Spooks."
"The what?" It seemed to Malone that the name was just a little fancy,even for a kid gang.
"The Silent Spooks," Lynch said. "I can't help it. But here they are,every one of them: Fueyo, Ramon Otravez, Mario Grito, Silvo Envoz,Alvarez Altapor, Felipe la Barba, Juan de los Santos, and Ray delEste. Right down the line." He looked up from the notebook with ablank expression on his face. "All of them kids from thisneighborhood. The Silent Spooks."
"They know you?" Malone said.
"Sure they do," Lynch said. "They all know me. But do they know you?"
Malone thought. "They could have heard of me," he said at last, tryingto be as modest as possible.
"I guess," Lynch said grudgingly. "How old are they?" Malone said.
"Fourteen to seventeen," Lynch said. "Somewhere in there. You know howthese kid things run."
"The Silent Spooks," Malone said meditatively. It was a nice name, ina way; you just had to get used to it for a while. When he had been akid, he'd belonged to a group that called itself the East DivisionStreet Kids. There just wasn't much romance in a name like that. Nowthe Silent Spooks...
With a wrench, he brought his mind back to the subject at hand. "Dothey get into much trouble?" he said.
"Well, no," Lynch said reluctantly. "As a matter of fact, they don't.For a bunch like that, around here, they're pretty well behaved, asfar as that goes."
"What do you mean?" Malone said.
Lynch's face took on a delicately unconcerned appearance. "I don'tknow," he said. "They just don't get into neighborhood trouble. Maybea scrap now and then--nothing big, though. Or maybe one of them cuts aclass at school or argues with his teacher. But there's nothingunusual, and damn little of anything." He frowned.
Malone said, "Something's got to be wrong. What is it?"
"Well," Lynch said, "they do seem to have a hell of a lot of money tospend."
Malone sat down in a chair across the desk, and leaned eagerly towardLynch. "Money?" he said.
"Money," Lynch said. "New clothes. Cigarettes. Malone, three of themare even supporting their parents. Old Jose Otravez--Ramon's oldman--quit his job a couple of months ago, and hasn't worked since.Spends all his time in bars, and never runs out of dough--and don'ttell me you can do that on unemployment insurance. Or social securitypayments."
"Okay," Malone said. "I won't tell you."
"And there's others. All the others, in fact. Mike Fueyo's sisterdresses fit to kill, like a high-fashion model. And the Grito kid--"
"Wait a minute," Malone said. "From what you tell me, this isn't justa little extra money. These kids must be rolling in the stuff. Up totheir ears in dough."
"Listen," Lynch said sadly, "Those kids spend more than I do. Hell,they do better than that--they spend more than I _earn_." He lookedremotely sorry for himself, but not for long. "Every one of those kidsspends like a drunken sailor, tossing his money away on all sorts ofthings."
"Like an expense account," Malone said idly. Lynch looked up. "Sorry,"Malone said. "I was thinking about something else."
"I'll bet you were," Lynch said with unconcealed envy.
"No," Malone said. "Really. Listen, I'll check with Internal Revenueon that money. But have you got a list of the kids' addresses?"
"I can get one," Lynch said, and went to the door.
It closed behind him. Malone sat waiting alone for a few minutes, andthen Lynch came back. "List'll be here in a minute," he said. He satdown behind his desk and reached for the notebook again. When heturned to the third page his expression changed to one of surprise.
"Be damned," he said. "There does seem to be a connection, doesn'tthere?" He held up the picture of the red Cadillac for Malone to see.
"Sure does," Malone said. "That's why I want those addresses. If thereis a connection, I sure as hell want to find out about it."
Ten minutes later, Malone was walking out of the precinct station withthe list of addresses in his pocket. He was heading for his GreatAdventure, but he didn't know it. All he was thinking about was thered Cadillacs, and the eight teenagers.
"I'm going to get to the bottom of this if it takes me all summer," hesaid, muttering to himself.
"That's the spirit," he told himself. "Never say die."
Then, realizing he had just said it, he frowned. Perhaps it hadn'treally counted. But then again...
He was on his way down the steps when he hit the girl.
The mutual collision was not catastrophic. On the other hand, it wasnot exactly minor. It fell somewhere between the two, as anunclassifiable phenomenon of undoubted potency. Malone said, "Oog,"with, some fervor as the girl collided with his chest and reboundedlike a handball striking a wall. Something was happening to her, butMalone had no time to spare to notice just what. He was fallingthrough space, touching a concrete step once in a while, but not longenough to make any real acquaintance with it. It seemed to take him along time to touch bottom, and when he had, he wondered if _touch_ wasquite the word.
_Bottom_ certainly was. He had fallen backward and landed directly onhis _glutei maximi_, obeying the law regarding equal and oppositereaction and several other laws involving falling bodies.
His first thought was that he was now neatly balanced. His tail hadreceived the same treatment as his head. He wondered if a person couldget concussion of the tail bones, and had reached no definiteconclusion when, unexpectedly, his eyes focused again.
He was looking at a girl. That was all he saw at first. She hadapparently fallen just as he had, bounced once and sat down ratherhard. She was now lying flat on her back, making a sound like "rrr"between her teeth.
Malone discovered that he was sitting undignifiedly on the steps. Heopened his mouth to say something objectionable, took another look atthe girl, and shut it with a snap. This was no ordinary girl.
He smiled at her. She shook her head and sat up, still going "rrr."Then she stopped and said instead, "What do you think--"
"I'm sorry," Malone said in what he hoped was a charming, debonair,and apologetic voice. It was quite a lot to get into one voice, but hetried his very hardest. "I just didn't see--"
"You didn't?" the girl said. She took a long, slow look at him, shookher head again, and then pulled her skirt down carefully. "If youdidn't, you must be blind," she said.
Malone noticed with hope that there was no anger in her voice. Thelast thing in the world he wanted was to get this girl angry at him.
"Oh, no," Malone said. "I'm not blind. Not blind at all." He smiled ather and stood up. His tail throbbed a little, but it didn't seem to beanything really serious. "I'm just polite," he said, and smiled again.His face was beginning to get a little tired, but he retained his lastsmile as he went over to her, extended a hand and pulled her to herfeet.
She was something special. Her hair was long and dark, and fell insoft waves to her shoulders. The shoulders were something all bythemselves, but Malone postponed consideration of them for a minute totake a look at her face.
It was heart-shaped and rather thin. She had large brown liquid eyesthat could look, Malone imagined, appealing, loving, worshiping--or,like a minute ago, downright furious. Below these features she had astraight lovely nose and a pair of lips which Malone immediatelyclassified as kissable.
Her figure, including the shoulders, was on the slim side, but she wasvery definitely all there. Malone couldn't think of any parts theCreator had left out, and if there were any he didn't want to hearabout them. In an instant, Malone knew that he had met the only greatlove of his life.
Again.
His mind was whirling, and for a second he didn't know what to do. Andthen he remembered the Queen's Own FBI. Phrases flowered forth in hismind as if it were a garden packed corner to corner with the mostexquisite varieties of blooming idiots.
"My deepest apologies, my dear," Sir Kenneth Malone said gallantly,even managing a small display bow for the occasion. "May I be of anyassistance?"
The girl smiled up at him as she came to her feet. The smile wasradiant
and beautiful and almost loving. Malone felt as if he couldn'tstand it. Tingles of the most wonderful kind ran through him, reachedhis toes and then back the other way, meeting a whole new set goingforward.
"You're very nice," the girl said, and the tingles became positivewaves of sensation. "Actually, it was all my fault. Please don'tapologize, Mr.--" She paused expectantly.
"Me?" Malone said, his gallantry