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and narrow with a thin drooping nose, close-set small watery blue eyes, a short jaw, and a chin that had failed to bud in the womb. His shoulders were slumped, his hair was uncombed, and his robe was torn. Caird expected only servility from the slob. He certainly did not expect what happened next.
    Rootenbeak put the chain of his ID badge around his neck and started to walk off, his eyes downcast. Suddenly he wheeled, screaming, the ferret face changed into a wildcat’s, and pushed an old woman who had just come between him and Caird. Propelled by the woman, Caird fell back into the bicycle, knocked it over, and fell down on it. He yelled with pain as the end of the pedal drove against his spine. Before Caird could get up, Rootenbeak had jumped into the air and come down with both sandaled feet on Caird’s chest. The air oofed out of his lungs, making it impossible for him to yell with pain as the pedal drove again into his back.
    Rootenbeak grabbed the bars, yanked the bicycle up and ran it toward the edge of the path. He stopped and let it go over into the canal. Caird’s R-T box and the bag went with the vehicle.
    Caird had his breath and his strength back. He roared with anger, rose, and charged. Rootenbeak turned as if to run, then dropped to one knee, spun, and grabbed Caird ’ s outstretched hand. Rootenbeak fell backward, his foot came up, planted itself in Caird’s stomach, and Caird went over and into the water. He missed striking the edge of a rowboat by an inch.
    When he came up spluttering, more from rage than from swallowed water, he saw Rootenbeak’s jeering face above.
    “How do you like that, pig!”
    Other faces were lined up along the edge of the path. Caird yelled at them to hold Rootenbeak for him. The faces disappeared.
    “You’re ignoring your organic duty!” Caird roared, but there was no one to hear him except the two grinning men in the rowboat. They helped him in and took him to the steps below the West Twenty-third Street bridge. By the time he got to the path, Rootenbeak was gone. Caird phoned in to the precinct via his wristwatch and arranged for divers to recover his vehicle, bag, and R-T box. He walked the rest  of the way to work.
    The precinct station on East Twenty-third Street and Wornanway occupied one-fourth of the six-story building that formed the whole block. Dripping and scowling, Caird strode down the entrance walk lined on both sides by the uniformed and stoned bodies of officers who had died in the line of duty. All were in upright, lifelike poses, though some had not been very upright in life. The one closest to the entrance, standing on a six-foot granite pedestal, was Abel “Bloodhound” Ortega, Caird’s mentor and ex-partner. Caird usually said good morning to him, a ritual which some of his fellow officers thought morbid. Now he strode past Ortega’s body without a glance or a word.
    Caird walked by the desk sergeant without acknowledging his greeting. The sergeant called after him, “Hey, Inspector, I didn’t know it was raining! Haw, haw!”
    Ignoring the stares, Caird left the big admittance lobby and went down a hall. Near the end, he turned right into the locker room. After opening a locker, he chose one of a dozen robes, took it out, and hung the wet robe on a hook.
    He rode an elevator to the third floor and entered his office. The screen on his desk told him what he already knew. He was to call Major Ricardo Wallenquist at once. Instead, he made his verbal report to the computer and then had the Rootenbeak file displayed. The culprit’s last known address was an apartment at 100 King Street. Caird called two foot-patrolmen in that area and asked them to check out the apartment. He was told that had been done five minutes ago. Rootenbeak had not come home nor had he gone to work.
    Which meant that he probably was not going to do so. Having assaulted an officer, his first known felony, he was probably headed for the “minnie” district near Hudson