illegal, underground information. Seated at the table across from the mismatched trio was Don Karnage. His face was concealed by a black hood so that only the tip of his nose showed.

“Do we have a deal?” rasped Karnage in an attempt to disguise his voice.

“I dunno. I don’t do anythings widout a trade. Gimme one good reason to do your dirty work for yas,” Trader Moe said, a suspicious gleam in his beady eyes. He didn’t trust this hood in a hood, but, then again, he didn’t trust anybody.

“Yeah, why do we gotta do your dirty work?” parroted Rhino Goon in a deep bass voice.

“Definitely not clean,” added Ape Goon in his ominous, yet imbecilic, speech.

Don Karnage wasn’t phased - much - by Trader Moe’s dumb, behemoth sidekicks, even though it looked like they could tear him limb from limb with their bare hands. He withdrew a small bag of gold from his cloak pocket and tossed it on the table.

“Not good enough. Try again.” Trader Moe snapped his fingers, signaling for the goons to point their handguns right at Karnage’s head.

“Hee-hee,” Karnage chuckled nervously. He placed a second, bigger, bag of gold on the table. “Two bags of gold?”

“Ventilate him, boys,” Trader Moe ordered.

“Wait! Wait!” Karnage drew - of all things - ten clamshells out of his pocket and lined them up on the table.

Nearly salivating, Trader Moe snatched them up greedily. “Start talkin’.”

“Let me say this now. The welcome - it is not for me in Cape Suzette, especially that part of Cape Suzette.”

“But yer here now!” Trader Moe cried in surprise.

“Now you see me, now you don’t,” Karnage hissed cryptically. He shot an apprehensive glance around the bar. He didn’t want one of these bounty-hunters to get wind of his true identity. “Listen up with the ears, sharp-toothed one. I have a hyposthetical question. If I were to perhaps get my fingers on a certain type of doohickey, could you perform the installation for me?”

“What kind of doohickey?” Trader Moe inquired, leaning over the table.

The goons leaned closer at the same time, and they all three bumped heads.

“Ow! You pea brains!” Trader Moe smacked the goons on the snout with his floppy, brown hat.

Don Karnage chuckled in his throat. Here was a man who treated his lackeys like he did. A man after his own black heart. As much as he would have liked to watch their antics, he wanted to get on with it, get it over with, and get out of there. He became instantly serious. “A wonderfully sneaky doohickey. I need to get rid of a certain party favor, you see. Si?”

“Party favor?” Trader Moe repeated, confused by Karnage’s verbiage.

“We’re goin’ to a party?” Rhino Goon asked. He seemed pleased. A goofy grin lit up his heavy features.

“Goody!” Ape Goon clapped his huge hands, nearly hitting Trader Moe in the face. “I like parties with cake and punch.”

“If you twos don’t shut yer yaps, I’ll give ya punch,” Trader Moe threatened. He pinned Ape Goon’s hands down to the table.

“No! Not a party!” Karnage growled savagely. Trader Moe and the nincompoop goons’ senseless banter was beginning to grate on his nerves. He choked out in his own accented voice, breathing heavily with rage, “I...need...to...keell...an...annoying...meeserable...pilot! Do...you...hear...me, you eediots!”

Everyone’s eyes in the establishment turned towards their table. Every single thug produced a gun or a knife or both.

“I guess you did hear me. Only kidding,” Karnage backpedaled tensely. He tugged the cloak further over his face. “It is a funny joke, yes-no? Do you not get the punch-out line? Keell a pilot? Ha...ha?”

Everyone, bored or baffled, returned to their own business and returned their weapons to their holsters.

When he was sure that no one was eavesdropping, Karnage hissed, “I want you to put this,” he slipped a black, innocuous-looking box the size of a pocket watch on the table, “under the control panel of the Sea Duck by tomorrow.”

Trader Moe said slowly, “Wait a minute. Ain’t dat da plane dat belongs to Baloo?”

“To Baloo?” Rhino Goon said.

“Ain’t Baloo a color?” Ape Goon wondered, scratching his head. “Is dat the color of the plane?”

“Yes! It’s Bahloo’s plane!” Karnage snarled through clenched teeth; he pounded his fists on the table. He was on the verge of blowing his top. This was taking three times longer than he had planned. “Don’t ever say that pesky pilot’s name in my hearing again! I hate him! I loathe him! I despise him with a passion fruit!”

“Dat makes two of us,” said Trader Moe.

“Ain’t dere three of us?” Ape Goon asked, looking at his fingers in confusion.

Trader Moe decided to ignore that comment. “Baloo’s gotten in my way too many times. What does this thing do?” Trader Moe inquired, turning the shiny black object over in his hands. On the top side was a green dome-shaped light.

“Let’s just say it will make that estupid pilot easier to control. Make sure you do what I say, or I’ll turn you, Trader Moe, into a pair of boots for my footsies!” With an ominous chuckle and a swish of his black cape, Don Karnage disappeared into the night.

Higher for Hire
11:00 PM

Yawning, Rebecca poured herself another cup of coffee and meandered from the kitchen to the office. It was late and she was tired, but she simply couldn’t go home to her apartment until she was certain that Baloo and Kit had returned safely. That hopeless look of desperation that Baloo had worn when he left the party had made her uneasy. She’d only seen that expression on the normally jovial bear’s face twice before: once when he thought that Kit had betrayed them to the air pirates, another time when Kit had run away to join Daring Dan’s air circus. She didn’t personally know Buzz, but, because Baloo was so concerned about his whereabouts, she suspected that he was someone who meant a lot to her pilot.

The bearess sat down at her desk, setting the cup down at her elbow. She uninterestedly thumbed through a pile of invoices, laid them down, and took a sip of coffee, glancing over the cup’s rim at Molly. The little girl was sound asleep in the easy chair. A red blanket, her DangerWoman cape, was wrapped around her. Molly had made a valiant attempt to stay awake until Baloo and Kit had returned. After Wildcat had left, she had begged her mother to read her favorite story - Gladys and the Gorilla - to her, and to her raptured delight, Rebecca had complied. It was a rare moment when Rebecca devoted time to play with her daughter. Molly had listened to the story, a story that she could repeat verbatim, before the seven-year-old, her tummy full of cake and ice cream, nodded off on Rebecca’s lap.

Crossing the room, Rebecca gently tucked a pillow under Molly’s golden head. She tenderly smoothed Molly’s hair and caressed the little girl’s cheek, causing Molly to wrinkle up her nose. The bearess glanced at the grandfather clock ticking the seconds steadily away in the entryway. Five minutes until eleven o’clock. Would they never get home? It seemed as if she had been waiting an eternity.

In the space of a minute, Rebecca’s emotions ran the gamut from peeved - How dare they make me wait up for them this long? To angry - If that bear ever pulls this stunt again, he’s fired! To worried - What’s taking them so long? I hope they didn’t run into any trouble.

Just as soon as she was about to radio them, she heard the well-known clamor of the Sea Duck’sengines as the seaplane splashed down for a landing, a sound that made her pulse quicken every time she heard it. It betokened adventure, excitement, not to mention a certain bear who piloted the plane... Exhaling an enormous sigh of relief, Rebecca established herself behind her desk, the epitome of nonchalance. When her pilot and navigator entered, she inquired with a tired smile, “Any luck?”

Baloo gathered sleeping Molly in his arms. He dropped into the chair only to spring up with a yelp. From underneath the pillow, he fished a colander - Molly’s DangerWoman helmet - and placed it on the crate beside the chair. The big bear once again settled into the chair with the little girl on his lap. Molly smiled in her sleep, nuzzling her cheek against Baloo’s chest. “Nope, nuthin’, Beckers, not a trace,” he sighed. He cuddled Molly close to him.

“And we went everywhere,” Kit added, perching on the chair’s arm, leaning his weary head against his Papa Bear’s shoulder. Baloo draped his arm around him.

Rebecca’s heart melted as it always did when Baloo exhibited paternal tendencies towards her daughter and Kit, but Baloo didn’t notice the loving smile that she briefly bestowed upon him. Remembering herself, remembering that Baloo was her employee, remembering what the manual said about keeping employer/employee relationships strictly platonic, she bent her head over her desk under the pretense of being hard at work.

It was becoming more difficult to conceal her feelings for Baloo, feelings that dated back to that first night she and Molly had spent at Higher for Hire. Exactly one year ago when Baloo had played with the cubs, Rebecca had discovered, to her wonderment, a big-hearted bear under that sloppy, careless, and rude exterior. With that discovery a seed had been planted in her heart, which had gradually flourished and then bloomed into love.

Peeking up through her eyelashes at the little group, Rebecca longed to comfort Baloo, to rush to his side and throw her arms around him, to do something to alleviate the discouragement that showed so plainly on his face. The one thing that held her back was that her heart had been broken too many times by con artists and ghostly men - men who weren’t what they seemed. Consequently, she wasn’t going to give Baloo any indication that she cared for him until she was one hundred percent positive that he loved her, too. Even so, it took every ounce of her self-control not to perch on