Frantically, Jommy attempted to follow the thought, but it was gone into the shadows, out of reach. And yet he had the gist. A slan girl named Kathleen Layton was to be killed so that Kier Gray might be undermined.

"Boss," came Sam Enders' thought, "will you turn that switch? The red light that flashed on is the general alarm."

John Petty's mind remained indifferent. "Let them alarm," he snapped. "That stuff is for the sheep."

"Might as well see what it is," Sam Enders said. The car slackened infinitesimally as he reached to the far end of the switchboard; and Jommy, who had worked his way precariously to one end of the bumper, waited desperately for a chance to leap clear. His eyes, peering ahead over the fender, saw only the long, bleak line of pavement, unrelieved by grass boulevards, hard and forbidding. To leap would be to smash himself against concrete. As he drew back hopelessly, a storm of Enders thoughts came to him as Enders' brain received the message on the general alarm:

" – all cars on Capital Avenue and vicinity watch for boy who is believed to be a slan named Jommy Cross, son of Patricia Cross. Mrs. Cross was killed ten minutes ago at the comer of Main and Capital. The boy leaped to the bumper of a car, which drove away rapidly, witnesses report."

"Listen to that, boss," Sam Enders said. "We're on Capital Avenue. We'd better stop and help in the search. There's ten thousand dollars' reward for slans."

Brakes screeched. The car decelerated with a speed that crushed Johnny hard against the rear end. He tore himself free of the intense pressure and, just before the car stopped, lowered himself to the pavement. His feet jerked him into a run. He darted past an old woman, who clutched at him, avarice in her mind. And then he was on a vacant lot, beyond which towered a long series of blackened brick and concrete buildings, the beginning of the wholesale and factory district.