“Morse still wants the family?”
“Well, before I left Washington, I managed to convince him that since he really wants the woman, the man and the kids will be more use to us helping find her than they will be locked up somewhere. The way Morse wants to disappear people left and right, you’d think this was Argentina!”
While the men in suits were on their way to the airport, the subject of their surveillance managed to locate a cab, more by luck than effort, and went home, arriving there at five. It was an hour earlier in California, he told himself foggily. Carlos would be home, but Angelica wouldn’t. Good time to call.
The phone rang a dozen times before Carlos answered. “Yeah.”
“Hiya Carlos. How’s everthing?”
“Dad? Are you out of jail?”
“I am oh-you-tee out. This guy from some federal office, he bailed me out. He says your mom’s been makin some . . . dangerous friends. That’s a ruckin kick, huh? Mama moocow, with dangerous friends.”
“What are you talking about, dangerous friends? She’s got a job in Denver.”
“I know that. How did you know?”
“I figured it out. She said she took a bus, and she was on Mountain Time, so I figured Denver. You know, big city, lots of places to work. Then I ran into Mr. Marsh, Walter Marsh, on my way home this afternoon. Funny thing, there he was, right in front of me when I came out of the union. He said he was in town at a booksellers’ convention. Him and Goose got a postcard from her. From Denver. After he left, I thought, wow, maybe he has her address, but when I went chasing after him, I couldn’t find him.”
“. . . sright. S’what the other one said. Postcard from Denver. So, anyhow, the guy from the whatever it is, he bailed me out. I’m gonna help find her.” He giggled. “Not too fast. They got me on the payroll, so not too fast. If they call you, you don’t know. They’ll pay you, f’you play it right.”
“Right, Dad. Thanks for the tip. Now you’d better have a nap.”
“Right. Right.” He hung up and staggered off to the bedroom. Funny. Usually beers didn’t hit him like this. Musta been all those days without any. Out of shape, that was it. Days in jail could leave you out of shape.
And in California, Carlos hung up the phone, frowning to himself. What the hell did “dangerous friends” mean? She’d said she’d gone out to dinner the other night, with people she’d met on the bus. She’d been delayed getting back. But she’d just met those people. How could other people know she had dangerous friends if they didn’t even know where she was? And where the hell had Walter Marsh disappeared to? He’d chased after him within ten seconds and the guy had just vanished!
And where could he find this guy who was willing to pay him?
From Chiddy’s journal
At one point in our careers, Vess and I were assigned to the offices of the Confederation, where we were to represent the Pistach people in working with other races. We of the Pistach have a unique place in the Confederation as we are the only race that is largely undifferentiated at birth, the only one that selects persons to perform specific functions on the basis of ability. Alas, such is not the case with certain other races, some of whose diplomats would be better employed turning compost on a swamp planet.
The variety found within the Confederation is interesting. There are, for example, the Credons, a differentiated people, though their differentiation happens before they are hatched, rather as it does to your bees and ants and termites. What they are when they are hatched is what they will continue to be: egg layer, fertilizer, light worker, heavy worker, engineer, thinker, and fighter. They have no differentiation equivalent to diplomat or representative, and they are inclined to send whomever is standing about at the time. When they send thinkers to work with us, we manage to cooperate, but when they send workers or engineers, our functioning is less felicitous. Their first question is always, “What are you for?” A question which persons of other races may find some difficulty in answering.