“I’m sorry,” Allen murmured, scrutinizing the wall and mentally twiddling his thumbs. In some ways this was the worst part, the rhetoric of apology.
“Would you like to tell us what happened?” Mrs. Frost continued. Her savoir-faire had returned, and she smiled with her usual grace and charm. “Consider this a friendly inquiry. We’re all your friends, even Mr. Luddy.”
“What’s the Blake-Moffet team doing here?” he asked. “I can’t see how this concerns them. Maybe I’m being overly blunt, but this seems to be a matter between you and me and Mrs. Hoyt.”
A pained exchange of glances informed him that there was more to it. As if the presence of Blake and Luddy hadn’t said that already.
“Come on, Sue,” Mrs. Hoyt rumbled in her gravelly voice. “When we couldn’t get in touch with you,” Mrs. Frost went on, “we had a conference and we decided to sit on it. After all, you’re a grown man. But then Mr. Blake called us. T-M has done a great deal of business with Blake-Moffet over the years, and we all know one another. Mr. Blake showed us some disturbing material, and we—”
“What material?” Allen demanded. “Let’s have a look at it.” Blake answered. “It’s here, Purcell. Don’t get upset; all in due time.” He tossed some papers over, and Allen caught them. While he examined them Mrs. Frost said:
“I’d like to ask you, Allen. As a personal friend. Never mind those papers; I’ll tell you what it is. You haven’t separated from your wife, have you? You haven’t had a quarrel you’d rather keep quiet, something that’s come up between you that means a more or less permanent altercation?”
“Is that what this is about?” He felt as if he had been dipped in sheer cold. It was one of those eternal blind alleys that Morec worriers got themselves into. Divorce, scandal, sex, other women—the whole confused gamut of marital difficulty.
“Naturally,” Mrs. Hoyt said, “it would be incumbent on you to refuse the directorship under such circumstances. A man in such a high position of trust—well, you’re familiar with the rest.”
The papers in his hands danced in a jumble of words, phrases, dates and locations. He gave up and tossed them aside. “And Blake’s got documentation on this?” They were after him, but they had got themselves onto a false lead. Luckily for him. “Let’s hear it.”
Blake cleared his throat and said: “Two weeks ago you worked alone at your Agency. At eight-thirty you locked up and left. You walked at random, entered a commissary, then returned to the Agency and took a ship.”
“What then?” He wondered how far they had gone.
“Then you eluded pursuit. We, ah, weren’t equipped to follow.”
“I went to Hokkaido. Ask my block warden. I drank three glasses of wine, came home, fell on the front steps. It’s all a matter of record; I was brought up and exonerated.”
“So.” Blake nodded. “Well, then. It’s our contention that you met a woman; that you had met her before; that you have willingly and knowingly committed adultery with this woman.”
“Thus collapses the juvenile system,” Allen said bitterly. “Here ends empirical evidence. Back comes witch-burning. Hysterics and innuendo.”
“You left your Agency,” Blake continued, “on Tuesday of that week, to make a phone call from a public booth. It was a call you couldn’t make in your office, for fear of being overheard.”
“To this girl?” They were ingenious, at least. And they probably believed it. “What’s the girl’s name?’
“Grace Maldini,” Blake said. “About twenty-four years old, standing five-foot-five, weighing about one twenty-five. Dark hair, dark skin, presumably of Italian extraction.”
It was Gretchen, of course. Now he was really perplexed.
“On Thursday morning you were two hours late to work. You walked off and were lost along the commute lanes. You deliberately chose routes through the thickest traffic.”
“Conjecture,” Allen said. But it had been true; he was on his way to the Health Resort. Grace Maldini? What on earth was that about?”
“On Saturday morning of that week,” Blake continued, “you did the same thing. You shook off anybody who might have been following you and met this girl at an unknown point. You did not return to your apartment that day. That night, a week ago yesterday, you boarded an inter-S ship in the company of the girl, who registered herself as Miss Grace Maldini. You registered under the name John Coates.” When the ship reached Centaurus, you and the girl transferred to a second ship, and again you shook monitoring. You did not return to Earth during the entire week. It was within that period that your wife described you as ‘completing work at your Agency.’ This evening, about thirty minutes ago, you stepped off an inter-S ship, dressed as you are now, entered a phone booth, and then came here.”
They were all looking at him, waiting with interest. This was an ultimate block meeting: avid curiosity, the need to hear every lurid detail. And, with that, the solemn Morec of duty.
At least he knew how he had been gotten from Earth to Other World. Malparto’s therapeutic drugs had kept him docile, while Gretchen thought up names and made the arrangements. Four days in her company: the first emergence of John Coates.
“Produce the girl,” Allen said.
Nobody spoke.
“Where is she?” They could look forever for Grace Maldini. And without her it was so much hearsay. “Let’s see her.
Where does she live? What’s her lease? Where does she work? Where is she right now?”
Blake produced a photograph, and Allen examined it. A blurred print: he and Gretchen seated side by side in large chairs. Gretchen was reading a magazine and he was asleep. Taken on the ship, no doubt, from the other end of the lounge.
“Incredible,” he mocked. “There I am, and a woman’s sitting next to me.”
Myron Mavis took the picture, studied it, and sneered. “Not worth a cent. Not worth the merest particle of a rusty Mexican cent. Take it back.”
Mrs. Hoyt said thoughtfully: “Myron’s right. This isn’t proof of anything.”
“Why did you assume the name Coates?” Luddy spoke up. “If you’re so innocent—”
“Prove that, too,” Mavis said. “This is ridiculous. I’m going home; I’m tired, and Purcell looks tired. Tomorrow is Monday and you know what that means for all of us.”
Mrs. Frost, arose, folded her arms, and said to Allen: “We all agree it isn’t remotely possible to call this material proof. But it’s disturbing. Evidently you did make these phone calls; you did go somewhere out of the ordinary; you have been gone the last week. What you tell me I’ll believe. So will Mrs. Hoyt.”
Mrs. Hoyt inclined her head.
“Have you left your wife?” Mrs. Frost asked. “One simple question. Yes or no.”
“No,” he said, and it was really, actually true. There was no lie involved. He looked her straight in the eye. “No adultery, no affair, no secret love. I went to Hokkaido and got material. I phoned a male friend.” Some friend. “I visited the same friend. This last week has been an unfortunate involvement in circumstances beyond my control, growing out of my retiring from my Agency and accepting the director- ship. My motives and actions have been in the public interest, and my conscience is totally clear.”
Mrs. Hoyt said: “Let the boy go. So he can take a bath and get some sleep.”
Her hand out, Sue Frost approached Allen. “I’m sorry. I am. You know that.”
They shook, and Allen said: “Tomorrow morning, at eight?”
“Fine.” She smiled sheepishly. “But we had to check. A charge of this sort—you understand.”
He did. Turning to Blake and Luddy, who were stuffing their material back in its briefcase, Allen said: “Packet number 355-B. Faithful husband the victim of old women living in the housing unit who cook up a kettle of filth and then get it tossed in their faces.”
Hurriedly, glancing down, Blake murmured good nights and departed. Luddy followed after him. Allen wondered how long the false lead would keep him alive.
CHAPTER 16
His new office at Telemedia had been cleaned, swept, repainted, and his desk had been moved from the Agency as a gesture of continuity. By ten o’clock Monday morning, Allen had got the feel of things. He had sat in the big swivel chair, used the pencil sharpener, stood before the one-way viewing wall covertly surveyed his building-sized staff.
While he was stabilizing himself, Myron Mavis, looking as if he hadn’t gone to bed, appeared to wish him luck.
“Not a bad layout,” Mavis said. “Gets plenty of sunlight, good air. Very healthy; look at me.”
“I hope you’re not selling your hoofs for glue,” Allen said, feeling humble.
“Not for awhile. Come on.” Mavis guided him out of the office. “I’ll introduce you to the staff.”
They squeezed past the bundles of congratulatory “flowers” along the corridor. The reek of crypto-flora assailed them,’ and Allen halted to examine cards. “Like a hot house,” he said. “Here’s one from Mrs. Hoyt.”