He found the receiver rigged to his TV set, unhooked it, but the damage had been done. He doubted that Overman would constantly monitor the set, yet Overman would see the damning evidence eventually. McLeod could save Cripp's life by simply not killing him, but then what? He smiled grimly. It posed a considerable problem for Overman too, for the City Editor wanted to dump a fat wrongo in the _World's_ lap but now would also want to see McLeod dead. One seemed to preclude the other ... unless Overman decided to give McLeod a week of grace, then kill him. McLeod was still smiling. Perhaps the situation confronting the fictional lady-or-tiger man had been more aggravating, but it was less deadly. McLeod taped a second parabeam to his right arm and took the escalator to the roof and his copter. * * * * * "Hi," the weaponcheck girl greeted him as he entered the Fourth Estate. "How are you today, Mr. McLeod?" "Never better." As she approached him, McLeod removed the first parabeam from his trick sleeve and handed it to her. "I'm ticklish today," he told her and saw that she was about to say something until she noticed the folded bill wedged between trigger and trigger guard. She nodded, patted his shoulders quickly without searching, and wagged away. It happened all the time, McLeod knew. He wouldn't be the only one. "You hurry up inside," the weaponcheck girl called over her bare shoulder. "They're doing a combo-tease." As McLeod made his way through the darkened room, he saw a well-built man and a delightfully built women performing the combo-tease on stage. Sweat glistened on their sleek dark skins as red lights shifted and flowed across the stage. It was more suggestive than French pictures, combining features of an Apache dance and a conventional strip. It had been outlawed everywhere but at the Fourth Estate and had everyone's rapt attention. Everyone except Cripp and Tracy. McLeod found them in a distant corner of the great room, hunched toward each other across a small table and talking in low tones. "Mind?" McLeod asked. "You have your nerve," Tracy hissed at him, but people to left and right were muttering angrily at them as the combo-tease neared its conclusion. "Well, I guess you're harmless enough in here." "Sit down," Cripp said. "Overman knows about you two," McLeod told them quickly. "The works." "You mean that we're going to get married?" Tracy demanded. "It's no secret." "I mean that you belong to the Anti-Newspaper League. Tracy, you're pretending to spy on us for the _World_, he knows that, Cripp, you thwart bad news when you can. You both belong to the Anti-Newspaper League. To Overman, you're both anarchistic. He'd like to see you dead." The woman on stage had seemed spent but now rallied and held her own as they danced a frenzied Apache battle from wing to wing. Tracy, who was facing the stage, said, "That's positively lewd. We've all degenerated so much, Cripp."