T
hirty seconds passed. During that time, Malone did nothing at all. He just sat there, while a confused montage of pictures tumbled through his head. Sometimes he saw double exposures, and sometimes a couple of pictures overlapped, but it didn't seem to make any difference, because none of the pictures meant anything anyhow.
The reason for that was obvious. He was no longer sane. He had cracked up. At a crucial moment, his brain had failed him, and now people would have to come in and cart him away and put him in a straitjacket. It was perfectly obvious to Malone that he was no longer capable of dealing with everyday life. The blow on the head had probably taken final effect, and it had been more serious than the doctor had imagined.
He had always distrusted doctors anyhow.
And now he was suffering from a delayed reaction. He wasn't living in the real world any more. He had gone off to dreamland, where people disappeared when you looked at them. There was no hope for him.
It was a nice theory, and it was even comforting, in a way. There was only one thing wrong with it.
The room around him didn't look dreamlike at all. It was perfectly solid and real, and it looked just the way it had looked before Mike Fueyo had ... well, Malone amended, before whatever had happened had happened. It was a perfectly complete little room, and it had four chairs in it. Malone was sitting in one of the chairs and all the others were empty.
There was absolutely nothing else in the room.
With some regret, Malone abandoned the theory that he had gone mad. This left him with no ideas at all. Because if he hadn't become insane, then whathadhappened?
After another second or two, some ideas began to filter through the daze. Perhaps he'd just blacked out for a minute and the kid had gone out the door. That was possible, wasn't it?
Sure it was. And maybe he had just not seen the kid go. His eyes had failed for a second or two. That could certainly happen, after a blow on the head. Malone tried to remember where the sight centers of the brain were. Maybe whoever had hit him had disturbed them, and he'd had a sudden blackout.
Come to think of it, that made pretty good sense. If he had blacked out, then Mike would have seen it as he went groggy, and Mike had just walked out the door. It had to be the door, of course—the windows were out of the question, since there weren't any windows. And six-inch-wide air-conditioner ducts do not provide reasonable space for an exit, not if you happen to be a human being.
That, Malone told himself, was settled—and a good thing, too. He had begun to worry about it. But now he knew just what had happened, and he felt relieved. He got up from his chair, walked over to the door and opened it.
Lieutenant Lynch nearly fell into the room. He'd obviously had his ear pressed tightly to the door and hadn't expected it to open. The other two cops stood behind him, just about filling the hallway with their broad shoulders.
"Well, well," Malone said.
Lynch recovered his balance and glared at the FBI agent. He said nothing.
"Where is he?" Malone said.
"Where is he?" Lynch repeated, and blinked. "Where'swho?"
Malone shook his head impatiently. "Fueyo," he said.
Lynch's expression was the same as that on the faces of the other two cops: complete and utter bafflement. Malone stopped and stared. It was suddenly very obvious that the lovely theory he had worked out for Mike's disappearance wasn't true in the least. If Mike Fueyo had come out the door, then these cops would know about it. But they obviously knew nothing at all about it.
Therefore, he hadn't come out through the door.
Malone took a deep breath.
"What are you talking about?" Lynch said. "Isn't the kid in there with you? What's happened?"
There was only one thing to do and, straight-faced, Malone went ahead and did it. "Of course not," he snapped, trying to sound impatient and official. "I released him."
"Youwhat?"
"Released him," Malone said. He stepped out into the hall and closed the door of the interrogation room firmly behind him. "I got all the information I needed, so I let him go."
"Thanks," Lynch said bitterly. "After all, I was the one who—"
"You called him in for questioning, didn't you, lieutenant?" Malone said.
"Yes, I did, and I—"
"Well," Malone said, "I questioned him."
There was a little silence. Then Lynch asked, in a strangled voice: "What did he say?"
"Sorry," Malone said at once. "That's classified information." He pushed his way into the corridor, trying to look as if he had fifteen other jobs to accomplish within the next hour. Being an FBI agent was going to help a little, but he still had to look good in order to really carry it off.
"But—"
"Thanks for your co-operation, lieutenant," Malone said. "You've all been very helpful." He smiled at them in what he hoped was a superior manner. "So long," he said, and started walking.
"Wait!" Lynch said. He flung open the door of the interrogation room. There was no doubt that it was empty. "Wait! Malone!"
Malone turned slowly, trying to look calm and in control of the situation. "Yes?" he said.
Lynch looked at him with puzzled, pleading eyes. "Malone,howdid you release him? We were right here. He didn't come through the door. There isn't any other exit. So how did you get him out?"
There was only one answer to that, and Malone gave it with a quiet, assured air. "I'm terribly sorry, lieutenant," he said, "but that's classified information, too." He gave the cops a little wave and walked slowly down the corridor. When he reached the stairs he began to speed up, and he was out of the precinct station and into a taxicab before any of the cops could have realized what had happened.
He took a deep breath, feeling as if it were the first he'd had in several days. "Breathe air," he told himself. "It'sgoodfor you." Not that New York had any real air in it. It was mostly carbon fumes and the like. But it was the nearest thing to air that Malone could find at the moment, and he determined to go right on breathing it until something better and cleaner showed up.
But that wasn't important now. As the cab tooled along down Broadway toward Sixty-ninth Street, Malone closed his eyes and began going over the whole thing in his mind.
Mike Fueyo had vanished.
Of that, Malone told himself, there was no shadow of doubt. No probable, possible shadow of doubt.
No possible doubt—as a matter of fact—whatever.
Dismissing the Grand Inquisitor with a negligent wave of his hand, he concentrated on the main question. It was a good question. Malone could have sat and looked at it admiringly for a long time.
As a matter of fact, that was all he could think of to do, as the cab turned up Seventieth Street and headed east. He certainly didn't have any answers for it.
But it was a lovely question:
Where does that leave Kenneth J. Malone?
And, possibly even more important:
Where was Miguel Fueyo?
It was obvious that he'd vanished on purpose. And it hadn't just been something he'd recently discovered. He had known all along that he could pull the trick; if he hadn't known that, he wouldn't have done what he had done beforehand. No seventeen-year-old boy, no matter what he was, would give the FBI the raspberry unless he were pretty sure he could get away with it.
Malone remembered the raspberry and winced slightly. The cab driver called back: "Anything wrong, buddy?"
"Everything," Malone said. "But don't worry about it."
The cab driver shrugged and turned back to the wheel. Malone went back to Mike Fueyo.
The kid could make himself vanish at will.
Invisibility?
Malone thought about that for a while. The fact that it was impossible didn't decide him against it. Everything was impossible; that much was clear. But he didn't think Mike Fueyo had just become invisible. No. There had been the sense of a presence actually leaving the room. If Mike had become invisible and stayed, Malone was sure he wouldn't have felt the boy leave.
Mike had not just become invisible. (And what do I mean, "just"? Malone asked himself unhappily.) He had gone—elsewhere.
This brought him back full circle to his original question: where was the boy now? But he ignored it for a minute or two as another, even more difficult query presented itself.
Never mind where, Malone told himself.How?
Something was bothering him. Malone realized that it had been bothering him for a long time. At last he managed to locate it and hold it up to the light for inspection.
Dr. O'Connor, the psionics expert at Westinghouse, had mentioned something during Malone's last conversation with him. Dr. O'Connor, who'd invented a telepathy detector, had been discussing further reaches in his field.
"After all," he'd said, "if thoughts can bridge any distance whatever, regardless of other barriers, there is no reason why matter could not do likewise."
"How do you know?" Malone had asked him, "it doesn't. Or, anyhow, it hasn't so far."
"There's no way to be sure of that." Dr. O'Connor had said sternly. "After all, we have no reports of it—but that means little. Our search has only begun."
"Oh," Malone said. "Sure."
"Matter, controlled by thought, might bridge distances instantaneously," Dr. O'Connor had said.
And he'd referred to something, some word....
Teleportation.
That was it. Malone sat back. All you had to do, he reflected, was to think yourself somewhere else, and—bing!—you were there. If Malone had been able to do it, it would not only save him a lot of time and trouble, but also such things as cab fare and train fare and ... oh, a lot of different things.
But he couldn't. And Dr. O'Connor hadn't found anyone else who could, either. As far as Malone knew, nobody could teleport.
Except Mike Fueyo.
The cab stopped in front of FBI Headquarters. "You some kind of secret agent?" the cabbie said.
"Of course not," Malone said pleasantly. "I'm a foreign spy."
"Oh," the cabbie said. "Sure." He took his money with a somewhat puzzled air, while Malone crossed the sidewalk and went into the building.
Everyone was active. Malone pushed his way through arguing knots of men until he reached the small office which he and Boyd had been assigned. He had already decided not to tell Boyd about the disappearing boy. That would only confuse him—and matters were confused enough as they stood. Malone had no proof; he had only his word and the word of a few baffled policemen, all of whom were probably thoroughly confused by now.
Boyd had a job to do, and Malone had decided to let him go on doing it. That, as a matter of fact, was what he was doing when Malone entered the room.
He was sitting at his desk, talking on the telephone. Malone couldn't see the face on the screen, but Boyd was scowling at it fiercely. "Sure," he said. "So some guy makes a fuss. That's what you're for."
"But he wants to sue the city," a voice said tinnily. "Or somebody."
"Let him sue," Boyd said. "We've got authority. Just get that car."
"Look," the voice said. "I—"
"I don't care how," Boyd snapped. "Get it. Then hand it over to the pickup-squad and say: 'Mr. Malone wants this car—immediately.' They'll know what to do. Got that?"
"Sure, Mr. Boyd," the voice said. "But I don't—"
"Never mind," Boyd said. "Go ahead and get the job done. The United States of America is depending on you." With one last scowl, he hung up and swung around to face Malone. "You gave me a great job," he said. "I really love it, you know that?"
"It's got to be done," Malone said in a noncommittal voice. "How's it going so far?"
Boyd closed his eyes for a second. "Twenty-three red 1972 Cadillacs to date—which isn't bad, I suppose," he said. "And six calls like the one you just heard. All from agents with problems. What am I supposed to do when a guy catches a couple necking in a 1972 red Cadillac?"
"At this time of day?" Malone said.
"New York," Boyd said, and shrugged. "Things are funny here."
Malone nodded. "What did you do about them?" he said.
"Told the agent to take the car and give 'em a pass to a movie," Boyd said.
"Good," Malone said. "Keep that sort of thing in the dark where it belongs." For some reason, this reminded him of Dorothy. He still had to get tickets for a show. But that could wait. "How about the assembly line?" he said.
"Disassembly," Boyd said. "Leibowitz has started it going. He borrowed the use of a big auto repair shop over in Jersey City, and they'll be doing a faster job than we thought." He paused. "But it's been a wonderful day," he said. "One to remember as long as I live. Possibly even until tomorrow. And how have you been doing?"
"Well," Malone said, "I'm not absolutely sure yet."
"That's a nice, helpful answer," Boyd said. "In the best traditions of the FBI."
"I can't help it," Malone said. "It's true."
"Well, what have you been doing?" Boyd said. "Drinking? Living it up while I sit here and talk to people about Cadillacs?"
"Not exactly," Malone said. "I've been ... well, doing more or less what Burris told me to do. Nosing around. Keeping my eyes open."
The phone chimed. Boyd flipped up the mike and eyed the screen balefully. "Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said crisply. "Who are you?"
A voice on the other end said: "What?" before the image on the screen cleared.
"Oh," a voice said. It was a very calm, quiet voice. "Hello, Boyd."
The image cleared. Boyd was facing the picture of a man in his middle thirties, a brown-haired man with large, gentle brown eyes and an expression that somehow managed to look both sad and confident. "Hello, Dr. Leibowitz," Boyd said.
"Is Mr. Malone in?" Leibowitz said. "I really wanted to talk to him."
"Sure," Boyd said. "Just a second."
He motioned to Malone, who came around and sat at Boyd's desk as Boyd got up. He nodded to Leibowitz, and the electronics engineer nodded back.
"How's everything coming, Dr. Leibowitz?" Malone said.
Leibowitz shrugged meaningfully. "All right," he said. "I called you to tell you about that, by the way. We've managed to cut the per-car time down somewhat."
"That's wonderful," Malone said.
"It's now down to about four hours per car—and that means we may be able to do even better than running one off the line every fifteen minutes. At the moment, fifteen minutes is about standard, though, with sixteen cars in the line."
"Sure," Malone said. "But anything you can do to speed it up—"
"I understand," Leibowitz said. "Of course, I'll do anything that I can for you. I have got a small preliminary report, by the way."
"Yes?"
"The first car has just been turned off the assembly line," Leibowitz said. "And I'm afraid, Mr. Malone, that there's nothing odd about it at all."
"Well," Malone said, "we can't expect to hit the jackpot with our first try."
"Certainly not," Leibowitz said. "But the second should be off soon. And then the rest. I'm keeping my eye on every one, of course."
"Fine," Malone said, and meant it. Leibowitz was the kind of man who inspired instant, and complete trust. Malone was perfectly sure he'd do the job he had started to do. Then an idea struck him. "Has the first car been reassembled yet?" he asked.
"Of course," Leibowitz said. "We took that step into account in our timing. What would you like done with it—and with the other ones, as they come off?"
"Unless you can find something odd about a car, just return it to its owner," Malone said. "Or pass the problem on to the squad men—they'll take care of it." He paused. "If you do find something odd—"
"I'll call you at once, of course," Leibowitz said.
"Good," Malone said. "Incidentally, I did want to ask you something. I don't want you to think I'm doubting your work, or anything like that. Believe me."
"I'm sure you're not," Leibowitz said.
"But," Malone said, "why does it take so long? I'd think it would be fairly easy to spot a robotic or a semirobotic brain capable of controlling a car."
"It might have been, once." Leibowitz said. "But these days the problems are rather special. Oh, I don't mean we can't do it—we can and we will. But with subminiaturization, Mr. Malone, and semipsionic circuits, a pretty good brain can be hidden beneath a coat of paint."
For no reason at all, Malone suddenly thought of Dorothy again. "A coat of paint?" he said in a disturbed tone.
"Certainly," Leibowitz said, and smiled at him. It was a warm smile that had little or nothing to do with the problem they were talking about. But Malone liked it. It made him feel as if Leibowitz liked him, and approved of him. He grinned back.
"But a coat of paint isn't very much," Malone said.
"It doesn't have to be very much," Leibowitz said. "Not these days. I've often told Emily—that's my wife, Mr. Malone—that I could hide a TVcircuit under her lipstick. Not that there would be any use in it—but the techniques are there, Mr. Malone. And if your conjecture is correct, someone is using them."
"Oh," Malone said. "Sure. But youcanfind the circuits, if they're there?"
Leibowitz nodded slowly. "We can, Mr. Malone," he said. "They betray themselves. A microcircuit need not be more than a few microns thick, you see—as far as the conductors and insulators are concerned, at any rate. But the regulators—transistors and such—have to be as big as a pinhead."
"Enormous, huh?" Malone said.
"Well," Leibowitz said, and chuckled, "quite large enough to locate without trouble, at any rate. They're very hard to conceal. And the leads from the brain to the power controls are even easier to find—comparatively speaking, of course."
"Of course," Malone said.
"All the brain does, you see," Leibowitz said, "is control the mechanism that steers the car. But it takes real power to steer—a great deal more than it does to compute the steering."
"I see," Malone, who didn't, said desperately. "In other words, unless something radically new has been developed, you can find the circuits."
"Right," Leibowitz said, grinning. "It would have to be something very new indeed, Mr. Malone. We're up on most of the latest developments here; we've got to be. But I don't want the credit for this."
"No?" Malone said.
"Oh, no," Leibowitz said. "All I do is work out the general application to theory, as far as actual detection is concerned. It's my partner, Mr. Hardin, who takes care of all the engineering details."
Malone said: "Well, so long as one of you—"
"Sal's a real crackerjack," Leibowitz said enthusiastically. "He has an intuitive feel about these things. It's really amazing to watch him go to work."
"It must be," Malone said politely.
"Oh, it really is," Leibowitz said. "And it's because of Sal that I can make the guarantee I do make: that if there are any unusual circuits in those cars, we can find them."
"Thanks," Malone said. "I'm sure you'll do the job. And we need that information. Don't bother to send along a detailed report, though, unless you find something out of the ordinary."
"Of course, Mr. Malone," Leibowitz said. "I wouldn't have bothered you except for the production speed-up here."
"I understand," Malone said. "It's perfectly all right. I'll be hearing from you, then?"
"Certainly, Mr. Malone," Leibowitz said.
Malone cut the circuit at once and started to turn away, but he never got the chance. It started to chime again at once.
"Federal Bureau of Investigation," Malone said as he flipped up the receiver. He wanted badly to copy Boyd's salutation, but he found that he just didn't have the gall to do it, and said sadly instead: "Malone speaking."
There was no immediate answer from the other party. Instead, the screen slowly cleared, showing Malone the picture of a woman he recognized instantly.
It was Juanita Fueyo—Mike's mother.
Malone stared at her. It seemed to him as if a couple of hours passed while he tried to find his voice. Of course, she'd looked up the FBI number in the phone book, and found him that way. But she was about the last person on Earth from whom he'd expected a call.
"Oh, Mr. Malone," she said, "thank you so much! You got my Mike back from the police!"
Malone gulped. "I did?" he said. "Well, I—"
"But Mr. Malone—you must help me again! Because now my Mike says he must not stay at home! He is leaving, he is leaving right away!"
"Leaving?" Malone said.
He thought of a thousand things to do. He could send a squad of men to arrest Mike. And Mike could disappear while they were trying to get hold of him. He could go down himself—and be greeted, if he knew Mike Fueyo, with another giant economy-size raspberry. He could try to plead with Mike on the phone.
And what good would that do?
So, instead, he just sat and stared while Mrs. Fueyo went right on.
"He says he will send me money, but money is nothing compared to my own boy, my own Mike. He says he must go away, Mr. Malone—but I know you can stop him! I know it!"
"Sure," Malone said. "But I—"
"Oh, I knew that you would!" Mrs. Fueyo shrieked. She almost came through the screen at him. "You are a great man, Mr. Malone! I will say many prayers for you! I will never stop from praying for you because you help me!" Her voice and face changed abruptly. "Excuse me now," she said. "I must go back to work."
"Well," Malone said, "if I—"
Then she turned back and beamed at him again. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Malone! Thank you with the thanks of a mother! Bring my boy back to me!"
And the image faded and died.
Boyd tapped Malone on the shoulder. "I didn't know you were involved in an advice column for the lovelorn," he said.
"I'm not," Malone said sourly.
Boyd sighed. "I'll bite," he said. "Who was that?"
Malone thought of several possible answers and finally chose one. "That," he said, "was my mother-in-law. She worries about me every time I go out on a job with you."
"Very funny," Boyd said. "I am screaming with laughter."
"Just get back to work, Tommy-boy," Malone said, "and leave everything to me."
He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. Lighting a cigarette—and wishing he were alone in his own room, so that he could smoke a cigar and not have to worry about looking dashing and alert—Malone strolled out of the office with a final wave to Boyd. He was thinking about Mike Fueyo, and he stopped his chain of reasoning just long enough to look in at the office of the Agent-in-Charge and ask him to pry loose two tickets for "The Hot Seat" that night.
The agent, a tall, thin man, who looked as if he suffered from chronic stomach trouble, said, "You must be crazy. Are they all like that in Washington?"
"No," Malone said cheerfully. "Some of them are pretty normal. There's this one man—Napoleon, we call him—who keeps insisting that he should have won the battle of Waterloo. But otherwise he's perfectly fine."
He flicked his cigarette in the air and left, grinning. Five steps away the grin disappeared and a frown took its place.
He walked along Sixty-ninth Street to Park Avenue without noticing where he was going. Luckily, the streets weren't really crowded, and Malone only had to apologize twice, once for stepping on a man's toe and once for absently toeing a woman's dog. When he reached the corner he headed downtown, humming "Kathleen Mavourneen" under his breath and trying to figure out his next move.
He needed more than one move. He needed a whole series of moves. This was not the usual kind of case. Burris had called it a vacation and, in one way, Malone supposed, Burris was perfectly right. For once there was no question about who had committed the crimes. It was obvious by now that Mike Fueyo and his Silent Spooks had been stealing the Cadillacs.
It was even obvious that Mike—or someone with Mike's talent—had bopped him on the head, and taken the red Cadillac he had been examining. And the same gang probably accounted for the Sergeant Jukovsky affair, too.
Or at least it was reasonable to assume that they did, Malone thought. He could see how it had worked: one of the Silent Spooks was a lot smaller than a grown man, and the two cops who hadn't seen anyone in the parked car just hadn't been able to catch sight of the undersized driver. Of course, therehadbeen someone in the car when it had been driving along the West Side Highway. Someone who had teleported himself right out of the car when it had gone over the embankment.
That, of course, meant that there would be no secret machines found in the red Cadillacs Leibowitz & Hardin were examining now. But Malone had already decided to let that phase of things go on. First of all, it was always possible that hewas wrong, and that some such machine really did exist. Second, even if they didn't find a machine, they might find something else. Almost anything, he thought, might turn up.
And, third, it kept Boyd decently busy, and out of Malone's hair.
That had been an easy solution. And, Malone thought, the problem of who had been taking the red Cadillacs looked just as easy now, if his answers were right. And he was reasonably sure of that.
Unfortunately, he was now left with a new and unusual question:
How do you catch a teleport?
Malone looked up, jarred to a stop by a man built like a brown bear, with a chunky body and an oval, slightly sloping head and face. He had very short brown hair shot through with gray, and he gave Malone a small, inquisitive stare and looked away without a word.
Malone mumbled: "Sorry," and looked up at the street sign. He was at Forty-seventh Street and Park Avenue. He jerked a hand up to his face, and managed to hook the chunky man by the suit. It fell away, exposing the initials SM carefully worked into his shirt. Second Mistake, Malone thought wildly, muttered: "Sorry," again and turned west, feeling fairly grateful to the unfortunate bystander.
He had reminded Malone of one thing. If he wanted to get even a part of his plan past the drawing-board stage, he had to make a phone call in a hurry.
He found a phone booth in a bar called the Ad Lib, at Madison Avenue. Sternly telling himself that he was stopping there to make a phone call, a business phone call, and not to have a drink, he marched right past the friendly bartender and went into the phone booth, where he made a call to New York Police Commissioner John Henry Fernack.
Fernack's face was that of an old man, but there was no telling how old. The early seventies was one guess, Malone imagined; the late fifties might be another. He looked tough, as if he had spent all of his life trying to persuade other people that he was young enough for the handball tournament. When he saw Malone, his eyebrows lifted slightly, but he didn't say anything.
"Commissioner," Malone said, "I called to ask you to do me a favor."
There was caution hidden in the calm and quiet voice. "Well," Fernack said, "what is it, Malone?"
"Can you have all the robberies for a given period run through the computer?" Malone said. "I need some dope."
"Depends on the given period," Fernack said. "I can't do it for 1774."
"What would I need data on robberies in 1774 for?" Malone said, honestly interested.
"I never question the FBI," Fernack said soberly. "But what dates do you want?"
"The past year, maybe the past year and a half."
"And what data?"
"I want every reported crime thathasn't been solved," Malone said, "which also seems to have been committed by some impossible means. A safe that was robbed without being opened, for instance—that's the kind of thing I mean."
"Every unsolved crime?" Fernack said. "Now, hold your horses, Malone. I'm not at all sure that—"
"Don't worry about a thing, commissioner," Malone said. "This is confidential."
"You know how I'd feel about this if word ever got out to—"
"I said confidential, John Henry," Malone said, trying to sound friendly and trustworthy. "After all, every place has unsolved crimes. Even the FBI isn't absolutely perfect."
"Oh," Fernack said. "Sure. But confidential, Malone."
"You have my word," Malone said sincerely.
Fernack said: "Well—"
"How fast can you get the dope?" Malone said.
"I don't exactly know," Fernack said. "The last time anything even remotely like this was run through—departmental survey, but you wouldn't be interested—it took something like eight hours."
"Fine," Malone said. "Eight hours then. I'll look everything over and if we need a second run-through it won't take too long. I'll let you know as soon as I can about that." He grinned into the phone.
Fernack cleared his throat and asked delicately: "Mind telling me what all this is for?"
Malone offered up a little prayer before answering, and when he did answer it was in his softest and most friendly tones: "I'd rather not say just now, John Henry."
"But Malone—" Fernack's voice sounded a little strained, and his jaw set just a trifle. "If you—"
Malone knew perfectly well how Fernack reacted when he didn't get a bit of information he wanted. And this was no time to set off any fireworks in the commissioner's office. "Look, John Henry," he said gently, "I'll tell you as soon as I can. Honest. But this is classified information—it's not my fault."
Fernack said: "But—" and apparently realized that argument was not going to do him any good. "All right, Malone," he said at last. "I'll have it for you as soon as possible."
"Great," Malone said. "Then I'll see you later."
"Sure," Fernack said. He paused, as if he were about to open the controversy just once more. But all he said was: "So long, Malone."
Malone breathed a great sigh of relief and flipped the phone off. He stepped out of the booth feeling so proud of himself that he could barely walk. Not only had he managed to calm down Commissioner Fernack, he had also walked right past a bar on the way to the phone. He had performed several acts, he felt, above and beyond the call of duty, and he told himself that he deserved a reward.
Happily, the reward was convenient to hand. He went to the bar andbeckoned the bartender over to him. "Bourbon and soda," he said. "And a medal, if possible."
"What?" the bartender said.
"A medal," Malone said. "For conduct beyond reproach."
The bartender nodded sadly. "Maybe you just ought to go home, Mac," he said. "Sleep it off."
New Yorkers, Malone decided as the bartender went off to get his drink, had no sense of humor. Back in Chicago—where he'd been more or less weaned on gin, and discovered that, unlike his father, he didn't much care for the stuff—and even in Washington, people didn't go around accusing you of drunkenness just because you made some harmless little pleasantry.
Oh, well. Malone drank his drink and went out into the afternoon sunlight.
He considered the itinerary of the Magical Miguel Fueyo. He had gone straight home from the police station, apparently, and had then told his mother that he was going to leave home. But he had promised to send her money.
Of course, money was easy for Mike to get. With a shudder, Malone thought he was beginning to realize justhoweasy. Houdini had once boasted that no bank vault could hold him. In Mike Fueyo's case, that was just doubly true. The vault could neither hold him out or keep him in.
But he was going to leave home.
Malone said: "Hm-m-m," to himself, cleared his throat and tried it again. By now he was at the corner of the block, where he nearly collided with a workman who was busily stowing away a gigantic ladder, a pot of paint and a brush. Malone looked up at the street sign, where the words: "Avenue of the Americas" had been painted out, and "Sixth Avenue" hand-lettered in.
"They finally gave in," the painter told him. "But do you think they'll buy new signs? Nah. Cheap. That's all they are. Cheap as pretzels." He gave Malone a friendly push with one end of the ladder and disappeared into the crowd.
Malone didn't have the faintest idea of what he was talking about. And how cheap could a pretzel be, anyway? Malone didn't remember ever having seen an especially tight-fisted one.
New York, he decided for the fifteenth time, was a strange place.
He walked downtown for a block, still thinking about Mike Fueyo, and absently turned west again. Between Sixth and Seventh, he had another attack of brilliance and began looking for another phone booth.
He found one in a Mexican bar named the Xochitl, across the street from the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin. It was just a coincidence that he had landed in another bar, he told himself hopefully, but he didn't quite believe it. To prove it to himself, he headed straight for the phone booths again and put in his call, ignoring the blandishments of several rows of sparkling bottles which he passed on the way.
He dialed the number for Lieutenant Lynch's precinct, and then found himself connected with a new desk sergeant.
"I'm Malone," he said. "I want to talk to Lynch."
"Glad to know you, Malone," the desk sergeant said pleasantly. "OnlyLieutenantLynch doesn't want to subscribe to the IrishEcho."
"I'm the FBI." He showed his badge.
The desk sergeant took a good long look at it. "Maybe you are, and maybe you aren't," he said at last. "Does the lieutenant know you?"
"We were kids together," Malone said. "We're brothers. Siamese twins. Put him on the phone."
"Wait a minute," said the desk sergeant. "I'll check."
The screen went blank for two agonizing minutes before it cleared again to show Lynch's face.
"Hello, Mr. Malone," Lynch said formally. "Have you found some new little trick to show us poor, stupid policemen? Like, say, making yourself vanish?"
"I'll make the whole police force vanish," Malone said, "in a couple of minutes. I called to ask a favor."
"Anything," Lynch said. "Anything within my poor power. Whatever I have is yours. Whither thou goest—"
"Knock it off," Malone said, and then grinned. After all, there was no sense in making an enemy out of Lynch.
Lynch blinked, took a deep breath, and said in an entirely different voice: "O.K., Malone. What's the favor?"
"Do you still have that list of Silent Spooks?" Malone said.
"Sure I do," Lynch said. "Why? I gave you a copy of it."
"I can't do this job," Malone said "You'll have to."
"Yes, sir," Lynch said, and saluted.
"Just listen," Malone said. "I want you to check up on every kid on that list."
"And what are we supposed to do when we find them?" Lynch said.
"That's the trouble," Malone said. "You won't."
"And why not?"
"I'll lay you ten to one," Malone said, "that every one of them has skipped out. Left home. Without giving a forwarding address."
Lynch nodded slowly. "Ten to one?" he said. "Want to make that a money bet? Or does the FBI frown on gambling?"
"Ten dollars to your one," Malone said. "O.K.?"
"Made," Lynch said. "You've got the bet ... just for the hell of it, understand."
"Oh, sure," Malone said.
"And where can I call you to collect?"
Malone shook his head. "You can't," he said. "I'll call you."
"I will wait with anxiety," Lynch said. "But it had better be before eight. I get off then."
"If I can make it," Malone said.
"If you can't," Lynch said, "call me at home." He gave Malone the number, and then added: "Whateverinformation I get, I can keep for my own use this time, can't I?"
"You've already got all the information you're going to get. I just gave it to you."
"That," Lynch said, "we'll see."
"I'll call to collect my money," Malone said.
"We'll talk about it later," Lynch said. "Farewell, old pal."
"Flights of angels," Malone said, "sing thee to thy rest."
Malone replaced the microphone and headed for the door. Halfway there, however, he stopped. He hadn't had atequilain a long time, and he thought he owed it to himself. He felt he had come out ahead in his exchange with Lynch, and another medal was in order.
Only a small one, though. He told himself that he would order onetequilaand quit. Besides, he had to meet Dorothy.
He sat down on one of the tall bar stools. The bartender bustled over and eyed him speculatively.
"Tequila con limon" he said negligently.
"Ah," the bartender said. "Si, senor."
Malone waited with ill-concealed impatience. At last it arrived.
Malone took the small glass oftequilain his right hand, with the slice of lemon held firmly between the index and middle fingers of the same hand, the rind facing in toward the glass. On the web between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand he had sprinkled a little salt. Moving adroitly and with dispatch, he downed thetequila, licked off the salt and bit his teeth into the lemon slice.
It felt better than good; it felt wonderful. He hadn't had such a good time in years.
He had three more before he left the Xochitl.
Then, noticing the time, he moved in a hurry and got out of the bar before temptation overcame him and he started ordering still more. It was nearly six o'clock, and he had to meet Dorothy at Topp's.
He hoped he could find it.
He headed downtown toward Forty-second Street, turned left and—sure enough—there was a big red sign. It said Topp's. Malone beamed his approval at it. It was just where it ought to be, and he was grateful.
He pushed open the glass door of the place and went in.
Themaître d'hôtelwas a chunky man with a pleasant face, a receding hairline and some distance back on his head, dark, curly hair. He beamed at Malone as if the FBI agent were a long-lost brother. "Table for one, sir?" he said.
"No," Malone said, peering into the place. It was much bigger than he had expected. "No," he said again. "I guess I'll just have a drink at the bar."
Themaître d'smiled and bowed him to a bar stool. Malone sat down and looked the place over again. His first glance had shown him that Dorothy wasn't there yet, but he saw no harm in making sure.Always be careful of your facts, he admonished himself a little fuzzily.
There were a lot of women in the place, but they were all with escorts. Some of them had two escorts, and Malone wondered about them. Were they drunk, or was he? It was obvious that someone was seeing double, but Malone wasn't quite sure who.
He stared at his face in the bar mirror for a few seconds, and ordered a bourbon and soda when a bartender came over and occluded the image. The bartender went away and Malone went on studying himself.
He wasn't bad-looking for an FBI agent. He was taller than his father, anyway, and less heavily built. That was one good thing. As a matter of fact, Malone told himself, he was really a pretty good-looking guy.
So why did women keep him waiting?
He heard her voice before he saw her, behind him. But she wasn't talking to him.
"Hello, Milty," she said. "How's everything?"
Malone turned around to get a look at Milty. He turned out to be themaître d'. What did he have that Malone didn't have? the agent asked himself sourly. Obviously Dorothy was captivated by his charm. Well, that showed him what city girls were like. Butterflies. Social butterflies. Flitting hither and yon with the wind, now attracted to this man, now to that. Once, Malone told himself sadly, he had known this beautiful woman. Now she belonged to someone else.
He felt a little bit sad about it, but he told himself to buck up and learn to live with his tragedy. He drank some more of his bourbon and soda, and then she noticed him.
He heard her say: "Oh. Excuse me, Milty. There's my man." She came over and sat down next to him.
He wanted to ignore her, just to teach her a lesson. But he had already turned around and smiled at her, and she smiled back.
"Hi," she said. "Did you get the tickets?"
Tickets!
Malone knew there had been something he'd forgotten, and now he knew what it was. "Oh," he said. "Sure. Just a second. I've got to check up."
"Check up?"
"Friend of mine," Malone improvised hurriedly. "Bringing them." He gave Dorothy a big smile and climbed down off the bar stool. He managed to find a phone booth, and dialed FBI headquarters on Sixty-ninth Street and blessed several saints when he found that A-in-C was still there.
"Tickets," Malone said.
The Agent-in-Charge blinked at him. "What tickets?" he said.
"The 'Hot Seat' tickets," Malone said. "Did you get 'em?"
"I got 'em," the Agent-in-Charge said sourly. "Had to chase all over town and pull more wires than there are on a grand piano. But they turned up, brother. Two seats. Do you know what a job like that entails?"
"I'm grateful," Malone said. "I'm hysterical with gratitude."
"I'd rather track down a gang of fingerless second-story men than go through that again," the Agent-in-Charge said. He looked as if his stomach trouble had suddenly gotten a great deal worse. Malone thought that the A-in-C was considering calling a doctor, and would probably decide to make it the undertaker instead, and save the price of a call.
"I can't express my gratitude," Malone told him. "Where are they? Where do I pick them up?"
"Box office," the A-in-C said sourly. "I tell you, everybody in Washington must be nuts. The things I have to go through—"
"Thanks," Malone said. "Thanks a lot. Thanks a million. If there's ever anything I can do for you, let me know and I'll do it." He hung up and went back to the bar.
"Well?" Dorothy said. "Where do we go tonight? Joe's Hot Dog stand? Or a revival of 'The Wild Duck' in a loft on Bleecker Street?"
There was pride in Malone's manner as he stood there on his feet. There was just a touch of hauteur as he said: "We'll see 'Hot Seat'."
And he was repaid for all of the Agent-in-Charge's efforts. Dorothy's eyes went wide with appreciation and awe. "My goodness," she said. "A man of his word—and what a tough word, too! Mr. Malone, I congratulate you."
"Nothing," Malone said. "A mere absolute nothing."
"Nothing, the man says," Dorothy muttered. "My goodness. And modest, too. Tell me: how do you do, Mr. Malone?"
"Me?" Malone said. "Very well, so far." He finished his drink. "And you?"
"I work at it," she said cryptically. "May I have another drink?"
Malone gave her a grin. "Another?" he said. "Have two. Have a dozen."
"And what," she said, "would I do with half a dozen drinks? Don't answer. I think I can guess. But let's just take them one at a time—O.K.?" She signaled to the bartender. "Wally, I'll have a Martini. And Mr. Malone will have whatever it is he has, I imagine."
"Bourbon and soda," Malone said, and gave the bartender a grin, too, just to make sure he didn't feel left out. The sun was shining—although it was evening outside—and the birds were singing—although, Malone reflected, catching a bird on Forty-second Street and Broadway might take a bit of doing—and all was well with the world.
There was only a tiny, nagging disturbing thought in his mind. It had to do with Mike Fueyo and the Silent Spooks, and a lot of red Cadillacs. But he pushed it resolutely away. It had nothing to do with the evening he was about to spend. Nothing at all.
After all, thiswassupposed to be a vacation, wasn't it?
"Well, Mr. Malone," Dorothy said, when the drinks had arrived.
"Very well indeed," Malone said, raising his. "And just call me Ken. Didn't I tell you that once before?"
"You did," she said. "And I asked you to call me Dorothy. Not Dotty. Try and remember that."
"I will remember it," Malone said, "just as long as ever I live. You don't look the least bit dotty, anyhow. Which is probably more than anybody could say for me." He started to look at himself in the bar mirror again, and decided not to. "By the way," he added, as a sudden thought struck him. "Dotty what?"
"Now," she said. "There you go doing it."
"Doing what?"
"Calling me that name."
"Oh," Malone said. "Make it Dorothy. Dorothy what?" He blinked. "I mean, I know you've got a last name. Dorothy Something. Only it probably isn't Something. What is it?"
"Francis," she said obligingly. "Dorothy Francis. My middle name is Something, in case you ever want to call me by my middle name. Just yell: 'Hey, Something,' and I'll come a-running. Unless I have something else to do. In which case everything will be very simple: I won't come."
"Ah," Malone said doubtfully. "And what do—"
"What do I do?" she said. "A standard question. Number two of a series. I do modeling. Photographic modeling. And that's not all—I also do commercials on 3-D. If I look familiar to you, it's probably because you've seen me on 3-D. Do I look familiar to you?"
"I never watch 3-D," Malone said, crestfallen.
"Fine," Dorothy said unexpectedly. "You have excellent taste."
"Well," Malone said, "it's just that I never seem to get the time—"
"Don't apologize for it," Dorothy said. "I have to appear on it, but I don't have to like it. And, now that I've answered your questions, how about answering some of mine?"
"Gladly," Malone said. "The inmost secrets of the FBI are yours for the asking."
"Hm-m-m," Dorothy said slowly. "What do you do as an FBI agent, anyhow? Dig up spies?"
"Oh, no," Malone said. "We've got enough trouble with the live ones. We don't go around digging anybody up. Believe me." He paused, feeling dimly that the conversation was beginning to get out of control. "Have I told you that you are the most beautiful woman I've ever met?" he said at last.
"No," Dorothy said. "Not yet, anyway. But I was expecting it."
"You were?" Malone said, disappointed.
"Certainly," Dorothy said. "You've been drinking. As a matter of fact, you've managed to get quite a head start."
Malone hung his head guiltily. "True," he said in a low voice. "Too true. Much too true."
Dorothy nodded, downed her drink and waved to the bartender. "Wally, bring me a double this time."
"A double?"
"Sure," Dorothy said. "I've got to do some fast catching-up on Mr. Malone here."
"Call me Ken," Malone muttered.
"Don't be silly," Dorothy told him. "Wally hardly knows you. He'll call you Mr. Malone, and like it."
The bartender went away and Malone sat on his stool and thought busily for a minute. At last he said: "If you really want to catch up with me—"
"Yes?" Dorothy said.
"Better have a triple," Malone muttered.
Dorothy's eyebrows rose slightly.
"Because I intend to have another one," Malone added.
It started a million years ago.
In that distant past, a handful ofphotons deep in the interior of Sol began their random journey to the photosphere. They had been born as ultrahard gamma radiation, and they were positively bursting with energy, attempting to push their respective ways through the dense nucleonic gas that had been their womb. Within millimicroseconds, they had been swallowed up by the various particles surrounding them—swallowed, and emitted again, as the particles met in violent collision.
And then the process was repeated. After a thousand thousand years, and billions on billions of such repetitions, the handful of photons reached the relatively cool photosphere of the sun. But the long battle had taken some of the drive out of them; over the past million years, even the strongest had become only hard ultraviolet, and the weakest just sputtered out in the form of long radio waves.
But now, at last, they were free! And in the first flush of this newfound freedom, they flung themselves over ninety-three million miles of space, traveling at one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second and making the entire trip in less than eight and one-half minutes.
They struck the Earth's ionosphere, and their numbers diminished. The hard ultraviolet was gobbled up by ozone; much of the blue was scattered through the atmosphere. The remainder bore steadily onward.
Down through the air they came, only slightly weakened this time. They hit the glass of a window in the Hotel New Yorker, losing more of their members in the plunge.
And, a few feet from the glass, they ended their million-year epic by illuminating a face.
The face responded to them with something less than pleasure. It was clear that the face did not like being illuminated. It was very bright, much too bright. It seemed to be searing its way through the face's closed eyelids, right past the optic nerves into the brain-pan itself. The face twisted in a sudden spasm, as if its brain were shriveling with heat. Its owner thoughtfully turned over, and the face sought the seclusion and comparative darkness of a pillow.
Unfortunately, the motion brought the face's owner to complete wakefulness. He did not want to be awake, but he had very little choice in the matter. Even though his face was no longer being illuminated, he could feel other rays of sunlight eating at the back of his head. He put the pillow over his head and felt more comfortable for a space, but this slight relief passed, too.
He thought about mausoleums. Mausoleums were nice, cool, dark places where there was never any sun or heat, and never any reason to wake up. Maybe, he told himself, cunningly, if he went to sleep again he would wake up dead, in a mausoleum. That, he thought, would be nice.
Death was nice and pleasant. Unfortunately, he realized, he was not dead. And there was absolutely no chance of his ever getting back tosleep. He finally rolled over again, being very careful to avoid any more poisonous sunlight. Getting up was an even more difficult process, but Malone knew it had to be managed. Somehow he got his feet firmly planted on the floor and sat up.
It had been a remarkable feat, he told himself. He deserved a medal.
That reminded him of the night before. He had been thinking quite a lot about the medals he deserved for various feats. He had even awarded some of them to himself, in the shape of liquid decoctions.
He remembered all that quite well. There were a lot of cloudy things in his mind, but from all the testimony he could gather, he imagined that he'd had quite a time the night before. Quite a wonderful time, as a matter of fact.
Not that that reflection did anything for him now. As he opened his eyes, one at a time, he thought of Boyd. Once, long ago, ages and ages ago, he had had to wake Boyd up, and he recalled how rough he had been about it. That had been unforgivable.
He made a mental note to apologize to Boyd the next time he saw him—if he could ever see again. Now, he knew how Boyd had felt. And it was terrible.
Still sitting on the bed, he told himself that, in spite of everything, he was lucky. To judge by his vague memories, he'd had quite a time the night before, and if the hangover was payment for it, then he was willing to accept the payment. Almost. Because it had really been a terrific time. The only nagging thought in his mind was that there had been something vital he'd forgotten.
"Tickets," he said, aloud, and was surprised that his voice was audible. As a matter of fact, it was too audible; the noise made him wince slightly. He shifted his position very quietly.
And he hadn't forgotten the tickets. No. He distinctly remembered going to see "The Hot Seat," and finding seats, and actually sitting through the show with Dorothy at his side. He couldn't honestly say that he remembered much of the show itself, but that couldn't be the important thing he'd forgotten. By no means.
He had heard that it was a good show, though. Some time, he reminded himself, he would have to get tickets and actually see it.
He checked through the evening. Drinks. Dinner ... he had had dinner, hadn't he? Yes, he had. He recalled a broiled sea bass looking up at him with mournful eyes. He couldn't have dreamed anything like that.
And then the theater, and after that some more drinks ... and so on, and so on, and so on, right to his arrival back in his hotel room, at four-thirty in the morning, on a bright, boiled cloud.
He even remembered arguing with Dorothy about taking her home. She'd won that round by ducking into a subway entrance, and he had turned around after she'd left himand headed for home. Had he taken a taxi?