"Mitzie," she told him. "Mitzie Romadka."
"Mine's Phil," he said. "Phil Gish."
She led him into a shadowy garage, lined with ornate cars in stalls barred like prison cells. Several of the cars had recharging cables plugged in. He saw a ramp ahead that led upward. Mitzie coded open the barrier in front of a small black coupe without a hint of decor.
"Innocent looking little job, isn't it?" she remarked. "Used to belong to an undertaker." She hopped in. When, with a sad shrug, Phil followed her, he was hardly surprised to find she had donned a full-length black evening-mask. "It's not my car," she explained. "I'm just hiding it for Carstairs and the gang. It's hot."
And with that reassuring remark she guided it out toward the ramp, its small electric motor whining faintly. A door rose at her voice. Then they were outside in the ghostly yellow evening of the sodium mirror. When they had climbed almost to ground level, a big car slammed to a stop in the street ahead, three-quarters blocking the exit. Two men jumped out of the car and someone, of whom Phil could for the moment see only waddling legs and chubby tummy, hurried to meet them.
"Look, if this is another tame-chicken chase—" he heard the first of the two men from the car begin in heavy skeptical tones.
"Don't be absurd," the hurrier asserted crisply in a voice Phil recognized as Dr. Romadka's. "I tell you, he mentioned the green cat."
At that moment the analyst looked around and saw Phil gawking at him.
"There he goes now!"
The analyst's outraged squeal turned to the rasp of plastics as Mitzie bullied the small black car between the ramp-wall and the newcomer. With the twang of hooked bumpers parting, they swung out into the street, the little electric accelerating modestly. Phil looked over his shoulder.