I liked to cook and a New Orleans bouillabaisse is something worth a lot of effort, but it was hard to keep my mind on spices and sauce. Every time I got close to her I felt like grabbing her, which is a perfectly good emotion but it ruins gourmet dishes. When we finally sat down to eat, I'd rather look at her than shovel it in. She caught some of my mood too, but she managed to put it away with the appropriate remarks. Girls don't always appreciate it if a man can cook better than they can.
After dinner we watched television for a while, an educational-station production of a play about the court martial of the officer who'd commanded Andersonville prison camp in the Civil War. One of the lead actors was the guy who'd played an emotional and rather incompetent officer in the old Star Trek series, and despite all his efforts I expected to see him in fancy clothes carrying a ray gun.
"Paul? It's really all right, isn't it?" she asked when we turned the stupid box off.
"What's all right?"
"Getting you back on the job. I really needed your help . . . it wasn't just a trick of Mr. Shearing's." She moved closer to me on the couch.
Whatever I'd thought about it, the main thing was that she was back. "Sure, it's all right. We're not doing anything to be ashamed of, it's just—hell, I don't know, I like the rules to be followed. The government is to protect the citizens from . . . well, from underhanded government agents. At least that's what I learned in school."
"You mean from people like me."
"No. Not even people like Harry Shearing. But suppose we got a real son of a bitch in Shearing's job. Somebody who didn't care whether the people he played God with were innocent or guilty. If we have secret police one of these days that's going to happen. What do we do then?"
She shook her head sadly. "I don't know. But if we don't have people doing Mr. Shearing's job, there may not be any country at all. Remember what President Lincoln did? It wasn't very pretty, or very legal either." She took my hand, ran her finger across it. "But I'm glad we're working together again. I've missed you, you know."
I kissed her, a gentle little kiss like high school. "I missed you too." Then I looked at my watch. "It's late. Look, you'll have to go home alone if we're going to follow orders." I said it as naturally as I could, but it came out a little stiff.
She grinned. "Oh, I'd be scared. I think you ought to walk me home, Paul, I wouldn't dare go out in the district at night alone."
With her training I'd pity the mugger who touched her, not to mention the .38 she was wearing somewhere. I said, "Gee, but I was told we couldn't leave the place unguarded until my friend gets here tomorrow. We could call a cab."
"But, good sir, what of the evil cab drivers who prey on defenseless young girls? Good heavens, I might get—what is his name, that amorous friend of yours who drives a cab?"
"Ron. You're right, even a small chance that he'd be your driver is too big to take. Well, much as I hate to defy the orders of my superiors, there's nothing for it but to brave the storm with you . . ." I grinned and stood up.
"You character, aren't you even going to ask me?" She took off the horn-rims.
"Sure, sweetheart. Darling, will you st . . ." but I never finished the sentence. This time our kiss wasn't like high school. We found a way to follow instructions after all.
Chapter Four
I woke up alone, which wasn't unusual but there seemed to be something wrong. I looked around in a mild panic, saw her skirt carefully hung over a chair, and then I heard the pans clatter out in the kitchen. She was a big girl and she always ate a big breakfast, and about the only time I ever ate in the mornings was when she was there, which wasn't nearly often enough. I picked up lace panties which we hadn't had time to hang up properly and draped them on the chair, then went off to the bathroom to shave, losing a little of the morning fog. I glanced at my watch. Ye gods, eight A.M. I'd hoped they quit making hours at that time of day.
We sat at the old kitchen table and I thought about the hundreds of breakfasts I'd eaten with Lois. For at least half of them we couldn't stand each other. Janie was wearing one of my old robes, with her long bare legs making the thing look better than a Paris original.
"You know, I could get used to having you around in the mornings," I told her. "You even make pretty good coffee."
She gave me a funny look. "Last time a man said that, I sued him for breach of promise. You better watch out, Mister."
"Maybe I won't have to be sued."
She looked at me again, her eyes soft. I couldn't tell if it was something special, or just what you feel after you spend the night making love. "Anyway," she said, "we never know where we're going to be. At least I don't." She glanced at her watch, began to hurry with her eggs, looking everywhere but at me.
"Well, you could drop the Agency bit, couldn't you? I mean, if you want a career, you've done all right at the bank. Or I could always find something with a salary." I didn't know if I wanted her to take me seriously or not. I thought I did, but it scared me.
"You'd hate it. You'll never give up sleeping in late, setting your own hours, working all night if you feel like it . . . you wouldn't even get up with me if I were here all the time. And I don't want to see you turn into a regimented little payroll grabber, I don't think I'd like you at all. You'd hate it, and after a while you'd hate me . . . we're not ready for anything more than we've got, are we, Paul?" She looked at her watch again, still talking very fast, and said, "I've got to get moving, I have to be at the bank in forty minutes." She gulped the coffee and dashed off to the bedroom, leaving me to think about it. She was right, of course, neither of us was a very good bet for something permanent. That's what we need to keep the divorce rate down, a little logic in these things. I wondered why I didn't feel better about it.
Steen came to the back door about noon. I'd never have recognized him, he looked like an out-of-work handyman trying for the job of polishing the furniture. For the benefit of anybody listening from the outside we went through the spiel before I let him in. "Steen!" I said. "Hey, I'm glad to see you, where you been? You look awful."
"Not so loud, Paul. Look, can I come in, I've got trouble."
"Well, sure, you've always been welcome . . . where you been?" I got the door closed behind us, glad to be through with that funny business. An actor I'm not. It probably sounded natural enough, and anyway there wasn't much chance that anybody'd heard it.
"Seen the papers, Paul?" he asked.
"Yeah. You're right there on page four. Rotten picture of you, somebody'd have to be looking at you to identify you from it."
"That's the idea, anyway. They'll probably come across something better before long. School annual has one that looks enough like me, better than what they've got. I'm clean, by the way. They made sure of that."
"Good. So the only people who'll know you're here will be the ones Janie tells about it. Lunch?"
He nodded, and I threw something together. I like to cook when there's somebody to appreciate it, and after lunch I started peeling vegetables and chopping things up for a teriyaki. There'd be the three of us for supper that night in a secure house. It might be our last like that.
After dinner, Janie and I went out to make the rounds so we'd be seen together. We wanted the connection firmly established, which was OK by me. Steen was in one of the little upstairs bedrooms with all the blinds down. Janie and I crawled through most of the taverns, got back to the house before midnight since she was still a working girl and we didn't usually go to parties except on weekends. As we came in Steen whispered an all right and closed his bedroom door. Somehow I never got around to taking her home that night either.
About noon the next day the doorbell rang. Steen scooted down to the basement and I went to answer it. Out on the porch was a guy, maybe forty-five, dressed in a dark suit with shiny spots at the elbows. He had steel-rimmed glasses and a McNamara haircut parted in the middle, a round face with a red-over-pink complexion. There was dandruff on his coat, but not as much as the horrible examples n
obody speaks to on TV. "Mr. Paul Crane?" he asked. "Yes. What can I do for you?"
"It is, I think, what I can do for you. I represent Information Associates, Mr. Crane. I doubt that you have ever heard of us. Can I come in and tell you about our services?" He was an apologetic talker, as if he were afraid I'd slam the door in his face. I wondered who'd slammed the last one.
As I let him in, I looked at him and felt a sour taste. OK, Shearing had called it right. No question, we were in contact with the free enterprise spies, for what good that could do, but I saw why Shearing didn't seem too confident that this particular operation was going to work. He'd better rely on his other ones, this man was a real loser.
"Come on in." I opened the big sliding doors directly into my living room office and showed him a chair over in the corner by the built-in glass-front bookcases. "Beer, coffee, what have you?" I asked.
"Why, I think a bottle of beer would be excellent," he said. He looked a little surprised when I got the glasses out of the lower part of the cooler and drew a pair. "Uh, yes, thank you."
I grinned to myself and made a bet that before the afternoon was over he'd find a reason to be alone in that room if it killed him. "Now, mister . . . ."
"Prufro. Dr. Arthur Prufro. With a 'u.' As I said, with Information Associates. We buy and sell information, Mr. Crane." He folded his hands across his lap and gave me a confidential look. "And I think it is safe to say that we have many advantages. Not only price-wise, but our transactions are always completely confidential. The sellers and buyers do not meet. No matter what information is being sold."
"I see. Well, I'm sorry, Dr. Prufro, but I'm afraid I'm not in the market for information at the moment."
"Oh, I didn't expect you to buy, sir. My associates and I have reason to believe you might have something to sell. Or to be more exact, that you have, uh, friends, who might have talents that are not, at present, marketable to the usual sources." He tossed off a good slug of beer which surprised me. He was such a dainty-acting character that I thought he'd be a sipper. "It's a very bad situation right now, Mr. Crane. There are many distinguished scientists in this country who are not, because of asinine regulations, allowed to do the work they have devoted their lives to. Are they then to starve? Live off charity? We at Information Associates don't see it that way. We think that scientific knowledge belongs to all mankind, but that the scientist who discovers it should be rewarded commensurate with his, uh, talents. I thought you might know someone in that situation."
"Suppose I did. Just what would you do?"
"Why, we'd like to speak with him, Mr. Crane. Ascertain, as it were, the value of what he has to sell. Then we find a buyer for him."
"And your commission?"
"It is flexible, but generally around fifty per cent. After all, we take the risks in arranging that buyer and seller, uh, do business without connecting them . . . it is only fair that we should take half the income. And of course we pay all expenses out of our half."
"Yeah." I looked at him without much enthusiasm. If this was a sample of the people who were going to lead us to the Chinese Intelligence Service, USA (West Coast) Branch, we were leaning on a pretty weak reed. "Suppose for a moment"—hell, I was catching his formal speech disease myself. "Let's just suppose I've got a buddy who might be able to do business with you, but he'd be a little embarrassed to be seen in public. He might want to keep his location confidential, let's say. How might we get together?"
Prufro nodded. "Now we come down to business, don't we? We don't have to meet Dr. Hoorne at your house, Mr. Crane, although it would be a lot easier on both of us if you would simply bring him out to meet me now."
"Who said anything about . . . ."
"You don't have to," he interrupted smoothly. "We know perfectly well that Dr. Steen Hoorne, wanted by the FBI for questioning in connection with security violations, is in this house. He was here last night and has not left by any exit, so there's no argument. We'd like to talk to him." He drained the beer. "Excellent. May I have some more?"
"Sure." I tossed off mine and poured again for both of us. "I don't know what you're talking about, you understand."
"I didn't expect you to admit it. All we want to do is meet Dr. Hoorne and make him an offer. Surely there's nothing to be frightened of about that."
"If you're who you say you are. Look, I don't know anything about Steen, but he is an old friend of mine. Suppose I could reach him, just how would we know you aren't working for the FBI? There doesn't seem to be any way to prove your good intentions, Dr. Prufro."
He sighed, shook his head sadly, every gesture exaggerated for effect. "We know more about you than you think, Mr. Crane. For example. For the past two nights you have had an overnight visitor, Miss Janie Youngs, a bank officer whose employer would be quite shocked to discover her nocturnal habits . . . . Calm down, sir, I am merely giving you a demonstration. Also, since noon yesterday Dr. Steen Hoorne has been a guest in this house, and he has been very careful about being observed from the outside. I could give you the exact times you and Miss Youngs have entered and left this house if you'd care to have them."
"I know when I came in and out. Look here . . . ."
"No, sir. You look, Mr. Crane. You really have no choice. If I am in fact an official representative of the government, you are doomed. I have already proved to you that I have had this house watched. I could have your guest arrested immediately if that were my purpose. Why don't you simply accept me for what I say I am? I am determined to talk to Dr. Hoorne, and there is no point in waiting. You will notice, by the way, that we have said nothing to the bank about Miss Youngs . . ."
"You better not either." I stood over him with my fists clenched. "I'll make you into small pieces."
"Ah, gallantry." I wanted to push the mocking tone back down his throat even while I stood there waiting for him to swallow the hook. "You have nothing to fear from us, sir, as long as you cooperate; and you stand to make a great deal of money. Come now, we mean neither you nor Dr. Hoorne any mischief. He's no use to us in jail."
I gave a long sigh, sat for a moment as if I was thinking it over. "Just a second." I went out to the hall and called down the stairs. "Come on up, partner, you've got a visitor."
While Steen was climbing out of the basement, I slipped around to the kitchen and looked through the crack in the door. I could just see the corner of the room Dr. Prufro was sitting in. He was leaning over, doing something to the bottom shelf of the low bookcase under the window. I waited until he had sat back up, leaned back as if he had never moved, before I led Steen into the office. As I did I made sure that Dr. Prufro saw the Luger under my belt.
"There is no need for firearms," he said nervously. "No need at all. Ah, Dr. Hoorne? I am Dr. Arthur Prufro. Perhaps you have heard of me?"
"No." Steen looked at him closely. "No," he said again. He hunched his shoulders, looked around apprehensively as if he expected armed men to come out of the walls. "Who are you, and what do you want?"
"Why, I've come to do you a favor, Dr. Hoorne. It seems to my associates and me that you have earned considerable more money for your research than you have actually been paid. We have clients who will pay well for, uh, for research that you have already done. Not to mention an offer of further employment in your field if you like."
"The hell with employment. What I know is worth about a million dollars. Are you in a position to pay that much?" Steen glanced around, grabbed a bottle of Scotch off the shelf and poured himself a healthy slug. "That's the offer. You interested? If not, I think Paul can find somebody who'll pay it."
Prufro hesitated, a little surprised. "Well. Your directness is refreshing after your friend's circumlocutions. You realize, of course, that before they would pay that much my clients must be convinced that you have information worth that money? I'm not trying to lower the price, Dr. Hoorne, after all we stand to gain as much as you by keeping the price up. But perhaps you will not be able to get quite so much. Perhaps, instead of
a million, only half that . . . . That would be a lot of money for a man who at the moment does not even dare go down the street for a cup of coffee." He slicked his hair carefully on each side of his head, although it didn't need brushing. "You are, uh, willing to negotiate on the price? And to offer the proofs that our clients will require?"
"Something might be arranged. Paul knows more about this kind of thing than I do. I never had anything to do with business, I just make lasers play games. What proofs do you want?"
"Well. We must convince them that you are making an offer in good faith . . . that you have something to sell and are in fact willing to sell it. There should be several ways to accomplish that. "The talk about a million bucks had got to him. I noticed that his shoes were breaking down a little, and his handkerchief was clean but had spots on it as if it had been sent to the laundry a little too often. His suit wasn't new, either. Dr. Prufro wasn't starving but he wasn't rolling in money and his share of a big score was going to his head. It might have gone to mine but I knew I couldn't keep the money.
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