in the area."

"And while I'm doing all that," Boyd said, "what are you going to be
doing?"

Malone looked at him and sighed. "I'll worry about that," he said. "Just
get started."

"Suppose Leibowitz can't find anything?" Boyd said.

"If Leibowitz can't find it, it's not there," Malone said. "He can find
electronic devices anywhere in any car made, he says--even if they're
printed circuits hidden under the paint job."

"Pretty good," Boyd said. "But suppose he doesn't?"

"Then they aren't there," Malone said, "and we'll have to think of
something else." He considered that. It sounded fine. Only he wished he
knew what else there was to think of.

Well, that was just pessimism. Leibowitz would find something, and the
case would be over, and he could go back to Washington and rest. In
August he was going to have his vacation, anyway, and August wasn't very
far away.

Malone put a smile carefully on his face and told Boyd: "Get going." He
slammed his hat on his head.

Wincing, he took it off and replaced it gently. The bottle of pills was
still in his pocket, but he wasn't due for another one just yet.

He had time to go over to the precinct station in the West Eighties
first.

He headed outside to get another taxi.

V.

The door didn't say anything at all except "Lt. P. Lynch." Malone looked
at it for a couple of seconds. He'd asked the Desk Sergeant for Lynch,
shown his credentials and been directed up a set of stairs and around a
hall. But he still didn't know what Lynch did, who he was, or what his
name was doing in the little black notebook.

Well, he told himself, there was only one way to find out.

He opened the door.

The room was small and dark. It had a single desk in it, and three
chairs, and a hatrack. There wasn't any coat or hat on the hatrack, and
there was nobody in the chairs. In a fourth chair, behind the desk, a
huskily-built man sat. He had steel-gray hair, a hard jaw and, Malone
noticed with surprise, a faint twinkle in his eye.

"Lieutenant Lynch?" Malone said.

"Right," Lynch said. "What's the trouble?"

"I'm Kenneth J. Malone," Malone said. "FBI." He reached for his wallet
and found it. He flipped it open for Lynch, who stared at it for what
seemed a long, long time and then burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?" Malone asked.

Lynch laughed some more.

"Oh, come on," Malone said bitterly. "After all, there's no reason to
treat an FBI agent like some kind of