“Now let’s see it.”
Redrick took the money and stuffed it into his inner jacket pocket without counting it. Then he presented his wares. He did it slowly, letting both of them examine the swag and check items off the list. It was quiet in the room, the only sound was Throaty’s heavy breathing and the jingle coming from the other room—a spoon against the side of a glass, perhaps.
When Redrick shut the briefcase and clicked the lock, Throaty looked up at him.
“What about the most important thing?”
“No way,” Redrick replied. He thought and added: “So far.”
“I like that ‘so far,”’ Throaty said gently. “How about you, Phil?”
“You’re throwing dust in our eyes, Schuhart,” Bones said suspiciously.
“Why the mystery, I ask you?”
“That comes with the territory: shady dealings,” Redrick said.
“We’re in a demanding profession.
“All right, all right,” Throaty said. “Where’s the camera?”
“Hell!” Redrick scratched his cheek, feeling the color rise in his face. “I’m sorry, I forgot all about it.
“There?” Throaty asked making a vague gesture with the cigar.
“I don’t remember. Probably there.” Redrick shut his eyes and leaned back on the couch. “Nope. I clean forgot.”
“Too bad,” Throaty said. “But you at least saw the thing?”
“Not even that,” Redrick said sadly. “That’s the whole point. We didn’t get as far as the blast furnaces. Burbridge fell into the jelly and I had to head back immediately. You can be sure that if I’d seen it I wouldn’t have forgotten it.”
“Hey, Hugh, look at this!” Bones whispered in fright. “What’s this?”
He stuck out his right index finger. The white metal hoop was twirling around his finger and Bones was staring pop-eyed at the hoop.
“It’s not stopping!” he said aloud, moving his eyes from the hoop to Throaty and back again.
“What do you mean it’s not stopping?” Throaty asked carefully and moved away.
“I put it on my finger and gave it a spin, just for the hell of it, and it hasn’t stopped for a whole minute!” Bones lumped up and, holding his finger extended before him, ran behind the curtain. The silvery hoop twirled smoothly in front of him like a propeller.
“What the hell did you bring us?” Throaty asked.
“God knows! I had no idea—if I had, I’d have asked more for it.”
Throaty stared at him, then got up and went behind the curtain. Voices started babbling immediately. Redrick picked up a magazine from the floor and flipped through it. It was chock-full of beauties, but somehow they nauseated him just then. Redrick’s eyes roved around the room, looking for something to drink. Then he took a pack from his inside pocket and counted the bills. Everything was in order, but to keep from falling asleep, he counted the other one. Just as he was putting it back into his pocket, Throaty came back.
“You’re lucky, son,” he announced, sitting opposite Redrick once more. “Do you know what a perpetuum mobile is?”
“Nope, we never studied that.
“And you don’t need to,” Throaty said. He pulled out another pack. “That’s the price for the first specimen,” he said, pulling off the wrapping. “For each new one you’ll get two packs like this. Got it, son? Two apiece. But only on the condition that no one except you and I ever know about it. Are we agreed?” Redrick put the money in his pocket silently and stood up.
“I’m going,” he said. “When and where for the next time?”
Throaty also rose.
“You’ll be called. Wait for a call every Friday between nine and nine-thirty in the morning. You’ll get regards from Phil and Hugh and a meeting will be set up
Redrick nodded and headed for the door. Throaty followed, and put his hand on his shoulder.
“I want you to understand one thing,” he continued. “All this is very nice, charming, and so on, and the hoop is simply marvelous, but above all we need two things: the photos and the container filled up. Return our camera to us, but with exposed film, and our porcelain container, but not empty. Filled. And you’ll never have to go into the Zone again.
Redrick shook Throaty’s hand from his shoulder, unlocked the door, and went out. Without turning he walked down the thickly carpeted hallway and sensed the unwavering blue angelic gaze fixed on the back of his neck. He didn’t wait for the elevator but walked down from the eighth floor.
Outside the Metropole he called a cab and went to the other side of town. The driver was a new one, someone Redrick didn’t know, a beak-nosed, pimply fellow. One of the hundreds that had poured into Harmont in the last few years to look for exciting adventures, untold riches, world fame, or some special religion. They poured in and ended up as chauffeurs, construction workers, or thugs—thirsting, wretched, tortured by vague desires, profoundly disillusioned, and certain that they had been tricked once again. Half of them, after hanging around for a month or two, returned to their homes, cursing, and spreading the word of their disillusionment to all the countries of the world. A very few became stalkers and quickly perished before they had caught onto the tricks of the trade. Some managed to get a job at the institute, but only the best-educated and smartest of them, who could at least work as lab assistants. The rest wasted evening after evening in bars, brawled over some difference of opinion, girls, or just because they were drunk, and drove the municipal police, the army, and the guards out of their minds.
The pimply driver reeked of liquor a mile away, and his eyes were rabbit red, but he was very excited and told Redrick how that morning a stiff from the cemetery showed up on their block. “He came back to his house, and the house had been locked up for years, and everyone had moved—his widow, an old lady now, and his daughter and her husband, and their children. He had died, the neighbors said, some thirty years ago, that is, before the Visitation, and now there he was. He walked around the house, sniffed and scratched, and then sat by the fence and waited. People came round from the whole neighborhood. They stared and stared but were afraid, of course, to come close. Finally somebody got a bright idea—they broke open the door to his house, making an entrance for him. And what do you think? He got up, went in, and shut the door behind him. I was late for work, so I don’t know how it turned out, but I do know that they were planning to call the institute and have someone come over and get him the hell out of there.
“Stop,” Redrick said. “Let me off right here.”
He rummaged in his pocket. He had no change and had to break a new bill. Then he stood in the doorway and waited for the cab to drive away. Buzzard’s cottage wasn’t too bad: two stories, a glassed-in veranda with a pool table, a well-tended garden, a greenhouse, and a white gazebo under the apple trees. A filigree iron fence painted light green surrounded it ail. Redrick pushed the bell several times, the gate swung open with a creak, and Redrick slowly moved up the shady path, with rose bushes planted along the edges. Hamster was already standing on the porch. He was gnarled, black, and trembling with the desire to be of service. Impatiently he turned sideways, lowered one trembling leg in search of support, steadied himself, and dragged the other foot to meet its mate. His right arm shook convulsively in Redrick’s direction, as if to say, coming, coming, any minute.
“Hey, Red!” a woman’s voice called from the garden.
Redrick turned his head and saw bare tanned shoulders, a bright red mouth, and a waving hand among the greenery next to the lacy white roof of the gazebo. He nodded to Hamster, turned from the path, and breaking through the rose bushes, headed for the gazebo along the soft green grass.
A large red mat was spread on the lawn, and Dina Burbridge was sitting regally on it with a glass in her hand and a miniscule bathing suit on her body; a book with a bright cover lay on the mat and an ice bucket with a slender bottle neck peering over the edge sat in the shade nearby.
“Hi, Red!” Dina Burbridge said, greeting him with a wave of the glass. “Where’s the old man? Don’t tell me he’s messed up again?”
Redrick stood over her with the briefcase in his hands behind his back. Yes, Buzzard sure managed to wish himself up some marvelous children out there in the Zone. She was all silk and satin, firm and full, flawless, without a single unnecessary wrinkle – hundred-twenty pounds of sugar-candy flesh, and emerald eyes that had an inner glow, a large wet mouth and even white teeth, and raven hair, shining in the sun and carelessly tossed over one shoulder. The sun was caressing her, pouring from her shoulders to her belly and hips, leaving deep shadows between her almost naked breasts. He stood above her and looked her over openly, and she looked up at him, laughing understandingly, and then raised the glass to her lips and took several sips.