He started to stagger, trailing an empty cuff behind him, flailing his arms wildly. Ahead of him he could see a big cop with an upraised billy. Malone tried to alter his course, but it was too late. He skidded helplessly into the cop, who jerked round and swung the billy automatically. Malone said: "Yi!" as he caught the blow on the cheekbone, bounced off the cop and kept going. He careened past a blur of figures, trying to avoid hard surfaces and other human beings. But there was-- Oh, no, Malone thought. Lynch. Lynch was ready to swing. His fist was cocked, and he was heading for one of the teen-agers with murder in his eye. Malone knew their paths were going to intersect. "Watch out!" he yelled. "Watch out, it's me! Stop me! Stop me! Somebody stop me!" He went completely unheard. Lynch swung and missed, hitting a cop who had been hiding behind the teen-ager. The cop went down to join the wounded, and Lynch roared like 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, and landing in the center of a struggling mass of policemen. He remembered Lynch 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. Somewhere there was a voice: "Where are they? They've disappeared for good." And then, for long seconds, nothing. * * * * * He woke up with a headache, but it wasn't too bad. Surprisingly, not much time had passed; he got up and dusted off his trousers, looking around at the battlefield. Wounded and groaning cops were all over. The room was a shambles; the walking wounded--which comprised the rest of the force--were stumbling around in a slow, hopeless sort of fashion. Lynch was standing next to him. "Malone," he said, "I'm sorry. I hit you, didn't I?" "Uh-huh," Malone said. "You seemed to be hitting everybody." "I was _trying_ for the kids," Lynch said. "So was 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 a word. Lynch stared mournfully at it. The emblem was crushed and the cap looked rather worn and useless. He put it on his head, where it assumed 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 reflection he thought that he would probably live. "It was nobody's fault." Except, he thought, his own. If he'd only told Lynch to come in when called for--and under no other circumstances--this wouldn't have happened. He looked around at the remains of New York's Finest, and felt guilty.