Illya shook his head.
“But don’t worry,” he said with a grin. “I’d recognize that bikini anywhere. What do we do now? Mallon’s body is lost - if it was Mallon.”
“I think it was,” Solo said slowly. “And I think that babe in the next-to-bare bikini is the same one who tried to do us in.”
“But that was Mallon’s daughter! She wouldn’t -” Solo paused and then added thoughtfully, “Or would she?”
“I’m not so sure it was she who did the killing,” Illya said. “There was someone else in the house. She could not have got back in time to set off the explosion.”
“Well, let’s worry about it in the morning,” Solo said. “As soon as these super-aspirins lose their punch, we’re going to be dead. Let’s get some sleep.”
They started back to their hotel in a car provided by the Beverly Hills police. As they drove, Solo dictated a quick report which he transmitted over the pen communicator to U.N.C.L.E. quarters in New York and recorded on a subminiature tape recorder hidden by U.N.C.L.E. laboratory ingenuity in his cigarette lighter. This tape he passed to the policeman accompanying them to aid the Beverly Hills homicide and arson squads in their investigation of the murder and the fire.
Shortly after they started the driver picked up a newscast on the car radio. Solo leaned back in the seat and listened intently.
“A two-million dollar fire swept the Beverly Hills mansion of motion picture producer Fred B. Mallon tonight. Firemen are still fighting the four-alarm blaze,” the newscaster reported.
“Unconfirmed reports claim that the fire is arson, started to cover up the murder of the noted producer. The mysterious events follow the arrest yesterday of Mallon’s daughter, who apparently ran amok at Los Angeles International Airport. Miss Mallon disappeared following her release by Los Angeles police.”
After a commercial break the announcer added, “Here is a later bulletin on the Mallon murder. Police report that they are seeking the producer’s daughter for questioning in connection with her father’s death. Beverly Hills homicide investigators report that her peculiar actions during the last few days make her a prime suspect in the murder.”
“They are taking the wrong tack,” Illya said with a positive shake of his head. “She is surely involved, but she is a victim.”
Solo grinned across at him. “Would you be so ready to leap to her defense if she were homely instead of a raving beauty?” he asked.
“I most certainly -” Illya began.
“What’s that?” Solo broke in sharply.
Illya, sparked by the strange note in his companion’s voice, turned quickly. The car was on Sunset Boulevard moving through the unincorporated section known as Sunset Strip.
The first thing that caught Kuryakin’s eye was a theater marquee flashed the words, “Fred Mallon’s Triumph of Terror, The Million Monsters!”
“It seems to hit us everywhere we go,” Solo said.
“The show must just be turning out,” Illya said, motioning toward the crowd pouring from the theater and overflowing into the street.
The driver had to slow up because of the jam. The crowd was moving in a rapid flow as if hurrying to catch a train.
Then suddenly an electric change went through the tightly packed mob. A woman screamed and her frantic cry was drowned in the sudden roaring fury of the tightly packed teenagers.
They started milling and yelling. Traffic came to a dead halt.
“It’s another of those miserable teenage riots!” their driver said. “Roll up the windows fast. These kids are crazy when they go on a bust.”
A police whistle shrilled in the distance and a police patrol siren whined.
“The sheriff has his hands full,” their Beverly Hills police driver said. “I don’t envy him. This little fracas looks like it is going to be a whizzer!”
“Anyway we can help?” Illya asked, uneasily watching the growing fury of the milling crowd.
“Just keep out of it,” the driver said. “This is unincorporated territory. It does not belong to either Beverly Hills or Los Angeles. It is strictly the sheriff’s jurisdiction. The city police have no authority here.”
“We can make what is known as a citizen’s arrest,” Solo said.
“Stay out of it,” the policeman cautioned. “You can’t win. Let them alone. They’ll scream a little and maybe break a few glass fronts, but that’ll be all. They’re just blowing off a little steam.”
Solo looked out at the giant marquee with its Million Monsters sign.
“I wonder -” he said softly.
“I’m thinking the same thing,” Illya replied. “And if it is true and this bunch are caught in the same frenzy that gripped Marsha Mallon and those hippies who jumped us at the terminal -”
He left the rest unsaid. Solo said nothing, but Illya could see his companion’s jaw tighten.
“Then we had better get out of here - fast!” he said.
Illya Kuryakin nodded. The car was stalled between the movie goers packed in the street ahead and the heavy traffic stopped behind them. He pushed the latch on the car door. Solo leaned forward to follow him.
As they started to move, the ugly rumblings in the crowd suddenly exploded. The mob surged forward. A red-faced man rammed the half opened car door with his body and slammed it on Kuryakin. Solo caught a glimpse of the car ahead as a crazy-faced youth grabbed a street trash can and hurled it through the window in a crushing blow at the driver.
Their own car rocked. A jam of screaming youths grabbed the front bumper and raised it off the ground. Solo tried to open the door, but the wild pack were pressed too tightly.
Then the group in front dropped their hold on the bumper. The car fell three feet with a bounce that threw Solo against the windshield. Illya hit against the driver.
It was impossible to get out of the car now. The frenzied mob was too thick. Napoleon Solo grabbed his U.N.C.L.E. Special, flipping the cartridge switch from steel slugs to the needle-thin knockout pellets. But before he could use it, crazed hands converged on the side of the car. Under their savage push the car slowly teetered over on two wheels.
“Roll down the window!” Solo yelled.
As Illya spun the crank, Napoleon fired six of the plastic needle pellets with their stunning anesthetic into the mob pushing against the car.
But it was like dipping up the ocean with a cup. As fast as one dropped unconscious, there were three to take his place. The three men in the car were completely trapped.
The car ahead burst into flames. From somewhere in the crushing mass a gun fired. The windshield shattered. And then the car went over.
Solo was hurled back on top of Kuryakin. The police driver tried to get up and out through the broken window glass. As his head cleared the car, a screaming maniac slammed him in the throat with the jagged end of a broken bottle.
He feel back. Illya tried to cover the wound with his hand to stop the spurting blood. But the sharp glass had torn through the jugular vein.
The car was on its side and the gasoline poured out of the carburetor onto the hot engine. It burst into flames.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Illya gasped.
“If we do, they’ll tear us to pieces. That theater must have held fifteen hundred people and every one of them is jammed in this street and each one is a raging lunatic! We haven’t a chance, Illya!”
“I’ve heard that before!” his companion shot back. “This is your turn to furnish the brains. Remember, those energy pills we took only work for a short time. We can’t take another for four hours. We’re to be so weak we couldn’t fight off a baby midget in a strait jacket in just a short time.”
“Well, Illya -” Solo stopped to fire a paralyzing pellet into a distorted face that leaned in from the broken window on top to jab at them with a piece of iron pipe.
“The only chance we got is to use tear gas,” Solo said hurriedly.