anyway, for God’s sake? Books were just too intimate. It didn’t matter
what people thought, only what they did. Action and speed. Here on the
brink of a new high-tech century, there were only two watchwords, action
and speed.
He turned to the third page of the article and saw another picture of
Martin Stillwater.
“Holy shit.”
In this second photograph, the writer was sitting at his desk, facing
the camera. The quality of light was strange, since it seemed to come
mainly from a stained-glass lamp behind and to one side of him, but he
looked entirely different from the blazing-eyed zombie on the previous
pages.
Clocker was sitting on the other end of the bench, like a huge trained
bear dressed in human clothes and patiently waiting for the circus
orchestra to strike up his theme music. He was engrossed in the first
chapter of the Star Trek novelization Spock Gets the Clap or whatever
the hell it was called.
Holding out the magazine so Clocker could see the photo, Oslett said,
“Look at this.”
After taking the time to finish the paragraph he was reading, Clocker
glanced at People. “That’s Alfie.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Gnawing on his wad of Juicy Fruit, Clocker said, “Sure looks like him.
“Something’s very wrong here.”
“Looks exactly like him.”
“The kiss of the iceberg,” Oslett said ominously.
Frowning, Clocker said, “Huh?”
In the comfortable cabin of the twelve-passenger private jet, which was
warmly and tastefully decorated in soft camel-brown suede and
contrasting crackle-finish leather with accents in forest green, Clocker
sat toward the front and read The Alien Proctology Menace or what ever
the damned paperback was titled. Oslett sat toward the middle of the
plane.
As they were still ascending out of Oklahoma City, he phoned his contact
in New York. “Okay, I’ve seen People.”
“Like a kick in the face, isn’t it?” New York said.
“What’s going on here?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“You think the resemblance is just a coincidence?”
“No. Jesus, they’re like identical twins.”
“Why am I going to California–to get a look at this writer jerk?”
“And maybe to find Alfie.”
“You think Alfie’s in California?”
New York said, “Well, he had to go somewhere. Besides, the minute this
People thing fell on us, we started trying to learn every thing we could
about Martin Stillwater, and right away we find out there was some
trouble at his house in Mission Viejo late this after noon, early this
evening.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“The police report’s been written up, but it isn’t logged into their
computer yet, so we can’t just access it. We need to get our hands on a
hard copy. Were working on that. So far, we know there was an intruder
in the house. Stillwater apparently shot somebody, but the guy got
away.”
“You think it has something to do with Alfie?”
“Nobody here’s a big believer in coincidence.”
The pitch of the Lear engines changed. The jet had come out of its
climb, leveled off, and settled down to cruising speed.
Oslett said, “But how would Alfie know about Stillwater?”
“Maybe he reads People,” New York said, and laughed nervously.
“If you’re thinking the intruder was Alfie why would he go after this
guy?”
“We don’t have a theory yet.”
Oslett sighed. “I feel as if I’m standing in a cosmic toilet, and God
just flushed it.
“Maybe you should’ve taken more care with the way you were handling
him.”
“This wasn’t a handling screwup,” Oslett bristled.
“Hey, I’m making no accusations. I’m only telling you one of the things
that’s being said back here.”
“Seems to me the big screwup was in satellite surveillance.”
“Can’t expect them to locate him after he took off the shoes.”
“But how come they needed a day and a half to find the damned shoes?
Bad weather over the Midwest. Sunspot activity, magnetic disturbances.
Too many hundreds of square miles in the initial search zone.
Excuses, excuses, excuses.”
“At least they have some,” New York said smugly.
Oslett fumed in silence. He hated being away from Manhattan.
The moment the shadow of his plane crossed the city line, the knives
came out, and the ambitious pygmies started trying to whittle his