The glass in the window was vibrating, circular gray waves were spreading in it from a central spot.
At the same instant he felt his left hand, the one cradling Lucky, go dead. Lucky leaped convulsively in the air and fell perhaps six feet away from him and was still.
The glass in the window shattered all at once and tinkled to the floor, leaving only a few jagged shards around the frame.
Lucky's cat cortege broke up and its members raced into the hall and up the stairs.
Moe Brimstine stepped in through the window, with a suppleness one would never have expected of his huge body. He stood just inside it, gripping a stun-gun in his big mitt. His jowl seemed to Phil to be smeared with the darkness behind him, and his glasses elliptical patches of it.
"There's a couple of boys with orthos out there," Moe said, stepping to one side of the window. "I know you don't want to get yourselves sliced up."
Apparently nobody did, though Phil at least hadn't any idea of what orthos might be.
"Listen carefully, everybody," Moe said. "So long as you forget about all this, so long as you act and think like it never happened, beginning with finding the cat this afternoon, then I'm going to forget all about you. That goes for you, Jack, though you're a dumber bunny than I ever thought and did yourself out of an easy ten—and for you, Juno, and Cookie, too. But if you don't forget, if I get just the littlest hint that you've remembered—well, we won't talk about that." He slowly scanned their faces. "Okay, then," he said, and shifting the gun to his left hand, stepped forward and scooped up Lucky.
"He ... he ..." Sacheverell mumbled despairingly. Moe looked at him and Sacheverell was quiet.
"How long did this pussy sleep after you stun-gunned it?" Moe asked Jack.