"It's just been a hard day, JC," remarked Brooke McKenzie wearily, sipping her coffee slowly. "I'm sorry if I'm not very good company."
       Jonathan Chase nodded sympathetically, relaxing in the chair at his desk. He knew that she needed to talk about her work, but he also knew that she needed time to get herself ready to tell him. With the well-developed instincts of a jungle animal, he could feel the tension in the air, and knew that she had problems; the black panther stalking up and down in its glass-fronted cage on the other side of the study seemed to detect the same atmosphere.
       Ty, having only recently arrived, came into the room from the kitchen with his own cup of coffee and settled himself down on the couch next to Brooke. That seemed to break the spell, and she began to explain slowly.
       "Last night there was a fire at the Lone Rider night-club. It happened quite late, after the club had closed. One or two of the staff got minor burns, but no one was really injured. Still, the club's a write-off... virtually the whole building burnt down."
       "Sounds like someone was having a hot time in town last night!" remarked Ty, then realized that Brooke wasn't really in the mood for humour, and decided to keep quiet. She smiled at him thinly, and then continued:
       "I've been down at the Lone Rider myself most of the day, along with the fire service and the people from forensics. Now it's their opinion that the fire was probably started deliberately. It's hard to prove, but it seems likely."
       "That seems to give us two possibilities for a start," put in Chase. "The first being that it was started by the owner, to get the insurance money."
       "Unlikely." Brooke told him. "The place was such a money-spinner anyway it'd hardly be profitable to bum it down. But we're checking that angle out. The other possibility is that it was started by someone else; someone who doesn't like the owner."
       "Who is?"
       "A guy called Willy Otto. Sometimes known as 'Crazy' Otto. We've had our eye on him for some time, because we suspect he's got underworld connections; but when I spoke to him today, he was keeping his mouth firmly shut... along with everybody else he employs. It was as if they were trying to treat the whole thing as some sort of 'internal problem' that they wanted to handle themselves, instead of bringing in the police."
       "Sounds to me like some sort of gang warfare," said Ty. "This guy Otto's probably got plenty to hide himself, and if he thinks he knows who's out to get him..."
       "He'll probably try to sort it out with his own gunmen," Chase finished. "But do you have any idea what the root of the problem is, Brooke?"
       She shook her head, despondently. "All we know is that Otto owns another club besides ... the Dark Angel... which is also where his office is. Those two clubs seem to be all his business interests. Officially, anyway."
       "Maybe Ty and I should pay a visit to this Dark Angel place, then," suggested Chase. "We can take a look around and see what we can find. You'll have to stay here, though, Brooke. Otto would recognise you, and we don't want to be seen to be connected with the police. Not yet, anyway."
       "But it's my case, JC!" protested Brooke.
       "Sure it is," came the reply. "But the most useful thing you can do at the moment is stay right here by the phone. If we get in trouble, we'll call you for assistance."
       It was about eleven o'clock when Chase and Ty approached the Dark Angel, although they knew the club would still be open for another three or four hours to come.
       "Are you sure about this, JC?" whispered Ty, rubbing a hand around inside his open-necked shirt uncertainly. "I mean, I know I'm supposed to be looking like a cool dude ... come to that, I am one ... but I don't think even the coolest dude goes to a night-club with a monkey on his shoulder!"
       The monkey sitting on his shoulder simply squeaked and pulled his ear in annoyance.
       "Okay, okay!" said Ty placatingly. "Honestly, JC, sometimes you're just impossible to argue with!"
       The Dark Angel's muscular door-man stared in astonishment for a moment at Ty, then raised a hand to forbid him entrance. "What do you think you're doing with that monkey, fella?" he asked, unable to think of anything better to say.
       "We're looking for his uncle," Ty told him, straight-faced.
       If the doorman got the joke, he gave no sign of it, simply grabbing Ty's arm as he tried to get past.
       "We got rules, fella," he announced. "And one of them is no animals."
       But by then it was too late to argue, for the monkey had simply jumped down from Ty's shoulder, scuttling past the doorman and disappearing into the club beyond.
       "Hey, come back here!" yelled Ty, starting after his 'pet', but finding himself still held back. "Look," he explained, "I've got to go in after him to get him out of here again, haven't I. Besides, I'm not breaking your rules now ... I haven't an animal with me any more."
       While the man hesitated uncertainly, Ty tore himself free and rushed on into the night-club itself. Instantly a barrage of disco music thundered against his ears, while a laser light-show cutting through the darkness provided the only illumination. Of the monkey, there was no sign, but that hardly surprised him. It didn't surprise him either to see the doorman and another heavy in earnest conversation near the entrance. Ty decided it was time to lose himself among the crowd of dancers. A beautiful blonde caught his eye in the half-light, and he pushed his way through the people toward her, dancing as he did so.
       "Excuse me," he began, smiling disarmingly. "Have you seen my monkey?"
       The blonde looked at him in blank astonishment for a moment, then laughed. From what he could hear of it over the music, it was rather a nice sound. "I've run into a few fellas in places like this ..." she said, "... but none of them ever came out with a pick-up line like that before!"
       "It got you talking to me though, didn't it!" grinned Ty, glancing round over his shoulder for signs of possible trouble. "Still, I really am looking for a pet monkey."
       The girl laughed again and then took his hand, leading him deeper into the pack of dancers. "I'll help you ..." she said, and Ty was quite prepared to go along with that, in spite of the fact that he knew they were looking in totally the wrong place.
       For the monkey had already made it's way upstairs to the private offices above the club, scampering along the corridors and scuttling from shadow to shadow. At last it reached a partially open door and, after listening for a few seconds, realised it had come to the right place. Glancing round the door so that he would recognise the men later, the monkey then withdrew to a shadowy alcove across the corridor. Even in this form, Chase's hearing was sharp enough to pick up the conversation without entering the room.
       'Crazy' Willy Otto was sitting at a desk, talking to two of his lieutenants. And what he had to say soon confirmed what Chase had suspected. It seemed that Otto had enemies. Quite a few enemies, but the one that was giving him trouble at that moment was called Big Bill Brinkley. Chase couldn't quite figure out whether Brinkley was running a protection racket, and had firebombed the place because Otto wasn't paying up; or whether Brinkley was trying to take over the night-clubs; or just trying to put Otto out of business. It didn't really matter much. The point was, Otto knew about it, and he was just crazy enough to take matters into his own hands. Even as Chase listened, the two lieutenants got up and left, intent on leading a band of hired guns "to take care of Brinkley".
       Chase kept to the shadows until the two men had got clear of the corridor then transformed himself back into human form. He headed back toward the stairs, and then realised the transmutation had been a mistake. One of the night- club staff appeared suddenly round a comer and spotted him instantly.
       "Hey, you ain't supposed to be up here!" the man began, reaching toward a shoulder-holster. Fortunately, Chase was close enough to get to grips with him straight away. A short sharp right cross to the jaw put the man out like a light, and Chase moved back down into the club hurriedly.
       At the edge of the dance floor, Ty suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. He froze instantly, trying to figure out whether to talk his way out, run, or fight.
       "We're leaving," said a firm voice behind him, and Ty turned with relief to find Chase standing at his shoulder.
       "My monkey," explained Ty to the blonde with a smile and a shrug, then moved to follow his companion outside.
       Hurrying along the street, Chase explained briefly to Ty what he had learned. A minute or two later, Ty found a phone-box and got through to Brooke, explaining it in turn to her. Fortunately, the young policewoman already knew of Big Bill Brinkley from previous encounters, and was able to give them the address of the man's office.
       "Okay, listen," Ty concluded, "you'd better get on to Lieutenant Rivera and tell him to get some men over there... if they move fast enough we might be able to stop a bloodbath. We'll catch you over there."
       Ty put the phone down and turned back to Chase; only to find a full-grown cheetah squatting on the sidewalk. The address they had to get to was three or four miles across town, and Chase had obviously decided this was the quickest way to travel. Before Ty could say any- thing, the big cat turned and bounded away along the street.
       "Hey, man, why can't you change into something slow for a change ... like a tortoise!" called Ty, running after the cat. Then he realised it was useless trying to keep up, and called a cab instead.
       Brooke had obviously moved fast after the tip-off, for by the time Ty's cab arrived, the area round Brinkley's office was cordoned off by police cars. He paid off the driver and slipped into the shadows, making his way slowly toward the center of the action; which was where he found Chase and Brooke.
       By then, though, the action was more or less over. "We managed to pick up Otto's boys just as they were about to move in," Brooke explained, pointing toward a large van nearby which was being loaded with prisoners under the careful eye of Lieutenant Rivera. "And they were right to call him Crazy Otto ... some of his men had machine guns, hand grenades, and god knows what else. It would have been a massacre."
       "Takes two sides to make a war," remarked Ty. "What about the opposition?"
       "We grabbed Brinkley and a couple of guys," Brooke told him. "But we were expecting more ... more in the way of hired guns. As it was, Otto could have knocked over Brinkley with a feather."
       "But what happened to them?" pondered Ty. "Why'd you let someone come along and blow your own boss away."
       "Unless you're out blowing someone else away ..." said Chase suddenly. "Or at least, preparing to."
       "If you mean Otto, I guess we've got to get back to Dark Angel" agreed Ty. "But I don't think we're going to be all that welcome!"
       "Only one way to find out," put in Brooke. "My car's round the comer... let's get going."
       The Dark Angel was still in one piece when they arrived, still packed with dancers and drinkers and obviously doing a roaring trade. This time the doorman made no attempt to stop Ty as he, Chase and Brooke came through the entrance, but they were in too much of a hurry to stop anyway; and in too much of a hurry to notice the man reach for a telephone as soon as they had passed him.
       Chase led his companions past the dance floor toward the staircase, and with his sensitive hearing, felt quite relieved to get into a quieter part of the club. But as they started up toward the next floor, they found three men waiting for them, strung across the stairs and with automatic pistols in their hands. One of them had an ugly bruise on the left side of his jaw.
       "We've got to see Otto!" Chase explained.
       "No chance," replied one of the men. "He's not seeing anyone tonight. Tell you what, we'll let you wait in the basement. Maybe he'll see you later. Now turn around and move."
       Chase turned to face his companions with a shrug; at which point the man with the bruised jaw stepped down and slugged him on the back of the head with his pistol butt. Chase collapsed unconscious into Ty's arms.
       "You know what I think?" Ty said to Brooke as she tried to help him with Chase's limp body. "Maybe we won't talk to Otto after all!"
       The basement turned out to be a fairly unkept store-room beneath the night- club, virtually empty but for a few old lockers built into the walls. Their captors made a good job of tying up the three of them, including the unconscious Chase, and then left before Ty had a chance to try to explain anything to them. They heard the click of the key in the door as their captors left, and then there was nothing but the faint sound of disco music filtering through from the floor above.
       It was after midnight when they were first captured, and gone two in the morning by the time the music stopped and the club started to close up for the night. And in all that time, Ty and Brooke failed to make the slightest impression on their bonds; neither did Chase recover his senses.
       The club seemed to fall absolutely silent for about half an hour after it closed, and then there was a dull thud from somewhere upstairs. Behind the heavy basement door, Brooke and Ty couldn't hear much else, but soon the acrid smell of smoke began to seep into the room.
       "Oh terrific," remarked Ty sourly. "We rush in here to warn the guy he's about to be firebombed... and the next thing you know, we end up getting burned alive!"
       "JC!" yelled Brooke suddenly, noticing Chase's nostrils twitch at the smell of smoke. "Come on... wake up!"
       But it was to be a minute or two longer before Chase was recovered enough to realise what was going on, and by that time the room was fogged with eye- stinging smoke. Now they were starting to feel the heat from outside the door, and the clouds of smoke were thickening to the point that occasionally they lost sight of each other across the room.
       Then Ty felt something pulling and cutting at the rope round his wrists. Glancing round he saw, to his immense relief, a large beaver gnawing at his bonds with its chisel-like teeth. Chase's transmutation had naturally allowed him to slip free of his own ropes, and now he was setting about freeing the others.
       With Ty and Brooke both on their feet and rubbing their wrists, Chase changed back to human form and then he and Ty tried putting their shoulders to the door. It remained quite immovable.
       "Probably wouldn't have done us a lot of good anyway," said Ty. "Doubt we'd have been able to make it through the club, and we'd only have been letting the fire in here instead."
       "So what are we supposed to do then?" asked Brooke. "Just sit here and cook slowly until the fire-service comes along to drag us out in the morning, as 'three unidentified bodies'?"
       "No," Chase told her with a smile, opening one of the lockers and finding a small tin box inside. He took it out and then pointed up to the top of the wall near the ceiling. "We're going out through that pavement light up there."
       The two paned window was ten or twelve feet above the floor, and after some fairly tricky manoeuvring, Chase finally managed to stand on Ty's shoulders while he smashed out the glass and woodwork with the tin box.
       "Hey, JC!" groaned Ty, wilting under the weight and trying to avoid the showers of glass and bits of wood. "How come it isn't me standing on your shoulders?"
       Ty got no answers, which was pretty much as he expected. Then he felt the weight suddenly lifted, and Chase pulled himself through the shattered window frame to the street above. What came back through the window was rather different though.
       Its tail wrapped securely round a nearby lamp-post, a thirty-foot python slid headfirst into the basement. And almost before she knew what was happening, it had wrapped its muscular body round Brooke's waist and was lining her off the ground, hauling her up to the ceiling where there was just room for her to wriggle through the window and out into the street beyond. Coughing and spluttering from the smoke, Ty was pulled out in the same way a couple of moments later.
       The fire service had arrived by then, and were fighting the blaze, but their efforts were obviously too little and too late. Chase and the others found Crazy Otto standing in the street with tears running down his cheeks as he stared at the inferno.
       "I'll get Brinkley for this!" he said, to no one in particular.
       "We already got him," Brooke put in, though Otto seemed not to have heard her.
       "I'll kill him!" Otto continued, then seemed to come to his senses, looking round at Brooke as she showed him her identity card.
       "You tried that," she told him, "which is why I'm taking you in too. Your gang war's over, Otto."
       "Unless they put him in the same cell as Brinkley!" smiled Ty as they prepared to take their man away.