“Okay, chief.” The runner was first man into an empty lift; he went to the back of the car and set the bag down beside him. Gilead placed himself so that his foot rested firmly against his bag and faced for — ward as other travelers crowded in. The car started.
The lift was jammed; Gilead was subjected to body pressures on every side — but he noticed an additional, unusual, and uncalled-for pressure behind him. His right hand moved suddenly and clamped down on a skinny wrist and a hand clutching something. Gilead made no further movement, nor did the owner of the hand attempt to draw away or make any objection. They remained so until the car reached the surface. When the passengers had spilled out he reached behind him with his left hand, recovered his bag and dragged the wrist and its owner out of the car.
It was, of course, the runner; the object in his fist was Gilead’s wallet. “You durn near lost that. chief,” the runner announced with no show of embarrassment. “It was falling out of your pocket.”
Gilead liberated the wallet and stuffed it into an inner pocket. “Fell right through the zipper,” he answered cheerfully. “Well, let’s find a cop.’ The runt tried to pull away, “You got nothing on me!”
Gilead considered the defense. In truth, he had nothing. His wallet was already out of sight. As to witnesses, the other lift passengers were already gone — nor had they seen anything. The lift itself was automatic. He was simply a man in the odd position of detaining another citizen by the wrist. And Gilead himself did not want to talk to the police.
He let go that wrist. “On your way, comrade. We’ll call it quits.”
The runner did not move. “How about my tip?”
Gilead was beginning to like this rascal. Locating a loose half credit in his change pocket he flipped it at the runner, who grabbed it out of the air but still didn’t leave. “I’ll take your bag now. Gimme.”
“No, thanks, chum. I can find your delightful inn without further help. One side, please.”
“Oh, yeah? How about my commission? I gotta carry your bag, else how they gonna know I brung you in? Gimme.”
Gilead was delighted with the creature’s unabashed insistence. He found a two-credit piece and passed it over. “There’s your cumshaw. Now beat it, before I kick your tail up around your shoulders.”
“You and who else?”
Gilead chuckled and moved away down the con — course toward the station entrance to the New Age Hotel. His subconscious sentries informed him immediately that the runner had not gone back toward the lift as expected, but was keeping abreast him in the crowd. He considered this. The runner might very well be what he appeared to be, common city riffraff who combined casual thievery with his overt occupation. On the other hand —
He decided to unload. He stepped suddenly off the sidewalk into the entrance of a drugstore and stopped Just inside the door to buy a newspaper. While his copy was being printed, he scooped up, apparently as an afterthought, three standard pneumo mailing tubes. As he paid for them he palmed a pad of gummed address labels.
A glance at the mirrored wall showed him that his shadow had hesitated outside but was still watching him. Gilead went on back to the shop’s soda fountain and slipped into an unoccupied booth. Although the floor show was going on — a remarkably shapely ecdysiast was working down toward her last string of beads — he drew the booth’s curtain.
Shortly the call light over the booth flashed discreetly; he called, “Come in!” A pretty and very young waitress came inside the curtain. Her plastic costume covered without concealing.
She glanced around. “Lonely?”
“No, thanks, I’m tired.”
“How about a redhead, then? Real cute — ”
“I really am tired. Bring me two bottles of beer, unopened, and some pretzels.”
“Suit yourself, sport.” She left.
With speed he opened the travel bag, selected nine spools of microfilm, and loaded them into the three mailing tubes, the tubes being of the common three-spool size. Gilead then took the filched pad of address labels, addressed the top one to “Raymond Calhoun, P. 0. Box 1060, Chicago” and commenced to draw with great care in the rectangle reserved for electric-eye sorter. The address he shaped in arbitrary symbols was intended not to be read, but to be scanned automatically. The hand-written address was merely a precaution, in case a robot sorter should reject his hand-drawn symbols as being imperfect and thereby turn the tube over to a human postal clerk for readdressing.