I interrupted again. “Would you go to Venus on the strength of that certainty, other things being equal?” “Certainly,” he said, a little offended. “Shall I go into the technical details?” “No. Just run the whole test again with a different crew of experts for confirmation.” “Right, Mr. Courtenay,” Charlie said, scribbling busily. “Right. Does anybody else have anything special on the Venus program before we go on?” Bernhard, our comptroller, stuck his hand up, and I nodded. “Question about Mr. O’Shea,” he rumbled. “We’re carrying him as a consultant at a very healthy figure. I’ve been asking around- and I hope I haven’t been going offside, Mr. Courtenay, but it’s my job-I’ve been asking around and I find that we’ve been getting damn-all consultation from him. Also, I should mention that he’s drawn heavily in recent weeks on retainers not yet due. If we canned -if we severed our connection with him at this time, he’d be owing us money. Also-well, this is trivial, but it gives you an idea. The girls in my department are complaining about his annoying them.” My eyebrows went up. “I think we should hang onto him for whatever prestige rubs off, Ben, though his vogue does seem to be passing. Give him an argument about further advances. And as for the girls-well, I’m surprised. I thought they didn’t complain when he made passes at them.” “Seen him lately?” grunted Bernhard. No; I realized I hadn’t. The rest of the meeting went fast. Back in my office I asked my night-shift secretary whether O’Shea was in the building, and if so to send for him. He came in smelling of liquor and complaining loudly. “Damn it, Mitch, enough is enough! I just stepped in to pick up one of the babes for the night and you grab me. Aren’t you taking this consultation thing too seriously? You’ve got my name to use; what more do you want?” He looked like hell. He looked like a miniature of the fat, petulant, shabby Napoleon I at Elba. But a moment after he had come in I suddenly couldn’t think of anything but Kathy. It took me a moment to figure out. “Well?” he demanded. “What are you staring at? Isn’t my lipstick on straight?”
The liquor covered it up some, but a little came through: Menage a Deux, the perfume I’d had created for Kathy and Kathy alone when we were in Paris, the stuff she loved and sometimes used too much of. I could hear her saying: “I can’t help it, darling; it’s so much nicer than formalin, and that’s what I usually smell of after a day at the hospital . . .” “Sorry, Jack,” I said evenly. “I didn’t know it was your howling-night. It’ll keep. Have fun.” He grimaced and left, almost waddling on his short legs. I grabbed my phone and slammed a connection through to my special detail in Business Espionage. “Put tails on Jack O’Shea,” I snapped. “He’s leaving the building soon. Tail him and tail everybody he contacts. Night and day. If I hit paydirt on this you and your men get upgraded and bonused. But God help you if you pull a butch.”
seventeen I got so nobody dared to come near me. I couldn’t help myself. I was living for one thing only: the daily reports from the tails on O’Shea. Anything else I tried to handle bored and irritated me to distraction. After a week there were twenty-four tails working at a time on O’Shea and people with whom he had talked. They were headwait-ers, his lecture agent, girls, an old test-pilot friend of his stationed at Astoria, a cop he got into a drunken argument with one night-but was he really drunk and was it really an argument?-and other unsurprising folk. One night, quietly added to the list was: “Consumer, female, about 30, 5’4″, 120 Ibs., redhead, eyes not seen, cheaply dressed. Subject entered Hash Heaven (restaurant) 1837 after waiting 14 minutes outside and went immediately to table waited on by new contact, which table just vacated by party. Conjecture: subject primarily interested in waitress. Ordered hash, ate very lightly, exchanged few words with contact. Papers may have been passed but impossible to observe at tailing distance. Female operative has picked up contact.” About thirty, five-four, one-twenty. It could be. I phoned to say: “Bear down on that one. Rush me everything new that you get. How about finding out more from the restaurant?” Business Espionage began to explain, with embarrassment, that they’d do it if I insisted, but that it wasn’t good technique. Usually the news got to the person being tailed and- “Okay,” I said. “Do it your way.” “Hold it a minute, Mr. Courtenay, please. Our girl just checked