He didn’t answer that. He especially didn’t tell her the reason, because he didn’t want to mention that while he had the “mugger” in a choke hold the man had gasped aggrievedly, “Come on, Danno! Don’t be so fucking rough!”
CHAPTER SIX
Dan
On the way home that night, Dannerman stopped to do what he should have done days earlier-put in his once-a-month hour’s practice on the firing range at the YMCA. As long as he was there he put in another hour on the exercise machines to keep his muscle tone up. When he got home he was hot and sweaty, but the guns had to be cleaned.
His practiced fingers knew how to do that without much direction from his brain, so he put something on the screen to watch while he cleaned the weapons. He hesitated over the choice. One of his store of Elmer Rice plays, for the fun of it? Some of the briefing tapes Hilda had downloaded for him, for the sake of duty? He compromised on looping the two messages from space again; maybe they had something to do with his assignment, as the colonel had hinted, but anyway she’d stirred his curiosity.
He did the easiest weapon first, the registered twenty-shot, his eyes on the screen. Even slowed down to catch details, the first space message gave no more information than it had the first time he saw it, in the Neuereich. The universe expanded and collapsed; and that was that.
He paused before running the second message, because the stink of his bomb-bugger was getting to him. Once the chemicals in a bomb-bugger mixed they produced not only thrust for the bullets but a god-awful smell; he rinsed the whole weapon, tiring chamber and all, in water with neutralizer added, then carefully added enough of each chemical to top them off from the canisters hidden under his bed. Then he turned on the second message and began to clean his ankle gun.
He didn’t get far. There were angry voices just outside his door. One was his landlady, Rita, in a bad mood; the other, whining and apologetic, belonged to one of the upstairs lodgers, Bert Germaine. When he opened the door, Rita diverted her attention from the lodger to Dannerman. “I didn’t see you in the kitchen,” she said accusingly. Then, wrinkling her nose, “What’s that smell?”
“I guess it’s the low-power loads they make you use on the YMCA range. Sorry about that.”
She shrugged, turning back to look for the other lodger. But that conversation with the other lodger was over, because Germaine had taken advantage of her distraction to sneak away. “Little bastard,” she said morosely. “I ought to kick his ass right out of my condo. Can’t pay the rent, oh, no, but he always has a couple dollars for lottery tickets every day.”
Dannerman took the hint. “Let me settle up.”
“Oh, honey,” she sighed, “I wasn’t talking about you. You’re the best goddam tenant I have, you know that. Only how can I make ends meet when I have to put up with deadbeats like Germaine?”
“Look at the bright side, Rita. Maybe he’ll win his hundred million dollars, then he’ll pay everything he owes all at once.”
“Maybe pigs will fly. Dan,” she said, looking him over, “when was the last time you got a haircut?” He shrugged. “You really ought to take more pride in your appearance, a good-looking young fellow like you. Which reminds me,” she added. “There was a girl here looking for you.”
“Oh?” he said, wondering: Colonel Hilda? Somebody from the office?
“Said her name was Anita. Said to tell you they missed you at the theater. Is she the one I used to see here sometimes, like a month or two ago? Not that I’m complaining about your having guests,” she added hastily. “You pay your rent on time. I’m not going to worry if you have somebody visit you now and then, and one thing I will say for you, Dan, the ones I’ve seen have always looked pretty respectable. Not like the hookers that little bastard Germaine tries to sneak in. He’s always got the money to pay them, you bet; and still he says he can’t pay his rent!”
When he was safely locked in his room again Dannerman didn’t start the tape again. He was thinking about Anita Berman.
That was not an enjoyable subject-not meaning Anita herself, who was about as enjoyable a female as he had ever dated, but the fact that he would soon have to do something about her. The troubling question was, do what? He didn’t really want to break off their relationship. But she was beginning to sound serious, and that was something he couldn’t afford.
Then Hilda’s call came in on the coded line and he put Anita Berman out of his mind for the moment. He started in right away with the colonel. “Thanks a lot for setting me up this afternoon. You could’ve told me about it first.”
“What for? I knew you could handle it. Now Jarvas is out of the way for a while, right?”
“I guess so. They were still at the hospital when 1 left.”
“He’s out,” she said positively. “His arm’s broken. So tomorrow morning you go in to your cousin and see if you can get his job.”
“You broke his arm on purpose.”
“Damn straight we did. So now his job’s open, because what’s the use of a bodyguard with a broken arm? Get it. Her bodyguard goes wherever she goes, so you can keep tabs on her when she’s out of the observatory. Now, let’s hear your report.”
There wasn’t much to say, until he got to his lunch with the lawyer. She scowled at that. “Him, too. Maybe we should sell tickets.”
“You don’t act surprised at what he said,” he pointed out.
“You mean because this Dixler thinks your cousin’s trying to make some money out of the Starlab? But we already knew all that, of course.”
“Hell, Hilda, I didn’t! So now that I know that much, how about telling me the rest?”
She shook her head. “Don’t hassle me about that. What else?”
He hesitated. “One thing. I want to go back and visit at the theater. They’re opening The Subway tomorrow night and I want to be there.”
She frowned again. “Is that wise? The only reason we let you do that theater crap was because it made good cover on the Carpezzio job, and that’s over for you. Don’t get the two things mixed up.”
“It’s personal, Hilda.”
She sighed and surrendered. “That goddam Berman woman, right? Well, I won’t say no, but if there’s any fallout it’s your ass, Danno. All right, I’ve got some orders for you. We can’t get through your cousin’s encoding; we need a key. That Greek fellow-“
“Papathanassiou.”
“That one. He probably has it, and I’ve got his data packet; I’ll pass it on to you. Couple of others, too, but the Greek’s is the one that looks good. You ought to be able to get something out of him.”
“Blackmail him, you mean?”
“Whatever. And that Chinaman we were interested in, Jimmy Lin. He’s coming back tomorrow morning, so you want to get on him, too.” She reflected for a moment, peering past him.
“Did you clean your clothes after firing your bomb-bugger? Once you fire one of those things the stink stays, so everybody’s going to know you’ve got a hideout gun.”
“I will,” he promised; then, “Hey! You’ve had me followed!” “Well, sure. If we didn’t do that how would we know if anybody else was following you? You’re clean, so far-and, don’t forget, the first thing you do in the morning is see if you can go for Jarvas’s job.”
But, as it turned out, that wasn’t an option. Somebody had forgotten to tell the bureau’s arm-breakers that Jarvas was left-handed; and when Dannerman put his card in the turnstile at the observatory entrance the next morning his cousin Pat was ahead of him, and beside her, punching out the combination to summon an elevator, was Mick Jarvas, a translucent cast on his right arm.
“Morning,” Dannerman said, trying not to grin.
“And good morning to you,” his cousin said, smiling. She reached over to touch him on the shoulder-not affectionately, exactly, but a lot more amiably than before. “You surprised me yesterday, old Dan. For an English major, I mean,” she said. “Listen, come see me this afternoon. I’ve got an errand for you to run.”
“Sure thing, Pat.” He might have asked what kind of an errand, but he didn’t get the chance. As they stepped out of the car at their floor she almost bumped into a large, sand-colored man with short black hair who was waiting there.
“Why, Jimmy,” she said. “I didn’t expect you so early.”
“I just dropped off some of my stuff. I have an appointment downtown to check in at the embassy in half an hour,” the man said, holding the elevator door open.