Kiley was trapped at the neck of the creature, still trying to yank loose the garden amulet. He was cut off from escape by the insurrecting Columbia Law students and Black Panther Freedom Party members on the eastern flank, by the riot police using Mace and leadweighted truncheons on the west, by the roughneck warriors of the Ajax Wrecking Corporation (all ex-Seabees) on the North, and by the advancing wave of members of the Amalgamated Butchers and Meat Hackers Local #39 on the South. He crouched down, hoping to go unseen, and continued yanking at the circle of gold.

More police on horseback clogged the scene, trying to aid their beat partner in establishing to whom the corpse in the street belonged. The ticket was written, it merely needed to be served.

Three hookers began working the uptown side of 47th Street, hoping some of the show biz crowd would stick to their fingers, or other portions of their anatomy.

“Oh!” cried Alice, awakening, “apparently it is all a dream!”

“You’re under arrest, “ said the cop with the ticket, to no one in particular. He said it again, softer, but no one paid any attention.

Lilya curse/wished plagues on gnats and nits on the acne-pocked head of Melville, and stalked off down the Avenue, passing the hip-girdle of the pteranodon, failing to look down where she would have seen her much-cursed Melville, much more crushed than cursed.

Near the hind limbs of the dead beast (what George “The Pot” Lukovich would have referred to as the ass-end), twelve members of The Pelham Privateers now worked diligently trying to get the beast erect so its hubcaps could be stolen. The pneumatic jacks they had installed merely sank into the flesh of the beast.