“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, walking very carefully.
“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 a dozen drinks? Don’t answer. I think I can guess. But let’s just take them one at a time, okay?” 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 42nd 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, this was supposed 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.”
“Hmm,” 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. “And even then you’ll be just a little behind.”
“That sounds sort of sad, in a way,” Dorothy said. “Just a little behind. Tell me, is that a compliment or an insult?”
“Both,” Malone said instantly. “And an observation, too.”
Dorothy nodded. “I can see why you’re a Federal cop,” she said.
“Really?” Malone said. “I didn’t know it showed. Why?”
“You’re good at observing,” she said. “Like this morning, for instance.”
“Ah,” Malone said. He searched in his mind for a quotation and found it. “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee,” he said triumphantly.
“Sounds sort of grisly,” Dorothy said.
Malone shrugged. “I can’t help it,” he said. “That’s what it says.”
“Well?” Dorothy said. “Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Pluck your eye out and cast it from you?”
“Didn’t have to,” Malone said. “Mine eye did not offend me.” He blinked and added, “Far from it.”
“I guess we’ll just have to leave it unplucked,” Dorothy said sadly. “It didn’t offend me, either.”
“Good,” Malone said, and the bartender brought drinks.
Malone picked his up and held it in the air. “I propose a toast,” he said.
Dorothy picked up her glass. “A toast?”
“An ol
d German toast, as a matter of fact,” Malone said.
He fell silent. After a few seconds Dorothy said, “Well? Go ahead.”
“Zwieback!” Malone said, bowed carefully to Dorothy and drained his glass with a flourish.
CHAPTER 7
It started a million years ago.
In that distant past, a handful of photons 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. The light 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 to sleep. 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. Sometime, 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 him and headed for home. Had he taken a taxi?
Yes, Malone decided, he had. He even remembered that.
Then what had he forgotten?
He had met Dorothy, he told himself, starting all over again in an effort to locate the gaps, at six o’clock, right after phoning…
“My God!” Malone said, and winced. He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock in the morning. He had completely forgotten to call Fernack and Lynch.
Hangover or no hangover, Malone told himself grimly, there was work to be done. Somehow, he managed to get to his feet and start moving.
He checked Boyd’s room after a while. But his partner wasn’t home. Probably at work already, Malone thought, while I lie here useless and helpless. He thought of the Sermon on the Evils of Alcohol, and decided he’d better read it to himself instead of delivering it to Boyd.
But he didn’t waste any time with it. By ten-fifteen he was showered and shaved, his teeth were brushed, and he was dressed. He felt, he estimated, about fifteen hundred per cent better. That was still lousy, but it wasn’t quite as bad as it had been. He could move around and talk and even think a little, if he was careful about it. Before he left, he took a look at himself in the mirror.
Well, he told himself, that was nice.
It hardly showed at all. He looked tired, to be sure, but that was almost normal. The eyes weren’t bloodshot red, and didn’t seem to bug out at all, although Malone would have sworn that they were bleeding all over his face. His head was its normal size, as near as he remembered; it was not swollen visibly, or pulsing like a jellyfish at every move.
He looked even better than he felt.
He started for the door, and then stopped himself. There was no need to go out so early; he could start work right in his own hotel room and not even have to worry about the streets of New York, the cars or the pedestrians for a while.
He thought wistfully about a hair of the hound, decided against it with great firmness, and sat down to the phone.
He dialed a number, and the face of Commissioner Fernack appeared almost at once. Malone forced himself to smile cheerfully, reasonably sure that he was going to crack something as he did it. “Hello, John Henry,” he said in what he hoped was a good imitation of a happy, carefree voice. “And how are you this lovely morning?”
&nb
sp; “Me?” Fernack said sourly. “I’m in great shape. Tiptop. Dancing in the goddamn daisies. Malone, how did you—”
“Any news for me?” Malone said.
Fernack waited a long time before he answered, and when he did his voice was dangerously soft and calm. “Malone,” he said, “when you asked for this survey, just what kind of news did you expect to get?”
“A godawful lot of impossible crimes,” Malone said frankly. “How did I do, John Henry?”
“You did damn well,” Fernack said. “Too damn well. Listen, Malone, how could you know about anything like this?”
Malone blinked. “Well,” he said, “we have our sources. Confidential. Top secret. I’m sure you understand, Commissioner.” Hurriedly, he added, “What does the breakdown look like?”
“It looks like hell,” Fernack said. “About eight months ago, according to the computer, there was a terrific upswing in certain kinds of crime. And since then it’s been pretty steady, right at the top of the swing. Hasn’t moved down hardly at all.”
“Great,” Malone said.
Fernack stared. “What?” he said.
“I mean—” Malone stopped, thought of an answer and tried it. “I mean, that checks out my guess. My information. Sources.”
Fernack seemed to weigh risks in his mind. “Malone, I know you’re FBI,” he said at last. “But this sounds pretty fishy to me. Pretty strange.”
“You have no idea how strange,” Malone said truthfully.
“I’m beginning to,” Fernack said. “And if I ever find out that you had anything to do with this—”
“Me?”
“And don’t look innocent,” Fernack said. “It doesn’t succeed in looking anything but horrible. You remind me of a convicted murderer trying to steal thirty cents from the prison chaplain.”
“What would I have to do with all these crimes?” Malone said. “And what kind of crimes were they, anyway?”
“What you’d have to do with them,” Fernack said, “is an unanswered question. And so long as it remains unanswered, Malone, you’re safe. But when I come up with enough facts to answer it—”
“Don’t be silly. Commissioner,” Malone said. “How about those crimes? What kind were they?”
The Second Randall Garrett Megapack Page 82
