He let go. “Sorry. But where is he?” He looked at me. “And how do you know so much?”
“All in good time. There are records-hospital records, orphanage records, medical records. The matron of your orphanage was Mrs. Fetherage-right? She was followed by Mrs. Gruenstein-right? Your name, as a girl, was ‘Jane’-right? And you didn’t tell me any of this-right?”
I had him baffled and a bit scared. “What’s this? You trying to make trouble for me?”
“No indeed. I’ve your welfare at heart. I can put this character in your lap. You do to him as you see fit-and I guarantee that you’ll get away with it. But I don’t think you’ll kill him. You’d be nuts to-and you aren’t nuts. Not quite.”
He brushed it aside. “Cut the noise. Where is he?”
I poured him a short one; he was drunk but anger was offsetting it. “Not so fast. I do something for you-you do something for me.”
“Uh . . . what?”
“You don’t like your work. What would you say to high pay, steady work, unlimited expense account, your own boss on the job, and lots of variety and adventure?”
He stared. “I’d say, ‘Get those goddam reindeer off my roof!’ Shove it, Pop-there’s no such job.”
“Okay, put it this way: I hand him to you, you settle with him, then try my job. If it’s not all I claim-well, I can’t hold you.”
He was wavering, the last drink did it. “When d’yuh d’liver ‘im?” he said thickly.
“If it’s a deal-right now!”
He shoved out his hand. “It’s a deal!”
I nodded to my assistant to watch both ends, noted the time-2300-started to duck through the gate under the bar-when the juke box blared out: “I’m My Own Granpaw!” The service man had orders to load it with old Americana and classics because I couldn’t stomach the “music” of 1970, but I hadn’t known that tape was in it. I called out, “Shut that off! Give the customer his money back.” I added, “Storeroom, back in a moment,” and headed there with my Unmarried Mother following.
It was down the passage across from the johns, a steel door to which no one but my day manager and myself had a key; inside was a door to an inner room to which only I had a key. We went there.
He looked blearily around at windowless walls. “Where is ‘e?”
“Right away.” I opened a case, the only thing in the room; it was a U.S.F.F. Co-ordinates Transformer Field Kit, series 1992, Mod. II-a beauty, no moving parts, weight twenty-three kilos fully charged, and shaped to pass as a suitcase. I had adjusted it precisely earlier that day; all I had to do was to shake the metal net which limits the transformation field.
Which I did. “Wha’s that?” he demanded.
“Time machine,” I said and tossed the net over us. “Hey!” he yelled and stepped back. There is a technique to this; the net has to be thrown so that the subject will instinctively step back onto the metal mesh, then you close the net with both of you inside completely-else you might leave shoe soles behind or a piece of foot, or scoop up a slice of floor. But that’s all the skill it takes. Some agents con a subject into the net; I tell the truth and use that instant of utter astonishment to flip the switch. Which I did.
1030-V-3 April 1963-Cleveland, Ohio-Apex Bldg.: “Hey!” he repeated. “Take this damn thing off!”
“Sorry,” I apologized and did so, stuffed the net into the case, closed it. “You said you wanted to find him.”
“But- You said that was a time machine!”
I pointed out a window. “Does that look like November? Or New York?” While he was gawking at new buds and spring weather, I reopened the case, took out a packet of hundred dollar bills, checked that the numbers and signatures were compatible with 1963. The Temporal Bureau doesn’t care how much you spend (it costs nothing) but they don’t like unnecessary anachronisms. Too many mistakes and a general court martial will exile you for a year in a nasty period, say 1974 with its strict rationing and forced labor. I never make such mistakes, the money was okay. He turned around and said, “What happened?”