ough deal, you know?"
Mike said.

"I'm sure they--" Malone began.

"But I've been looking for you," Mike went on. "See, I wanted to say
something to you. Something real important."

Malone leaned forward expectantly. At last he was going to get some
information--perhaps the information that would break the whole case
wide open. He said: "Yes?"

"Well--" Mike began, and stopped.

"You don't have to be afraid of me, Mike," Malone said. "Just tell me
whatever's on your mind."

"Sure," Mike said. "It's this."

He took a deep breath. Malone clenched his fists. Now it was coming. Now
he would hear the all-important fact. He waited.

Mike stuck out his tongue and blew the longest, loudest, brassiest and
juiciest Bronx cheer that Malone had ever heard.

Then, almost instantly, the room was empty except for Malone himself.

Mike was gone.

There wasn't any place to hide, and there hadn't been any time to hide
in. Malone looked around wildly, but he had no doubts at all.

Mike Fueyo had vanished, utterly and instantaneously. He'd gone out like
a light.

VII.

[Illustration]

Thirty seconds passed. During that time, Malone did nothing at all. He
just sat there, while a confused montage of pictures tumbled through his
head. Sometimes he saw double exposures, and sometimes a couple of
pictures overlapped, but it didn't seem to make any difference, because
none of the pictures meant anything anyhow.

The reason for that was obvious. He was no longer sane. He had cracked
up. At a crucial moment, his brain had failed him, and now people would
have to come in and cart him away and put him in a straitjacket. It was
perfectly obvious to Malone that he was no longer capable of dealing
with everyday life. The blow on the head had probably taken final
effect, and it had been more serious than the doctor had imagined.

He had always distrusted doctors anyhow.

And now he was suffering from a delayed reaction. He wasn't living in
the real world any more. He had gone off to dreamland, where people
disappeared when you looked at them. There was no hope for him.

It was a nice theory, and it was even comforting, in a way. There was
only one thing wrong with it.

The room around him didn't look dreamlike at all. It was perfectly solid
and real, and it looked just the way it had looked before Mike Fueyo had
... well, Malone amended, before whatever had happened had happened. It
was a perfectly complete little room