He hung up abruptly and stood for a few seconds, eyes shut and teeth clenched so tightly there was a tingling in his ears. Then he deposited another coin and dialed another number.
“Listening,” said Throaty.
“It’s Schuhart. Listen carefully and don’t interrupt.”
“Schuhart? What Schuhart?” asked Throaty in a natural manner.
“Don’t interrupt, I said! They caught me, I ran, and I’m going to turn myself in now. I’m going to get two and a half or three years. My wife will be penniless. You take care of her. So that she needs nothing, understand? Understand, I said?”
“Go on,” said Throaty.
“Not far from the place where we first met, there’s a phone booth. It’s the only one, you won’t mistake it. The porcelain is under it. If you want it, take it, if you don’t, don’t. But my wife must be taken care of. We still have many years of playing together. If I come back and find out you double-crossed me … I don’t suggest that you do. Understand?”
“I understand everything,” said Throaty. “Thanks.” After a pause, he asked: “Maybe you want a lawyer?”
“No,” said Redrick. “Every last cent goes to my wife. My regards.”
He hung up, looked around, dug his hands into his pants pockets, and slowly went up Miner Street between the empty, bearded-up houses.
3. RICHARD H. NOONAN, AGE 51,
SUPERVISOR OF ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT SUPPLIES FOR THE HARMONT BRANCH OF THE IIEC
Richard H. Noonan was sitting at the desk in his study doodling on the legal size pad. He was also smiling sympathetically, nodding his bald head, and not listening to his visitor. He was simply waiting for a telephone call, and his visitor, Dr. Pilman, was lazily lecturing him. Or imagining that he was lecturing him. Or trying to convince himself that he was lecturing him.
“We’ll keep all that in mind,” Noonan finally said, crossing out another group of five lines and flipping down the pad’s cover. “It really is shocking.”
Valentine’s slender hand neatly flicked the ashes from his cigarette into the ashtray.
“And what precisely will you keep in mind?” he inquired politely.
“Why, everything that you said,” Noonan answered cheerfully, leaning back in his armchair. “To the very last word.”
“And what did I say?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Noonan said. “We’ll keep whatever you say in mind.”
Valentine (Dr. Valentine Pilman, Nobel Prize winner) was sitting in front of him in a deep armchair. He was small, delicate, and neat. There wasn’t a stain on his suede jacket or a wrinkle in his trousers. A blindingly white shirt, a severe solid-colored tie, shining shoes. A malicious smile on his thin pale lips and enormous dark glasses over his eyes. His low broad forehead was topped with a bristly crewcut.
“In my opinion, you’re being paid a fantastic salary for nothing,” he said. “And on top of that, in my opinion, you’re a saboteur as well, Dick.”
“Shhhhhh!” Noonan whispered. “For God’s sake, not so loud.”
“Actually,” Valentine continued, “I’ve been watching you for a long time. In my opinion, you don’t work at all.”
“Just a minute here!” Noonan interrupted and waved his pink finger at him. “What do you mean I don’t work? Is there even one replacement order that hasn’t been handled?”
“I don’t know,” Valentine said and flicked his ash again. ‘.We get good equipment and we get bad equipment. We get the good stuff more often, but what you have to do with it I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Well, if it weren’t for me,” Noonan countered, “the good stuff would be much rarer. And besides, you scientists are always breaking the good equipment, and then calling for a replacement, and who covers for you then? For example….”
The phone rang and Noonan broke off and grabbed the receiver.
“Mr. Noonan?” the secretary asked “Mr. Lemchen again.”
“Put him on.”
Valentine got up, brought two fingers to his forehead as a sign of farewell, and went out. Small, straight, and well-proportioned.
“Mr. Noonan?” the familiar drawling voice spoke in the phone.
“I’m listening.”
“You’re not easy to reach at work, Mr. Noonan.”
“A new shipment has arrived.”
“Yes, know about it already. Mr. Noonan, I’m here only for a short time. There are a few questions that must be discussed in person. I’m referring to the latest contracts with Mitsubishi Denshi. The legal side.”
“At your service.”
“Then, if you have no objection, be at our offices in a half hour. Is that convenient?”
“Perfect. In a half hour.”
Richard Noonan hung up, stood, and rubbing his plump hands, walked around the office. He even began singing some pop ditty, but broke off on a particularly sour note and jovially laughed at himself. He picked up his hat, tossed his raincoat over his arm, and went out into the reception area.
“Honey,” he said to the secretary, “I’m off to see some clients. You stay here, hold the fort, as they say, and I’ll bring you 3 present when I get back.”
She blossomed. Noonan blew her a kiss and rolled out into the corridors of the institute. Attempts were made to stop him a few times — he wangled out of conversations, joking, asking people to hold the fort without him, to keep their cool, and finally emerged unscathed and uncaught, waving his unopened pass under the nose of the sergeant on duty.
Heavy clouds hung low over the city. It was muggy and the first hesitant drops of rain were scattering on the sidewalk like little black stars. Spreading his coat over his head and shoulders, Noonan trotted past the long row of cars to his Peugeot, dove in, and tossed the coat in the back seat. He took out the round black stick of the so-so from his suit pocket, put it in the jack in the dashboard, and pushed it in to the hilt with his thumb. He wriggled around, getting more comfortable behind the wheel, and pressed the accelerator pedal. The Peugeot silently drove out into the middle of the street and raced toward the exit from the Pre-Zone Area.
The rain came pouring down suddenly, as though a bucket had been overturned in the sky. The road got slippery and the car swerved at corners. Noonan turned on the wipers and slowed down. So, he thought, they got the report. Now they’ll be praising me. Well, I’m all for that. I like being praised. Especially by Mr. Lemchen himself. In spite of himself. Strange isn’t it? Why do we like being praised? It doesn’t get you any more money. Glory? What kind of glory can we have? “He’s famous: three people know about him now.” Well, let’s say four, counting Bayliss. What a funny creature man is! It seems we enjoy praise just for itself. The way children like ice cream. And it’s so stupid. How can I be better in my own eyes? As if I didn’t know myself? Good old fat Richard H. Noonan? By the way, what does that “H” stand for? What do you know about that? And there’s nobody to ask, either. I can’t ask Mr. Lemchen about it. Oh, remember! Herbert! Richard Herbert Noonan. Boy, it’s pouring.
He turned onto Central and suddenly thought how the city had grown over the past few years. Huge skyscrapers. They’re building another one over there. What will it be? Oh, the Luna Complex— the world’s best jazz, and a variety show, and so on. Everything for our glorious troops and our brave tourists, especially the elderly ones, and for the noble knights of science. And the suburbs are being emptied.
Yes, I’d like to know how this will all end. Well, ten years ago, I was sure I knew. Impenetrable police lines. DMZ twenty miles wide. Scientists and soldiers, and no one else. The horrible sore on the face of an odor that he had long ago given up trying to identify, and he threw open the door at the end of the corridor and went in. Instead of the secretary there was a very tan, unfamiliar young man at the desk. He was in shirtsleeves. He was digging around in the guts of some electronic device that was set up on the desk instead of the typewriter. Richard Noonan hung up his coat and hat, smoothed what was left of his hair with both hands, and looked inquiringly at the young man. He nodded. Noonan opened the door to the office.
Mr. Lemchen rose heavily from the big leather armchair in front of the draped window. His angular general’s face was wrinkled either in a welcoming smile or in displeasure with the weather or, perhaps, in a struggle with a sneeze.
“Here you are. Come in, make yourself comfortable.”
Noonan looked around for a place to make himself comfortable and could find nothing except for a hard, straight-backed chair tucked away behind the desk. He sat on the edge of the desk. His jovial mood was dissipating for some reason—he himself did not understand why. Suddenly he understood that he was not going to be praised today On the contrary. The day of wrath, he thought philosophically and steeled himself for the worst.