"You could protect me instead." But Overman jerked his head side to side again. "It's the same as politics. Much simpler to make news than to prevent it. The one sure way to protect you, provided you don't foul things up with Crippens." "Well, I don't--" "One of you makes the obituary page next week. The _World's_ already seen to that. Take your choice, Darius." "Yeah ... sure." "And don't forget about Mayor Spurgess. You've got a busy time ahead of you. Good luck." Walking back toward his own office, McLeod saw that the flow of co-respondents had slowed to a trickle. He swore softly. The last girl in line was Tracy Kent, a tawny-haired divorce specialist with an admirable record. McLeod liked Tracy, but it was strictly brother-sister stuff. Tracy was going to marry Harry Crippens. CHAPTER II "Hey, Darius. A girl gets hungry for lunch around this time every day." McLeod smiled. "Won't Cripp be along soon?" "Search me." Tracy rubbed her stomach under the smooth, tautly drawn fabric of her dress. "When this piece of machinery starts to gurgle, I eat." "Well, I was going to head over to the Press Club in a few minutes anyway. Don't you have to get yourself caught with someone today?" "Later on. Tonight. Now I'm hungry." Tracy Kent was long and almost lean with hips angular rather than rounded and the clean lines of her long-striding legs accentuated by the tight sheath of skirt as she walked with McLeod toward the elevator. She was all woman unless you happened to look at her a certain way, when you caught a glimpse of something coltish, almost like Peter Pan, in the way she carried herself or smiled at you. She did not look like a vamp, thought McLeod, which helped explain why she was such a successful co-respondent. "One of these days I'm going to stop feeling like a brother toward you," McLeod promised as they climbed into his copter on the roof. "You're flattering but tardy, Mr. McLeod. I'm going to marry the guy." "Crippens?" "Don't look at me that way. He's your friend, too." Tracy grinned as the rotors flashed above them, then pouted. "Darius, do we have to go to the Press Club for lunch?" "Mixing business with pleasure, I guess. Got to see some people. Why, does someone bother you over there?" "That Weaver Wainwright, always staring at me like he wants to sit down at his thinkwriter and let the world know what it's like with a co-respodent. Me." "Wainwright's one of the men I want to see." "The _Star-Times'_ hot-shot reporter hob-nobbing with that riff-raff from the _World_?" "You named it," Darius McLeod said as their copter rose up from the roof of the _Star-Times_ building and retreated from the checkerboard pattern of other copters resting on their landing squares. "Why the sour face?" "Because I read COMING EVENTS, Darius. Do you think Wainwright's been assigned the job?"