin stalk. In one end was a tiny dark opening, and
that opening was pointed directly at Officer Flanders' head. When he
began walking slowly down the street, the little ovoid moved, turning
slowly on its stalk to keep that dark hole pointed steadily. It was so
small, that ovoid, and so inconspicuous, that no one, even looking
directly at it, would have noticed it.

The Nipe could see and hear without being either seen or heard himself.

All morning long the tiny ovoid remained in place, watching, listening.

At 11:24 a woman in a cherry-pink dress walked up to