Unwise Child | Page 5

happened?"
Harry's face became serious. "They came in about six-thirty. First I
knew of it, one of the kids--the boy--stepped out of that closet over

there and put a vibroblade at my back. I'd come back here to get a small
resistor, and all of a sudden there he was."
Mike the Angel frowned, but he didn't say anything.
"None of your equipment registered anything?" asked the detective.
"Not a thing, Sergeant," said Harry. "They've got something new, all
right. The kid must ha' come in through the back door, there. And I'd
ha' been willin' to bet ma life that no human bein' could ha' walked in
here without ma knowin' it before he got within ten feet o' that door.
Look."
He got up, walked over to the back door, and opened it. It opened into
what looked at first to be a totally dark room. Then the sergeant saw
that there was a dead-black wall a few feet from the open door.
"That's a light trap," said Harry. "Same as they have in photographic
darkrooms. To get from this door to the outer door that leads into the
alley, you got to turn two corners and walk about thirty feet. Even I,
masel', couldn't walk through it without settin' off half a dozen alarms.
Any kind of light would set off the bugs; so would the heat radiation
from the human body."
"How about the front?" Sergeant Cowder asked. "Anyone could get in
from the front."
Harry's grin became grim. "Not unless I go with 'em. And not even then
if I don't want 'em to."
"It was kind of you to let us in," said the detective mildly.
"A pleasure," said Harry. "But I wish I knew how that kid got in."
"Well, he did--somehow," Cowder said. "What happened after he came
out of the closet?"
"He made me let the girl in. They were goin' to open up the rear
completely and take my stuff out that way. They'd ha' done it, too, if

Mr. Gabriel hadn't come along."
Detective Sergeant Cowder looked at Mike the Angel. "About what
time was that, Mr. Gabriel?"
"About six thirty-five," Mike told him. "The kids probably hadn't been
here more than a few minutes."
Harry MacDougal nodded in silent corroboration.
"Then what happened?" asked the detective.
Mike told him a carefully edited version of what had occurred, leaving
out the existence of the little gadget he was carrying in his pocket. The
sergeant listened patiently and unbelievingly through the whole recital.
Mike the Angel grinned to himself; he knew what part of the story
seemed queer to the cop.
He was right. Cowder said: "Now, wait a minute. What caused those
vibroblades to burn up that way?"
"Must have been faulty," Mike the Angel said innocently.
"Both of them?" Sergeant Cowder asked skeptically. "At the same
time?"
"Oh no. Thirty seconds apart, I'd guess."
"Very interesting. Very." He started to say something else, but a
uniformed officer stuck his head in through the doorway that led to the
front of the shop.
"We combed the whole area, Sergeant. Not a soul around. But from the
looks of the alley, there must have been a small truck parked in there
not too long ago."
Cowder nodded. "Makes sense. Those JD's wouldn't have tried this
unless they intended to take everything they could put their hands on,
and they certainly couldn't have put all this in their pockets." He rubbed

one big finger over the tip of his nose. "Okay, Barton, that's all. Take
those two kids to the hospital and book 'em in the detention ward. I
want to talk to them when they wake up."
The cop nodded and left.
Sergeant Cowder looked back at Harry. "Your alarm to the precinct
station went off at six thirty-six. I figure that whoever was on the
outside, in that truck, knew something had gone wrong as soon as the
fight started in here. He--or they--shut off whatever they were using to
suppress the alarm system and took off before we got here. They sure
must have moved fast."
"Must have," agreed Harry. "Is there anything else, Sergeant?"
Cowder shook his head. "Not right now. I'll get in touch with you later,
if I need you."
Harry and Mike the Angel followed him through the front of the shop
to the front door. At the door, Cowder turned.
"Well, good night. Thanks for your assistance, Mr. Gabriel. I wish
some of our cops had had your luck."
"How so?" asked Mike the Angel.
"If more vibroblades would blow up at opportune moments, we'd have
fewer butchered policemen."
Mike the Angel shook his head. "Not really. If their vibros started
burning out every time they came near a cop, the JD's would just start
using