sad-looking old lady. Matter of fact she was—just standing there, not even trying—the worst-looking old lady I ever saw. She looked, to put it kindly, like a three-day corpse that had made it the hard way after a century of poor health. First I thought, hell, I'll give the old bag of misery a boost, shove her under a bus or something. It would be the decent, kindly thing to do.

I spoke, tentatively. She half-turned and looked up at me from her witch's crouch. The eyes in the beak-nosed, ravaged ruin of a face were big, luminous, a glowing green. They clearly belonged elsewhere and there was a lost, appealing look in them. There was a demand there, too.

"I—uh—that is, would you care to cross with me, Madam?" I asked her.

She took my arm. There was a moment's lull in the wake of a screaming prowl car. I muttered a word of prayer and we were off the curb. The old hag was surprisingly quick. It looked as though we were going to make it. Then, three-quarters across, I came down with a rubber heel in an oil slick just as a roaring, grinding cement-mixer truck was coming down on me like an avalanche. My feet went up. I gave the old witch a shove clear and shut my eyes for fear the coming sight of smeared blood and guts—my own—would make me sick.

And then, instead of a prone, cringing heap on the pavement sweating out the ten-to-one odds against all those wheels missing me, I was airborne. Cable-strong arms caught and lifted me. We were racing down field, elusive, unstoppable, all the way—touchdown.

So there we were, safe on the sidewalk. Traffic on the freeway, gaping at us, was chaos as the frail, doddering little old lady put me down. Me, I was never any extra large size. But still, a touch under six feet, maybe a little too friendly with beer and rich desserts—say, 210 pounds—I had considered myself a little big for convenient carrying about.

This was something new in little old ladies.

I stared down at her. She wasn't even breathing hard. In fact I couldn't tell if she was breathing at all. "Madam," I said, "my sincere thanks and admiration. I wonder now. If you're not late for practice with the Bears or something, perhaps we could go someplace and talk?" I couldn't guess what, but there was for sure some sort of a story here. If I could get something hot for the Sunday magazine, I'd have my job back.

The old crone looked up at me with those oddly out of place, compelling 

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