“That’d be fine,” Dannerman said, with pleasure. Whatever had turned Lin around was a mystery, but it was also a break: you didn’t often get a subject volunteering to let you interrogate him. “I’ll get my stuff and meet you at the elevator.”
And then, as he picked up his twenty-shot weapon from Mick Jarvas, another little mystery solved itself. Jarvas was in the men’s room, but when he came out he looked almost cheerful until he saw Dannerman waiting for him. Then he gave Dannerman that peculiar look again as he handed over the gun. He didn’t let go of it.
“Is there something you want to say to me?” Dannerman asked, holding the barrel while Jarvas held the butt-he was glad to see the safety was firmly on.
Jarvas’s eyes were on the ground, but Dannerman thought he muttered something. “What did you say?”
Jarvas looked up angrily. As he let go of the gun at last, he managed to get it out. “About that business in the street yesterday? I just said thanks.”
Jimmy Lin was in the waiting room, busily chatting up the receptionist. In the elevator he said appreciatively, “I have to say your cousin Pat doesn’t mind hiring other good-lookers. How’d you like to do the Twin Dragons Teasing the Phoenix with that Janice lady?”
“The what?”
The astronaut guffawed. “The Twin Dragons Teasing the Phoenix. It’s an old Chinese expression. It’s like, well, like when a lady has two gentleman paying attention to her at once.” He grinned sidelong at Dannerman. “Just a joke, you know. Phew, what a mob.” He led the way along the block to turn the corner, moving rapidly. When he noticed that Dannerman was lengthening his stride to keep up with him he said apologetically, “Sorry, I guess I’m always in a hurry. It’s a genetic fault; my dad was the same way-except with the ladies, of course. Anyway, here’s the place.”
To the surprise of Dannerman, who had been preparing himself for Chinese food, the ethnic restaurant was not Oriental at all. What it was, was Tex-Mex. The place was almost as crowded as the sidewalk, but Lin had a whispered conversation with the waiter and money must have changed hands; they got an immediate table. “I hope you like this stuff, Dan. I guess I got an appetite for it in Houston. First time I was there this lady from El Paso introduced me to it, then I introduced her to the Jade Girl Playing the Flute. Aw,” he said, grinning, lowering his voice as he glanced at the waitress who was hovering just out of earshot, “that doesn’t mean anything to you, does it? It’s another of those old Chinese expressions. One of these days I’ll show you some books that were written by my great-great-I-don’t-know-how-many-greats granddaddy, Peng-tsu. I got my middle name after him; the old man’s kind of famous, in some circles, anyway. He was a Taoist sage two thousand years ago-I’d have to say, a pretty horny Taoist sage-and he wrote some dandy books on what he called ‘healthful life.’ His idea of health, though, was to prong the ladies as often as he could and make up a list of all the ways there are of doing it. Well, enough of my sordid family history. Let’s go ahead and order, we don’t want to keep that good-looking little cowgal over there waiting, and then you can tell me all about Dan Dannerman.”
And that was the way it went. It didn’t take Dannerman long to realize that the astronaut was as interested in pumping him as he was in finding out about the astronaut. They didn’t talk shop. They talked the way long-lost friends talk when they catch up on each other’s lives after years of separation. Jimmy Lin wasn’t reticent about himself. Garrulous would’ve been more accurate; in the first half hour Dannerman learned that the Lins were a wealthy old Hong Kong family who moved to Beijing after the reunification and got even richer there, as the People’s Republic discovered the wonders of entrepreneurialism. Jimmy Lin himself had been educated in America, of course. That, along with the fact that he spent a lot of his spare time in his father’s place on Maui, accounted for his accent-free American English. Then, instead of going into the family business, he’d been accepted for astronaut training. “But,” he said, sighing, “I’m no credit to my ancestors. The top brass fired me out of the astronaut corps a year ago-they had some damn political charge.” He looked ruefully embarrassed. “What they called it was ‘left-wing, right-wing zigzag deviationism,’ if you can imagine that. But actually about half the corps got dumped at the same time for one pretext or another. My opinion, they just decided there wasn’t any money to be made in space anymore, so they cut back. So now I have to scratch for work.” But after every little datum he supplied about himself he paused inquiringly to give Dannerman a chance to supply a little quid for his quo. He was fascinated by Dannerman’s interest in the little theater in Brooklyn. (“Coney Island! Wow! That’s really what you call Off-Off-Off Broadway, isn’t it? I didn’t think anybody went to Coney Island anymore!”) He was searching about Dannerman’s years in Europe-Dannerman was glad he’d been thorough about covering his tracks with the Mad King Ludwigs-and sympathetic about the fact that, although Dannerman and Pat Adcock had inherited the same amount from Uncle Cubby, Pat had actually got hers and Dannerman’s had shrunk to invisibility through inflation before he collected it.
But of the repair mission to Starlab he would say nothing at all. “The thing is, Dan,” he said, all good-natured candor, “I’m in line to fly that bird. Provided I don’t screw up with your cousin and, well, she just doesn’t want it talked about yet.” He glanced at his watch. “Well, this’s been great, but we better get back to the office. I hear Pat’s got a job for you to do this afternoon.”
When Dannerman was summoned to his cousin’s office, though, the first thing she said wasn’t about the errand. It was “What the hell did you promise the Germans?”
He shrugged, less interested in the question than in the fact that Mick Jarvas was standing there beside her desk, looking truculent again. “They asked for information about the Starlab repair mission.”
“They can’t have it.”
“All right,” he said agreeably, “but can I give them a reason?”
“No. Well, hell, I guess you have to say something. Tell them we’ve got a problem, you don’t know exactly what it is, but it’ll all be cleared up in a week or so.”
It seemed to Dannerman that his cousin had a lot in common with the colonel. He ventured, “Meaning when you get back from your Starlab trip?”
She glared at him. “Who told you I was going to Starlab? Just do your job,” she ordered. “No, wait a minute, I didn’t mean for you to go. I need something delivered to the Florida embassy. You’re going to take it, and it’s important. I’m sending Mick along with you, just in case.”
Jarvas stirred. “I can handle it all by myself,” he muttered.
She ignored him. To Dannerman she said, “Give me your belly bag.” When he unsnapped it and handed it over, puzzled, she dumped the entire contents on her desk.
“Hey!” he said. There was personal stuff there, his cash card, his ID, the key cards for the office and the condo.
“Shut up,” she said. She unlocked a drawer of her desk and took out a small, soft-sided leather satchel. She stuffed it into his belly bag; it fit, but just barely. She thought for a moment, then put his ID back.
“You can pick up the rest of your stuff when you get back, Dan. What I want you to do, take this bag to the Floridian embassy and give the bag to General Martin Delasquez personally. Nobody else, understand? No matter what they say. It’s to be hand-delivered, and he’s expecting it. Wait for him while he checks it out, and when he says it’s okay you can come back here. Mick, give him his gun.”
“Right, Pa-Dr. Adcock,” the bodyguard rumbled, pulling the weapon out of his pocket. “Come on, Dannerman.”
In the elevator he was fidgety, glaring at Dannerman. Just before they reached the ground floor he asked, “Do you know what this is about?”
“Don’t have a clue.”
“Neither do I. Listen. Maybe you’re not as big a prick as I thought you were, but my orders are that that package stays in your belly bag until you hand it over to the guy it’s meant for. No peeking. I don’t want to have any trouble with you.”
“You won’t,” Dannerman said, meaning it. He didn’t want to cross Jarvas just when the man was being nearly human. In any case, he was hoping that the subway ride would give him a chance to engage Jarvas in conversation.