Cobra

They talked until nearly midnight, and when Jo

"Jo

"Fine, Jame—just great," Jo

"How was Alyse?"

Jo

"That's nice. Good night, Jo

One by one, the great plans crumbled.

With agonizing regularity, employers kept turning Jo

As his search for permanent employment faltered, so did his relationship with Alyse. She remained friendly and willing to spend time with him, but there was a distance between them that hadn't existed before the war. To make matters worse, Doane refused to withdraw gracefully from the field, and aggressively competed with him for Alyse's time and attention.

But worst of all, from Jo

And so matters precariously stood for three months, until the night of the accident. Or the murder, as some called it.

Sitting in his parked car, watching the last rays from the setting sun, Jo

The sun was completely down by the time he felt capable of driving safely. The sensible thing would be to go home, of course. But the rest of the Moreau family was out to di

Jo

Jo

The music was good, if dated—he'd heard the same songs three years ago on Asgard—and he began to relax as the light and sound swept like a cleansing wave over his mind. So engrossed did he become that he didn't notice the group of teen-aged kids that came up behind him until one of them nudged him with the tip of his shoe.

"Hi there, Cobra," he said as Jo

"Uh, not much," Jo

The girls giggled. "Naw," another of the boys drawled. "We just figured everybody ought to know there's a celebrity here. Let's tell 'em, huh?"

Slowly, Jo

"You want to fight about it?" the first boy said, dropping into a caricature of a fighting stance. "C'mon, Cobra. Show us what you can do."

Wordlessly, Jo

"Can't leave 'til you show us a trick," one said.

Jo

"Turkey hop," one of the smart-mouths muttered. Jo

But the mood of the evening was broken. Jo

He'd covered the block and was just starting to cross the road when he became aware of the low hum of an idling car nearby. He turned to look back along the street—and in that instant a car rolling gently along the curb suddenly switched on its lights and, with a squeal of tires, hurtled directly toward him.

There was no time for thought or human reaction, but Jo

Aching all over, Jo

They were the two teen-aged boys who had accosted Jo

The sound of his door opening broke Mayor Stillman's train of thought, and he turned from his contemplation of the morning sky in time to see Sutton Fraser closing the door behind him. "Don't you ever knock?" he asked the city councilor irritably.