st unlimited. Marital status: highly eligible, if the right
woman could tackle him.

Mike the Angel pushed open the door to Harry MacDougal's shop and took
off his hat to brush the raindrops from it. Farther uptown, the streets
were covered with clear plastic roofing, but that kind of comfort
stopped at Fifty-third Street.

There was no one in sight in the long, narrow store, so Mike the Angel
looked up at the ceiling, where he knew the eye was hidden.

"Harry?" he said.

"I see you, lad," said a voice from the air. "You got here just in time.
I'm closin' up. Lock the door, would ye?"

"Sure, Harry." Mike turned around, pressed the locking switch, and heard
it snap satisfactorily.

"Okay, Mike," said Harry MacDougal's voice. "Come on back. I hope ye
brought that bottle of scotch I asked for."

Mike the Angel made his way back between the towering tiers of bins as
he answered. "Sure did, Harry. When did I ever forget you?"

And, as he moved toward the rear of the store, Mike the Angel casually
reached into his coat pocket and triggered the switch of a small but
fantastically powerful mechanism that he always carried when he walked
the streets of New York at night.

He was headed straight into trouble, and he knew it. And he hoped he was
ready for it.

2

Mike the Angel kept his hand in his pocket, his thumb on a little plate
that was set in the side of the small mechanism that was concealed
therein. As he neared the door, the little plate began to vibrate,
making a buzz which could only be felt, not heard. Mike sighed to
himself. Vibroblades were all the rage this season.

He pushed open the rear door rapidly and stepped inside. It was just
what he'd expected. His eyes saw and his brain recorded the whole scene
in the fraction of a second before he moved. In that fraction of a
second, he took in the situation, appraised it, planned his strategy,
and launched into his plan of action.

Harry MacDougal was sitting at his workbench, near the controls of the
eye that watched the shop when he was in the lab. He was hunched over a
little, his small, bright eyes peering steadily at Mike the Angel from
beneath shaggy, silvered brows. There was no pleading in those
eyes--only confidence.

Next to Old Harry was a kid--sixteen, maybe seventeen. He had the JD
stamp on his face: a look of cold, hard arrogance that barely concealed
the uncertainty and fear beneath. One hand was at Harry's back, and
Mike knew