Panda.

At the time, I didn't know that's who she was. All I knew was suddenly here was this spectacular girl with the glossy white streak in her satin black hair standing in front of me. She had an orange juice and vodka in one hand and an expression of mild revulsion on her beautiful face.

"I can tell by that silly beard you're a male," she snarled. "But a male what?"

Then she reached up and dumped the orange juice and vodka over me.

It wasn't anything to get sore about. Lots of women throw drinks at me. I'm used to it by now. When it happens, I merely draw myself up to my full six-feet-four and drip disdainfully down on the drink-tosser. Then I stalk away. If there's a photographer around, I pause and lash my beard a couple of times for the camera. It is, Leo says, very smart box office.

It wasn't anything to get sore about, but that's what I did. Something sputtered in my head and I broke out in flame. Without even bothering to clear it with my conscience, I lifted a foot and planted it on the girl's instep. Not hard enough to break any bones, you understand; just enough pressure to cause her to shriek in mortal anguish.

That shriek got a rousing reaction. Those earnest intellectuals suddenly came boiling toward me in a red wave of wrath. There was a scrawny blonde, built like the ruins of Pompeii, in the lead.

"Let me have him, girls!" I heard that scrawny blonde whinny. "Ten years ago I took some jujutsu lessons to help protect me from men. Now I want to see if I wasted my money."

I guess she never did find out if she wasted her money. Before she could get her girlish talons into me, some lily-livered flunky pulled the main light switch.

In the thick darkness, I barreled my way through the screaming mob. I didn't stop until I climbed into my car. Somebody plopped down into the seat beside me just as I hit the starter.

"Better roll it out of here fast!" a girl's voice yipped excitedly in my ear. "There's a berserk gorilla loose in there!"

I wanted to explain that the berserk gorilla wasn't loose in there anymore. I wanted to say, Look, sis, that berserk gorilla is me. But, judging from the way the riot was building up, I just didn't have the time to spare. I rolled out of there fast.

It wasn't until we swung 

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