been smashed in the fight,or else that Malone was unconscious, had shut his own receiver off.
There was absolutely nothing that Malone could do.
The kids were still yelling at the top of their voices, but thethundering of heavy, flat feet galumphing up from the lower depthscouldn't be ignored for long. All the boys noticed it at about thesame time. They jerked their heads round to face the stairway. Maloneand his compatriots crouched lower behind the boxes.
Mike Fueyo was the first to speak. "Don't vanish yet," he snapped."Let's see who it is."
The internal dissent among the Silent Spooks disappeared as if it hadnever been, as they faced a common foe. Once again they fell naturallyunder Fueyo's leadership. "If it's cops," he said, "we'll give 'em thegrasshopper play we worked out. We'll show 'em."
"They can't fool with us," another boy said. "Sure. The grasshopperplay."
It was cops, all right. Lieutenant Lynch ran up the stairs waving hisbilly in a heroic fashion, followed by a horde of blue-clad officers.
"Where's Malone?" Lynch shouted as he came through the doorway.
"Where's your what?" Mike yelled back, and the fight was on.
Later, Malone thought that he should have been surprised, but hewasn't. There wasn't any time to be surprised. The kids didn'tdisappear.
They spread out over the floor of the room easily and lightly, and thecops charged them in a great blundering mass.
Naturally, the kids winked out one by one--and re-formed in the centerof the cops' muddle. Malone saw one cop raise his billy and swing itat Mike. Mike watched it come down and vanished at the last instant.The cop's billy descended on the head of another cop, standing justbehind where Mike had been.
The second cop, blinded by the blow on his head, swung back and hitthe first cop. Meanwhile, Mike was somewhere else.
Malone stayed crouched behind the boxes. Dorothea stood up andshouted, "Mike! Mike! We just want to talk to you!"
Unfortunately, the police were making such a racket that this couldnot be heard more than a foot or so from the speaker. Lynch himselfcharged into the mass, swinging his billy and his free fist, andlaying others out one after the other. Pretty soon the floor waslittered with cops. Lynch was doing yeoman duty, but it was hard totell what side he was on.
The vanishing trick Mike had worked out was being used by all of thekids. Cops were hitting other cops, Lynch was hitting everybody, andthe kids were winking on and off all over the loft. It was a scene oftremendous noise and carnage.
Malone suddenly sprang to his feet and charged into the melee,shouting at the top of his lungs and swinging both fists. The firstperson he saw was one of the teen-agers, and he charged him withabandon.
He should, he reflected, have known better. The kid disappeared.Malone caromed off the stomach of a policeman, received a blow on theshoulder from his billy, and rebounded into the arms of a surprisedpolice officer at the edge of the battle.
"Who're you?" the officer gasped.
"Malone," Malone said.
"You on our side?"
"How about you?" Malone said.
"I'm a lieutenant here," the officer said. "In charge of the warehouseprecinct. I--"
Malone and the lieutenant stepped nimbly aside as another cop careenedby them, waving his billy helplessly. They looked away as the crashcame. The cop had fallen over a table, and now lay with his legs inthe air, supported by the overturned table, blissfully unconscious.
"We seem," Malone said, "to be in an area of some activity. Let'smove."
They shifted away a few feet. Malone looked into the foray and sawBoyd at work, roaring and going after the kids. One of them hadestablished a kind of game with him. He appeared just in front ofBoyd, who rushed at him, arms outstretched. As Boyd almost reachedhim, the kid disappeared, and reappeared again just behind Boyd. Hetapped the FBI agent gently on the shoulder; Boyd turned and theprocess was repeated.
Boyd seemed to be getting winded.
"Damn kids," the lieutenant muttered suddenly, and dashed back intothe fray. Malone looked around, saw Mike Fueyo flickering in and outat the edges, and headed for him.
A cop swung at Mike, missed, and hit Malone on the arm. Malone swore.The cop backed off, looking in a bewildered fashion for his victim,who was nowhere in sight. Then Malone caught sight of him, at theother edge of the fight. He started to work his way around.
He tried to avoid blows, but it wasn't always possible. A reeling copcaught his lapel and tore it, and Lynch, indefatigable in battle,managed to graze his chin with a blow meant for one of thedisappearing boys. Other cops were battling each other, going afterthe kids and clutching empty air, cursing and screaming unheard ordersin the fracas.
Malone ducked past Lynch, rubbed at his chin and looked for Mike. Inthe tangle of bodies it was getting hard to see. There was the soundof breaking ceramics as a floor lamp went over, and then a tablefollowed it, but Malone avoided both. He looked for Mike Fueyo.
A cop clutched him around the middle, out of nowhere, said, "Sorry,buddy. Who the hell are you?" and dove back into the mass of bodies.Malone caught his breath and forged onward.
There was Mike, at the edge of the fight, watching everything coolly.No cop was near him. In the dim light the place looked like a scenefrom hell, a special hell for policemen.
Malone wove through battling hordes to the edge, and came out a fewfeet away from Mike Fueyo.
Fueyo didn't see him. He was looking at Boyd instead--still stumblingback and forth as the teen-ager baiting him winked on and off in frontof him and behind him. He was laughing.
Malone came up silently from behind. The trip seemed to take hours. Hewas being very quiet, although he was reasonably sure that even if heyelled he wouldn't be heard. But he didn't want to take the slightestchance.
He sprang on Mike, and attached the handcuffs to his wrist and toMike's wrist within ten seconds.
"Ha!" he said involuntarily. "Now come with me!"
He gave his end of the handcuffs a tremendous yank.
He started to stagger, trailing an empty cuff behind him, flailing hisarms wildly. Ahead of him he could see a big cop with an upraisedbilly. Malone tried to alter his course, but it was too late. Heskidded helplessly into the cop, who jerked round and swung the billyautomatically. Malone said: "Ugh," as he caught the blow on thecheekbone, bounced off the cop and kept going.
He careened past a blur of figures, trying to avoid hard surfaces andother human beings. But there was--
Oh, no, Malone thought. Lynch.
Lynch was ready to swing. His fist was cocked, and he was heading forone of the teen-agers with murder in his eye. Malone knew their pathswere going to intersect. "Watch out," he yelled. "Watch out, it's me!Stop me! Somebody stop me!" He went completely unheard.
Lynch swung and missed, hitting a cop who had been hiding behind theteen-ager. The cop went down to join the wounded, and Lynch roaredlike a bull and swung around, looking for more enemies.
That was when Malone hit him.
Long afterward, he remembered Lynch's hat sailing through the air, andlanding in the center of a struggling mass of policemen. He rememberedLynch saying, "So there you are!" and swinging before he looked.
He remembered the blow on the chin.
And then he remembered falling, and falling, and falling. Somewherethere was a voice: "Where the hell are they? They've disappeared forgood."
And then, for long seconds, nothing.
He woke up with a headache, but it wasn't too bad. Surprisingly, notmuch time had passed; he got up and dusted off his trousers, lookingaround at the battlefield. Wounded and groaning cops were lying allover. The room was a shambles; the walking wounded--which comprisedthe rest of the force--were stumbling around in a slow, hopeless sortof fashion.
Lynch was standing next to him. "Malone," he said, "I'm sorry. I hityou, didn't I?"
"Uh-huh," Malone said. "You seemed to be hitting every body."
"I was _trying_ for the kids," Lynch said.
"So w
as I," Malone said. "I got the cuffs on one and yanked him along,but he disappeared and left me with the cuffs."
"Great," Lynch said. "Hell of a raid."
"Very jolly," Malone agreed. "Fun and games were had by all."
A cop stumbled up, handed Lynch his cap and disappeared without aword. Lynch stared mournfully at it. The emblem was crushed, and thecap looked rather worn and useless. He put it on his head, where itassumed the rakish tilt of a hobo's favorite tam-o'-shanter, and said,"I hope you're not thinking of blaming _me_ for this fiasco."
"Not at all," Malone said nobly. He hurt all over, but on reflectionhe thought that he would probably live. "It was nobody's fault."Except, he