When she suggested it, her mother had given her a long, steady stare. “I shouldn’t mention that to your father if I were you,” she’d said.
“Well, aren’t you married?” had been Lora’s caustic retort. And that began the row that drove her out.
She realized suddenly that while she was brooding, a trio of young blacks had appeared at the end of the street, near the scrap yard gate, and they’d spotted her. For an instant she was minded to rash back on the platform; the car was warming up for its return trip. Then she realized this was just the kind of thing she was after. She’d never had a black boy, let alone three of them at once.
Pausing after getting out of the hovercar, Magda Hansen looked down at the narrow concrete landing outside her apartment. There was a woman there-smartly dressed in dark blue, age indeterminate, heavily made-up, obviously wealthy and more likely to live in Lakonia than Cowville-who was wavering back and forth before the door. She poised her hand to press the bell, drew back, looked at the card saying CONSULTATIONS, made to turn away, and went through the whole cycle again.
Magda hoped fervently she would give up. But she didn’t.
“Are you-are you Magda Hansen?” the woman said hesitantly, seeing her come down the stairs from the hoverhalt.
“Yes.” Magda shook back her coarse black hair and
felt in her pocket for her key, the twin of Danty’s. “Why?.
“Well-uh-I’m Fenella Clarke. Avice Donnelly said I should come to you. She says you’re absolutely wonderful.”
“Kind of her,” Magda sighed. “So what do you want?”
“Help.” was the pathetic answer. “And I don’t know what kind.” She began to twist a platinum wedding-band around and around on her finger. “It’s-it’s the way it was with Avice. more or less.”
It would be. But Magda kept her face straight.
“So I thought-uh-I ought to talk to you, too.”
“Very well. Shall we say Monday at three?'”
Mrs. Clarke’s face fell. She said. “I was hoping . . .”
“No I’m sorry,” Magda cut in. “You must know from Avice that I can’t work a one-day miracle, and I have someone waiting inside right now.”
“But my husband . . . 1 Fluttering her hands. “You see. he’s gone to the West Coast, but he comes back Monday!”
“He wouldn’t approve?”
A helpless head-shake. Yes, that figured. If he was typical he’d say at once, “You’re not to waste my money on a quack!”
“Perhaps you’d rather leave it until the next time he’s away,” Magda suggested. “Otherwise Monday really is the earliest I can offer.”
“Very well,” Mrs. Clarke sighed, and turned away.
Danty was lying on one of the couches, eyes closed. Thinking him asleep. she entered quietly, but he heard her and called a greeting. She blew him a kiss and headed for the shower-stall. As she began to hang her clothes on a chair, she said, “How was it, Danty? Was it right?”
“Too right,” he answered, frowning. “A man came out of the sea. And there was another man waiting to take him away in a car.”
“Wasn’t that what you expected?”
“Yell” Danty sat upright with a jerk. “Yes, exactly! Magda, it’s getting so accurate, I’m worried!”
“You’d be a lot more worried if you’d gone to that much trouble for something that didn’t work out,” Magda said, and stepped into the shower. For the next couple
of minutes the noise of water was too loud for conversation; besides, another hovercar pulled up and the building trembled.
Then she emerged, wrapped a towel around her, and sat down facing him. She said, “I guess you’ve had enough time to make sense of what you saw?”
“Not really,” Danty muttered. “What do you think?”
“An East Bloc agent being landed?”
‘ “In a reserved area? Under the nose of radar and nuclear missiles? Jesus why? For all their talk of security, the borders aren’t tight-why not bring an agent in through Alaska, or Canada? The Cubans send theirs in through Mexico, don’t they? Hell, the guy came out of the biggest submarine I ever saw, and if I-”
He stopped dead in mid-sentence. Magda tensed.