The Countess held up her hand. To her right there was a serving table. It had tall bubblebrew bottles on it. It was cluttered with frail canisters. These all sat on a big square of white glittercloth. She moved to this rickety display. She took one corner of the cloth. I thought she was going to pull the table over! With a flip of her wrist, she gave an expert yank!

The cloth simply came out from under with a swish. It was dangling in her hand. Not one bottle or canister had even quivered!

The audience must have thought that was the act. They applauded lightly.

But it sure wasn't the act. The Countess called something to the band. The pair had reached the center of the dance floor now. The Countess floated the big square of white glittercloth in the air: it was about a yard from corner to corner, diagonally. She folded it with an expert flip. She stuck one corner of it between Heller's teeth and took the opposite corner in her own. Their faces were now about six inches apart.

The band began a frivolous, folksy tune. Heller and the Countess put their hands behind their backs and with an intricate pattern of footwork, began to dance.

"The Manco Mancho!" said Hightee with delight. She patted her hands together in a little girl's expression of joy. "Watch this," she nudged me. "It's the nursery folk dance of Manco! They would both know it of course!" Each of them biting a corner of the cloth, they gravely executed the geometric steps in perfect unison and time.

Suddenly at the end of a music bar, their teeth dropped a fold in the cloth and their faces were a foot apart. The music continued. But now they weren't following each other's steps. In sweeping foot motions, alternately, one seemed to be kicking the feet out from under the other one but the other one was in the air when the foot passed under. Back and forth.

Hightee was looking a little bewildered. The dance was suddenly much more complex. "That isn't the Manco Mancho!" And indeed, it wasn't. It was the first elementary exercise of foot combat, timed and made to look like a dance! I thought, they better not get too good. That Homeview camera up there is right on them! The last thing we wanted here was an identified Heller, much less the Countess Krak!

There was a patter of applause from the audience. I gritted, fall down or something, blow it, don't get yourselves on Homeview!

At the end of a music phrase, there was a pop. They had let go another corner of their cloth. Still biting it, they were now a yard apart.

Heller must have given her a signal. They went over onto their heads! They each gave a half-turn and were now back to back, still connected by the cloth in their teeth! Upside down, on their heads and hands, they began to beat the soles of each other's feet together in rhythm!

The audience applauded! Not so good!

And then, exactly at a measure end, they each vaulted upward, did a half-right in the middle of the same flip and were right side up face to face!

Gymnastics adapted to a dance. The audience had never seen such a thing. They applauded even stronger. Up in the press balcony, the Homeview crew was really working hard! Awful!

How he did it, I don't know, as his teeth were clamped on the cloth, but Heller yelled a signal to the bandmaster.

And then began the most skilled thing I think I have ever seen in acts! There is an exercise in unarmed combat that consists of kicking in a circular sweep at the opponent's head. The opponent cartwheels to avoid. But this crazy pair, connected with a yard long cloth held in their teeth, began to do it alternately and repetitively!

Slowly at first, one kicking, the other cartwheeling, then the one who cartwheeled doing it, back and forth, they began to go faster and faster.

Suddenly I realized they were no longer touching the floor with their hands!

The music went faster and faster. The kicks and turns got faster and faster.

And then they were just two blurs! One orange and one blue, just two spinning discs connected with a cloth!

The audience went crazy! They jumped to their feet cheering! They had never seen gymnastics and unarmed combat turned into a dance!

The band couldn't play any faster.

Then smoothly and very gracefully, the two blurs stopped. The band played a long note. Heller and the Countess Krak were apart. The glittercloth was held in the Countess's left hand. Heller was bowing.

I thought that was all there was. So did the audience. They were applauding and shouting.

"Oh, she hashad stage experience," said Hightee near my ear. For the Countess was doing the two steps to the right and two steps to the left with the bow between, the formal performer acceptance of audience acclaim. It is a little sort of dance they do, very pretty to look at. She was holding the glittercloth in her left hand and it was flicking and glittering.

Abruptly the Countess was GONE!

She didn't walk away. She didn't even shimmer. Where she had been bowing an instant before was just empty space! The audience gave a gasp of indrawn breath, startled. I was more than startled. A prisoner had escaped!

The square of glittercloth floated down to the floor.

I think Heller was actually surprised. He certainly looked it!

He stared at the glittercloth. He drew back and got down on all fours. He stealthily approached the cloth. He covertly lifted one corner and peeked under it. He drew back, shaking his head. Then he seemed to make up his mind.

He pounced on the cloth! He went into a scramble around it to be sure to contain whatever might be in it. Carefully, he rose to his feet holding it.

The dumbest audience member could not fail to see he was looking for his vanished partner in that cloth.

Standing now, he unfolded it with care. The audience was beginning to giggle. He didn't find anything and in perplexity shook the cloth out. He looked on the floor to see if anything had dropped. He stood dejected. The audience roared with laughter.

Heller threw the cloth away and with some determination advanced upon the nearest table. He looked under it with no result. He looked under a canister. He found nothing. He looked under a plate. He found nothing. Then, with obvious sudden inspiration, he picked a funny hat off the top of a customer's head and looked in it.

The audience screamed with laughter.

There was a thump beside me. Startled, I looked sideways. There in the dimness, grinning, sat the Countess Krak.

Heller, defeated, looked in his own sleeves. Then he looked over at our table and with a sweep of his arm directed the light handler to throw his spotlight toward the table.

The audience saw her. They were silent for an instant and then there were cries of incredulity followed by a storm of applause!

The Countess bobbed up and bowed. Heller came back to the table. The audience attention shifted reluctantly to another act.

"How'd you do it?" asked Hightee, her professionalism alert.

The Countess laughed. "See that hanging drape back of the stage? I just drew the attention of the audience to the waving cloth, then did what they call a fast side kick and went behind the drape. I crossed behind the stage, crawled on my hands and knees along that wall back of the tables and did a front flip into this seat. Easy." Heller wasn't even breathing hard and neither was the Countess. Heller ordered another round of bubble-brew. I'd lost count of the tab now. But dead men can't count. I looked up at the Homeview crew and they were all grinning.

The outside specter of Lombar had one foot in the nightclub.