“None.”
“That thing over in the woods wouldn’t have fooled an agent, even in the dark. This wasn’t the ship he saw.”
“Of course not. What else?”
“How much would you say that fake cost? That was new sheet metal, fresh paint, and from what I saw of the inside through the hatch, probably a thousand feet, more or less, of lumber to brace it.”
“Go on.”
“Well, the McLain house hadn’t been painted in years, not even the barn. The place had ‘mortgage’ spelled out all over it. If the boys were in on the gag, they didn’t foot the bill.”
“Obviously. You, Mary?”
“Uncle Charlie, did you notice the way they treated me?”
“Who?” I said sharply.
“Both the state sergeant and the two boys. When I use the sweet-little-bundle-of-sex routine, something should happen. Nothing did.”
“They were all attentive,” I objected.
“You don’t understand. You can’t understand—but I know. I always know. Something was wrong with them. They were dead inside. Harem guards, if you know what I mean.”
“Hypnosis?” asked the Old Man.
“Possibly. Or drugs perhaps.” She frowned and looked puzzled.
“Hmm—” he answered. “Sammy, take the next turn to the left. We’re investigating a point about two miles south of here.”
“The triangulated location by the pic?”
“What else?”
But we didn’t get there. First it was a bridge out and I didn’t have room enough to make the car hop it, quite aside from the small matter of traffic regulations for a duo on the ground. We circled to the south and came in again, the only remaining route. We were stopped by a highway cop and a detour sign. A brush fire, he told us; go any farther and we would probably be impressed into firefighting. He didn’t know but what he ought to send me up to the firelines anyhow.
Mary waved her lashes and other things at him and he relented. She pointed out that neither she nor Uncle Charlie could drive, a double lie.
After we pulled away I asked her, “How about that one?”
“What about him?”
“Harem guard?”
“Oh, my, no! A most attractive man.”
Her answer annoyed me.
The Old Man vetoed taking to the air and making a pass over the triangulated spot. He said it was useless. We headed for Des Moines. Instead of parking at the toll gates we paid to take the car into the city proper, and ended up at the main studios of Des Moines stereo. “Uncle Charlie” blustered his way into the office of the general manager, us in tow. He told several lies—or perhaps Charles M. Cavanaugh was actually a big wheel with the Federal Communications Authority. How was I to know?
Once inside and the door shut he continued the Big Brass act. “Now, sir, what is all this nonsense about a spaceship hoax? Speak plainly, sir; I warn you your license may depend on it.”
The manager was a little round-shouldered man, but he did not seem cowed, merely annoyed. “We’ve made a full explanation over the channels,” he said. “We were victimized by one of our own people. The man has been discharged.”
“Hardly adequate, sir.”
The little man—Barnes, his name was—shrugged. “What do you expect? Shall we string him up by his thumbs?”
Uncle Charlie pointed his cigar at him. “I warn you, sir, that I am not to be trifled with. I have been making an investigation of my own and I am not convinced that two farm louts and a junior announcer could have pulled off this preposterous business. There was money in it, sir. Yes, sir—money. And where would I expect to find money? Here at the top. Now tell me, sir, just what did you—”
Mary had seated herself close by Barnes’s desk. She had done something to her costume, which exposed more skin, and her pose put me in mind of Goya’s Disrobed Lady. She made a thumbs-down signal to the Old Man.
Barnes should not have caught it; his attention appeared to be turned to the Old Man. But he did. He turned toward Mary and his face went dead. He reached for his desk.
“Sam! Kill him!” the Old Man rapped.