"But," Billig continued smoothly, turning to Phil, "they're bound to get her, sooner or later, unless...." And he wiggled the large black gun he held in his small hand. "So you better talk."
The jeep swung round under the balcony in a much tighter loop and headed back, revving screamingly. Mitzie faced it, grinning, hands as light on her hips as before. Then, just as—from Phil's point of view—it had swallowed her up to the waist, she sprang to one side. Phil felt her foot must have brushed the tire. The jeep slammed through the air where she'd been.
"Dumb-bell!" Mitzie screamed.
Brimstine lifted his clenched fists above the railing, glanced at Billig, and with an effort dropped them to his sides. Phil realized his arms were numb, Jack was gripping them so tightly. Beyond Billig, Harris and Dora leaned forward over the guard rail, as abstracted as gamblers.
But Billig himself, though presumably a gambler, was neither still nor intent. "Look, Mr. Gish," he said rapidly, "I don't want to see this girl smashed myself, and Brimstine here is figuring on starring her in a knife throwing or dodge-the-car act. This is probably the last chance you have to save her. Where's Romadka? Where's the cat?"
Phil didn't even look at him.
A phone-light began to blink on the control panel. Billig ignored it. "Where's the cat?" he repeated.
But all Phil could think, as the black jeep turned very tightly by the far wall and as Mitzie pivoted to face it—all he could think was that this had happened before, in ancient Crete, where girls as slim waisted and dark haired as Mitzie had faced the black, charging bull and dodged it or vaulted or somersaulted over its cruel horns, their breasts as bare as Mitzie's, opposing the most tender thing in the world to the most terrible.
The phone-light continued to blink.
The jeep finished its tight turn, Llewellyn and Buck leaning out to balance it like a sailboat while Carstairs stuck steady as death behind the wheel. Then it shrieked toward Mitzie. She waited until it was almost as close as the time before, then sprang toward the left. Quickly, almost as if it were tied to her thoughts, the jeep veered toward the left, too. But Mitzie's feet, slamming down after that first jump, didn't carry her farther, but reversed her direction, carrying her back to the spot she'd first occupied.