Vimmy gave a quick one-finger salute, and dodged out of the doorway, tapping three of the gang members on their chests as he passed them. They followed, at a dead run.

A hook and ladder approaching from the direction of Fifth Avenue swerved to avoid the quartet and skidded to a halt in the lee of the dead ornithosaurian. Big Louis Morono, wearing a Texaco hat and black rubber boots and slicker, leaped down, dragging a foot-long brass nozzle trailing a flat gray constrictor of hose. Assessing the situation at a glance, he set off at a heavy-footed trot toward the stern of the beast, assisted by fellow fire fighters each supporting his half dozen yards of tubing. A second team launched itself with silent efficiency in the opposite direction, toward the giant maloccluded jaws. They rounded the head, continued parallel with the scaly neck, paused only momentarily before trampling ahead across the leather carpet of the wing. They met Big Louis and his crew at a point abaft the fourth thoracic vertabra.

“Anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Smoke?”

“Not a wisp.”

Big Louis sighed. His hose drooped. “It figures.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, boys, reel it in.” Muttering, Big Louis headed back for the trembling truck. Before he had taken more than three steps, however, one of the members of the second team yelled, “Hey, Cap! It’s a, uh, you know what, a dragon. Maybe it breathes fire. Could be, y’know!”

Big Louis stopped dead and smiled a winsome smile. “Reel it out again, men!” he shouted.

As Will Kiley struggled manfully with the golden chain and its golden disc, two rumpled figures wearing thick glasses paused beside him. They ignored him, but pointed frequently at the head of the dead beast: