"I had a hunch this might happen," he said, taking my arm. "The car's up ahead. Vinelli came here as quick as he could, but he slipped coming along the street and broke his ankle." "Judas!" I said. "I _am_ sorry! I feel responsible. Where are we going?" He didn't answer me at first; he just kept hurrying me along. One of those New York siroccos was pretending to cool the city, and at the corner I saw his old coupe with the parking lights on. A saloon next to us was closing up and a few late customers came out onto the sidewalk. One customer, on seeing me, stopped and turned to the others. "That's the guy I was telling you about! That's Graham!" I saw then that it was our telephone repairman from the afternoon. He looked reasonably sober, but his friends did not. "Oh, yeah?" one of these said, eying me belligerently. "I thought we just heard Bill Bart broadcast the cops had him." "Right," said another of them. "He's escaped! I'll hold him and you go on in and phone 'em." "Nah, the joint's closed. Police station's right around the corner. I'll go tell 'em. Hold onto him now!" The repairman and three of his pals began to advance warily and the other one ran down Charles Street, but at that moment we heard excited yapping and a small dog chasing a cat came tearing up the street. The cat had a fish head in its mouth and, ignoring us, ran through the middle of the group, dropping the fish head. The dog followed almost instantly, only he ran between the repairman's legs, upsetting him. In falling, the repairman tripped his neighbor, who fell on him, and another one fell on top of them. The remaining one stepped on the fish head. "Black cat!" he cried as he joined the others on the sidewalk. "Crossed my path!" We got into McGill's car and he pulled away fast. As I looked back, the four men were flailing around, but they saw the direction we took. I also thought I saw the street lamp behind us go out. "That was a lucky break!" I said. "I mean the cat and dog." "Don't give it a thought," McGill said, driving fast but carefully up Hudson Street. "You're being watched over and protected. We're going up to my office and have a conference and we're going to drive like hell. I have an idea this thing may not be able to do much more than hang onto you. Maybe we can even shake it." "Hang onto me?" "Yes, you're the nucleus." * * * * * We were at the top of the ramp to the Westside Highway and he abruptly put on more speed: no traffic was in sight. "But what is it?" I asked a little wildly. "How's it doing it? Why pick on me?" "I don't know, but I'd say it picked you as the nucleus because you had just been the subject of various flukes--the taxi and subway and so on--so you represented a sample of what it's made of--flukes. I have a hunch you'll continue to be protected." "Did you happen to catch Bill Bart's broadcast?" "Yes, I did. On the car radio coming over. Not good. He said--"