Rondine’s eyes came open, still hazy with sleep, saw me perched on the edge of the bed and smiled in that pleased way women have after a perfect night and she squirmed under the covers so that the sheet outlined the full sweep of her hips and the lazy curve of her legs. “Who was it, darling?”

“Business, kid.”

The hazy look faded and her eyes became bright with sudden anxiety. “Something wrong?”

“I don’t know.” I climbed into my clothes as quickly as I could, looked at myself in the mirror before deciding I could do without a shave for a while, then dropped the .45 into the speed rig on my belt and pulled on my coat.

“Will you be long?”

I bent over and kissed her lightly. Anything else and it would be too hard to tear myself away from her. “I’ll make it quickly as I can. You just stay put, baby. Don’t answer the door unless you get a ‘V’ rap. If I call I’ll let it ring once, hang up, then ring again. Anything else, ignore. Got it?”

She half sat up in the bed, the covers clutched at her throat. “Be careful, Tiger.”

“You know me.”

“That’s what I mean.”

Downstairs, the city was beginning to come back to life again. The early morning smells from the restaurants had seeped out into the canyons between the buildings to lure in the sidewalk marchers going to work. Two city trucks had already disgorged a dozen men near the corner where they were ready to finish a huge excavation in the street. New York, I thought, a self-perpetuating machine that never stopped. No matter where you looked, skeletal steel towered into the sky and gigantic troughs were gouged into the bedrock below. No place to build but up, and up they were going. I wondered what they’d do if they thought it could all come tumbling down in a single second.

Rather than take a cab, I let myself be fed into the maw of a subway entrance and boarded a downtown local. When I got off I spotted the house numbers, turned east and walked two blocks to the last remaining brownstones that had once lined the street and went up the steps to the vestibule and pushed the door open.

The greasy smell of cooking cut through the musty odor that was part of the building, coming from the apartment on the far end of the hall. Underfoot were a half dozen empty whiskey bottles, and the stairway to one side was packed with empty cartons and accumulated debris that would make a fire inspector turn green.

When my eyes were adjusted to the semi-gloom I snaked the gun out and went down the hall, staying close to the wall so the floorboards wouldn’t creak under my weight. The signal I tapped on the door had been prearranged, but I still didn’t take any chances. I stayed to one side ready to cut loose if anything was wrong at all.

Dave didn’t forget his manners either. He tapped back the right answer to get me at ease, opened the door on a chain, made sure of the identification, then swung it open all the way.

“Greetings, Tiger.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Come on in. We have a little party going.”

I stepped in with the .45 still ready, cut to one side as I swept the room with my eyes, then stuck the rod back in my belt when I got the picture. There was only one other in the room aside from Dave, a scrawny little guy with a scared face who kept gulping rapidly even though he was dry as a bone.

“Couldn’t you pick a better hotel?”

Dave grinned at me as he double locked the door. “His digs,” he said. “Meet Earl Mossky. They call him The Creeper. That right, Earl?”

The guy’s head bobbed and in a surprisingly deep voice he said, “Yeah, that’s me.”

Dave waved a thumb at me. “He’s the one I told you about, Earl. Tiger Mann.”

Earl Mossky’s eyes narrowed and he gulped again. “I know about him.”

“How?” I asked.

“Word gets around.” He fidgeted in his chair and picked up the stump of a chewed cigar and lit it, never taking his eyes off me.

“What’s the pitch, Dave?”

“Earl here is a pusher. Small time, but he’s been at it a long time.”

“Never picked up neither,” the guy added.

“Deals strictly in H,” Dave told me. “Poolroom trade, mostly, but it keeps him in bread and he doesn’t have any big ideas about expanding.”

“It ain’t healthy,” Earl muttered.

“So he’s got a story to tell.”

“Let’s hear yours first,” I said to Dave.

He pointed to a sway backed chair and pulled one up for himself. “I’ll skip the details, but I picked up word of the buy Vito Salvi made. What Don Lavois found in the crapper in the guy’s room wasn’t the whole catch. That was only part of it. That right, Earl?”

“Hell, he went for a kilo. That’s two-point-two pounds of junk and he got in at base rates. Paid five hundred an ounce off the ship.”

I sat back and stared at the guy. “How do you know?”

The little guy puffed on the cigar, took it out of his mouth with distaste and stubbed it out under his foot. “You stick in this racket long enough and you get to know everything. Those guys transporting the stuff are like friends of mine, see? So they’re footing the bill one night for a smash down at Pecky’s Place and they let me in on this laugh how I should be on their side of the fence. They got two grand apiece for bringing the stuff in while I’m still hustling pennies.”

Dave said, “Pure stuff. By the time they make the final cut a kilo of H is worth a few million.”

“This guy who bought it,” I said.

Earl shrugged. “I keep my nose long, buddy. I wanted a look at this character because he wasn’t local. It was some kind of a special deal set up ahead of time. It was the same one this guy showed me the picture of.”

“Salvi,” Dave added.

“Go on.”

“That’s all. He took the can and bugged out. You think I’m gonna poke around?”

“How’d he pay for it?”

“Clean cash, buddy. Ninety G’s and no arguing.”

“Where did the split go?”

Earl Mossky shrugged again and squirmed in the chair. “I don’t ask that either. The boys already left on another trip to the Persian Gulf and if you want you can find out from them. You won’t get nothing though. The big ones don’t leave no holes to look through. Someplace they just passed over the dough, got theirs and forgot about it.”

“One more question, Earl,” I said.

“Go ahead, you’re giving the party.”

“Where do you fit in?”

“I hear somebody’s paying off big for some nice quiet talk, the kind that don’t backfire. I want a trip to Miami for my health.”

Dave said, “If you’re satisfied, Grady’s authorized a bundle for him.”

“Let him have it then,” I told him.

“Make any sense?”

I stood up and reached for my hat. “It will. There’s a new dimension added now. I can think of only two reasons why they would want to make a buy as big as that and in so much of a hurry they’d have to take a chance and get it direct from an importer.”

“Oh?” Dave was looking at me quizzically.

“You figure it out,” I said. I started for the door.

Behind me Earl Mossky said, “What about my dough?”

Dave took a key out of his pocket and handed it to him. “In a locker at the bus terminal waiting for you. My advice to you is not to blow it around here or somebody else will be asking questions. Catch?”

“Buddy,” he nodded, fingering the key with a hungry look, “I lived a long time and I figure to live a little while longer. I know the answers.”

We waited until we got to the Times Square station before calling in our report to Newark Control. Virgil Adams was calling in another team to probe the area to see if any of the Salvi buy had been peddled off and putting through an overseas query to try and run down the reason for the direct contact. Dave Elroy was to stay on Don’s original assignment of backtracking Salvi, and if possible, to pick up his source of financing. The Soviet network was tight enough to make it a tough job, but someplace there was always a hole you could sneak through if you found it.

At ten o’clock I angled over to Ernie Bentley’s lab and went upstairs to where he was buried among his reports and poured myself a steaming mug of coffee. When I gave him the rundown he nodded as if I were reading off the ball scores and finished what he was doing before deciding to answer me.

“Got yourself a lot of pieces, haven’t you?”

“Too damn many.”

“Nothing leading to Louis Agrounsky?”

“No.”

“Maybe I got something,” he said. He walked to his desk, pawed through some mail and came up with a dye-smeared envelope and pulled out the letter inside. “One of the suppliers of sub-mini parts Agrounsky corresponded with. A few years ago he submitted several pieces for inspection and the manufacturer was pretty interested. Agrounsky came up with a few unheard of ideas that had a big potential. He wrote several times and got no answer until I contacted him. Right now he’s pretty interested in re-establishing contact himself. In view of the new space developments Agrounsky’s ideas can come in handy.”

“No address?” I asked him.

“Just his Eau Gallie house.”

“Damn!”

“But there’s a lead. He apparently wrote his last letter on his friend’s stationery. Guy named Vincent Small, address, 37 Meadow Lane, Eau Gallie, Florida.”

“We’re back to there again.”

“It started down there, didn’t it?” Ernie said simply.

“They’ve gone all over that route, Ernie. I.A.T.S., the other bureaus, our own teams. We have to pick it up closer than that.”

“But you haven’t, Tiger buddy,” he reminded me.

I looked across the room at him, sipping at the coffee.

“Okay,” I finally said, “it might be worth a try. I’ll clean up the loose ends here first and see what I can pick up in that section.”

“Then keep the plane up here. If you need special equipment I’ll send it down.”

“Keep your toys to yourself,” I said.

“They saved your tail a few times.”

“I don’t like the instability factors involved.”

“So we all make mistakes. Besides, those details have been smoothed over. I have a new gadget here....”

“Save it,” I grinned at him. “I’ll stick with the old fashioned way.”

“You and that damn gun,” he said.

At noon I met Charlie Corbinet at the Blue Ribbon, took a table upstairs and waited until our order was taken before I gave him the latest developments. Charlie let me finish and said, “I’ll get with the Treasury Department on that heroin buy this afternoon.”

“Lay off my sources.”

“Don’t sweat it. You know me better than that.”

“What did you hear from Washington?”

Charlie reached down and laid a manila envelope on the table between us. “There’s all the UR’s from the security department. Doug Hamilton turned in thirty-four and half of them checked out with unsatisfactory reports from prior investigations. Several were known or suspected Commie agents and the rest we’re working on.”

“Any description fit Agrounsky?”

“None. But then, we haven’t checked them all out yet. A batch are itinerant workers who showed up for simple laboring jobs, but their associations were listed as n.g., so they were disqualified. All this went through Belt-Aire Electronics before it was submitted to Washington anyway.”

“That’s what Camille Hunt told me.”

Our waiter came along then, laid the lunch down with a flourish and went to get coffee. Charlie watched me across his plate, his eyes bright. “You two got along pretty well, didn’t you?”

“Why not?”

“Hal Randolph dug into Belt-Aire pretty thoroughly.”

“So?”

“You know they have top priority in the new space project?”

“Uh-huh.”

“To what extent?”

“That’s Martin Grady’s business.”

“Then let me fill you in.... What they’re proposing can put the balance of power on our side. Mention Belt-Aire in Washington and you’re in for a security check no matter who you are. They want nobody poking around. This is getting pretty damn touchy. Even we don’t know the full extent of the operation. That’s a highly sensitive area and if anything goes haywire there will be hell to pay.”

“It can’t be any worse than it is,” I said.

“No, but now everybody is running scared. We haven’t got much time to break something loose. I get the feeling the Reds are closer than we are and if they let the cat out of the bag this is going to be one shook up country.”

“I don’t need any reminding, Charlie. I was there at the beginning, remember?”

“Then keep your memory refreshed. What do you plan to do with this information?”

“Exactly the same as you—check it out step by step, only from a different direction. Can I have these names?”

“They’re yours ... all copies of the original.”

I took the folder and put it beside me. “How does Hal Randolph like me being dead?”

“He’d like it better if it were true. My advice is to stay in touch, Tiger. Daily reports ... the works. He’s scared stiff you might do something that will trigger the works and I can’t blame him. Right now we can’t take any chances.”

“The chance was taken when they hired Agrounsky,” I said. “If he decides to use that by-pass control then we’ve had it.”

“Hasn’t everybody?” Charlie told me softly.

When we left I gave him a five minute start before I cleared out through the bar entrance. On Sixth Avenue I picked up a cab that was discharging a passenger on the corner, had the driver let me off a block away from my quarters, and walked the rest of the way.

I gave the bell the V signal, did the same thing with a tap on the door and let Rondine throw off the locks. Even then she was being careful, the little automatic in her hand being on full cock until she was certain it was me.

She shut the door, locked it securely and followed me inside. “I was beginning to get worried,” she said.

I grinned and pushed a chair up for her at the table. “Don’t waste time doing that,” I told her. “It takes away from other things.”

“There was an item in TV about the incident at my place again. The police are supposedly still investigating.”

“Eyewash. They’ll keep it up a couple of days and let it quiet down.”

“Weren’t you taking a chance going out in the daylight?”

I shook my head. “Not in this town, kid. People are like ants. You can’t tell one from the other unless an army is searching for you. I played it cool.”

“And your ... meeting?”

Briefly, I gave her the details, then dumped the contents of the envelope out on the table. “I want you to do something for me. For a while you’ll be free to move around and since you’re not generally known it might work.”

“Oh?”

I looked up at her, knowing my face had that tight expression again. “You’ve been well trained for this work, baby. You have the background and experience and I need your help.”

She didn’t hesitate. She knew the implications as well as I did and her own future was involved with everyone else’s. “Just ask, Tiger.”

“Here is a list of people I want you to run down. I.A.T.S. ran a check already with no results, but there’s a lot of difference when they ask questions and a dame does. Even if these people aren’t available, I want background material on them, their associations, and angle for any possible Commie affiliations. You have people attached to your British Embassy you can call in if you need help.... They’ll know how to proceed ... and I’ll keep a constant contact with you here.”

“And where will you be?”

“Eau Gallie, Florida. I’m picking it up from there.” I wrote down two phone numbers, Ernie Bentley’s and that of Newark Control with an identification name that meant she was clear to use our lines of communication and be given limited information. I let her study the numbers until she had them memorized, then burned the slip they were written on. “Dave Elroy will be available and if anything turns tough, you duck out and let him take over. Just make sure you don’t stick your neck out. The ones we’re bucking play for keeps and being a woman won’t keep you alive. Understand?”

“I understand.”

I slid a sheaf of bills across the table and said, “This will keep you going until I get back. If you have to pay off for any information, contact the Newark number and it will be arranged. And don’t hesitate to buy what is up for sale. Money is the cheapest thing we have in our business.”

“Tiger ...”

“What?”

Something had changed in her face. There was a seriousness there I hadn’t seen before and her eyes were those of others I had known before in bomb shelters, scanning the ceilings above them as though they could see through them to the hordes of death dealers flying high in the night above.

“Do you ... really think you should have such a part in all this? Isn’t it better left to those ... equipped to handle a ... a situation of this sort?”

My teeth were together so hard they almost cracked. “Like who, baby?”

“Our governments. They...”

“They’re composed of great guys,” I almost hissed. “... mainly. But in the ranks are too damn many selling us out through sheer stupidity ... or cupidity ... or avariciousness ... or because they got caught with their pants down and face public exposure through blackmail. No, kitten, guys like me belong here. We’ve been here a long time and are going to stay. When one goes another takes his place, but somebody is always there to make up for the tacky ones who masquerade under cute government titles. They’re not elected ... the people can generally see through them if they try. But they’re appointed or assigned to critical posts and suddenly we have a new pseudo-government functioning on collegiate political philosophy or the theoretics of some obscure but red-tainted brain hoping that someday he’ll be holding the reins of a one world dictatorship. You want me to mention names? Hell, I can give you fifty offhand from your country and this one. I can make your hair curl with what I know and the public should know, but to protect themselves the biggies upstairs keep these babies under cover with a little pressure and promises here and there. So think it over. You’ve heard it all before from me. At least we’re a damned talented bunch in a strange way, but we get things done nobody else can do and we’re not hamstrung by niceties or afraid of losing our jobs ... and we sure don’t worry about what anybody else thinks about us, either.”

Rondine absorbed it all, but the expression never left her face.

Age, I thought, she should have been there during the war. She was too young to know what it really meant, and unless you experienced the double dealing and the killing you could never really understand. You had to know the meaning of death and face it time after time before the calluses grew. You had to hold death in your hand and expose an enemy to it to stay alive yourself ... then each time became easier and you became better at living and knowledgeable in the ways of this crazy world so that you became formidable as an opponent and could deal in extremes no matter the cost.

It was what I didn’t say that made the impression. Her eyes seemed to bore inside me and search my mind for the hidden answers and what she saw satisfied her, and very slowly her face relaxed into that classic beauty so much her own. I felt that warm turmoil start in my stomach again.

“I’m sorry,” she said simply.

“Forget it,” I grinned. “It’s a new game to you and I’m an old soldier.”

Her teeth showed a flash of white in a terse smile. “You’re forgetting, Tiger. In a way, I’m an old soldier too. Twice before ...”

“Forget that too,” I said.

“Should I?”

I studied her face, my eyes going narrow again. “No ... maybe it’s better you remember it after all. It might keep you on your toes.”

Mason was at Newark Airport with the converted F-51 gassed and warmed up. While he filed his flight plan I stowed my suitcase in the wells that used to house the .50 calibre guns and climbed into the back seat. Ten minutes later we were airborne and headed south, climbing to eight thousand above the overcast that blanketed New Jersey below. When Mason leveled off he held the ship at maximum cruise, made a gas stop at Charleston, South Carolina and was back in the blue again in twenty minutes. An hour and ten minutes later we let down into the traffic pattern of the field a little south of Eau Gallie, landed and taxied up to the transient hangar.

The car I had arranged for earlier was waiting and I got in after telling Mason to be available at any time. He grinned, nodded, and headed off for a cold beer someplace. I didn’t ask for directions to the motel I was quartered at until I reached town, then found the place not far from the beach and signed in under T. Marvin from New York City. Aside from Newark Control and Ernie Bentley, nobody knew where I was staying and until a break came, I wanted to keep as much of a cover as I could.

At eight fifteen I showered and dressed, grabbed a bite at the adjacent restaurant, got directions to Meadow Lane, and drove off in that direction. Number 37 was a red brick ranch-type house set back from the road, surrounded by a hodge-podge of foliage with huge red blooms that gave off a sickly sweet odor and seemed to attract a horde of pale blue butterflies. I turned in the driveway, parked behind a new Chevy convertible and killed the engine.

I didn’t have to knock. The door opened as I went up the flagstone steps and a short, chunky guy with a big friendly smile grinned up at me and said, “Hello, hello. I’m Vincent Small. Something I can do for you?”

I shook hands with him, almost smothering his with my own. “My name’s Mann, Mr. Small. I’m trying to locate a friend of mine and if I can bother you a few minutes, maybe you can help.”

“Why sure ... sure. Come on in. Always glad to help out.” He ushered me in, closed the door and waved me into a spacious living room lined on two sides with fully packed bookshelves. “Make you a drink?”

“Fine. Whatever you’re having.”

“I’m for a beer.”

“Good enough.”

He popped open two cans, held one out to me and sat down in a wicker rocking chair opposite me. “Now,” he said, “what’s your problem?”

“You knew Louis Agrounsky, didn’t you?”

“Lou? Why, certainly. Is he the one you’re looking for?”

I took a pull of the beer and put the can on the floor beside me. “Uh-huh.”

His grin took on a puzzled twist. “Now that’s very funny.”

“What is?”

“Poor Lou ... having everybody looking for him and all the while he was right here he was a lonely guy who never knew a soul. Never saw anybody so much alone. Even after his accident when he couldn’t work any more, nobody but Claude Boster or me ever saw him.”

“He wasn’t the type who made friends easily, Mr. Small. His work required so much secrecy the habit rubbed off on him.”

Small nodded agreement, his mouth pursed in thought. “You’re right there. Never could get him into conversation about his job. Never really tried,” he added. “You understand that, of course. With Claude he always talked about his hobby—those miniature electronics he played with. Whenever we were together it was always philosophy.”

“That your hobby?” I asked.

“Goodness no,” he laughed. “That’s my profession. Teach it over at Bromwell University. Lou and I both graduated from there. I was two years ahead of him, but we became good friends when we roomed in the same dorm. Lou never studied philosophy ... majored in mathematics and all that, but after he had his breakdown he became interested in the subject and researched it as much as I did. It seemed to relieve him.”

“I didn’t think that breakdown was that serious,” I said.

Small shrugged and sipped his drink. “It wasn’t, really. Overwork, I think. Lou really crammed harder than most. He was capable of absorbing it all, but the late hours finally caught up with him. No sleep, hours of study, a part time job ... that’s a little too much for anybody.”

“He really change after that?”

“He learned not to push too hard,” Small told me. “He changed jobs and kept more reasonable hours.” He frowned in thought a moment, then added, “He became more introspective, I’d say. Social behavior seemed to concern him ... the state of the world ... that sort of thing. We spent many an hour discussing it from a philosophical viewpoint.”

“What was his?”

“Now that,” Vincent Small said, “I was hoping you could tell me. Lou never did arrive at a conclusion. He would ponder the subject endlessly, but never found an answer.”

“What philosopher ever did?”

He glanced at me, surprised at the tone of my voice. “Ah, Mr. Mann, I take it that you’re a realist.”

“All the way.”

“And philosophy ... ?”

“Doesn’t fit the facts,” I answered him.

His eyes brightened with humor, sparkling at the possibility of argument, seeing me take a fall. “Offer an example.”

“Where do you go when you die?” I said. Before he could answer I grinned and put in, “And prove it.”

Then, like all the others who strive so hard to make the simple difficult, he threw it back to me again because he didn’t know. “Maybe you’d like to offer your version.”

“Sure,” I said, and finished the beer. “Six feet down.”

“Ah, Mr. Mann ... that’s so ...”

“Practical?”

“But...”

“Ever go to a funeral?”

“Yes, but then ...”

“And where did the body go?”

“Realists are impossible to talk to,” he smiled.

“Ever kill a man, Small?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, I have. Quite a few. That’s fact, not philosophical nonsense. It’s real and complete. It makes you think about more things than all the trivia Plato or Aristotle ever dealt out.”

Small threw me a peculiar glance and put his empty can on the table beside him. “Mr. Mann ... you’re a strange sort of person for Lou to have known. May I ask how you came to meet him?”

“I haven’t yet,” I said. “I hope to before somebody else does, though.”

“That sounds rather mysterious.”

“It isn’t. It’s something that can’t be explained because it involves his work, but it’s damned serious and I want to find him.”

“Yes.” He nodded, suddenly concerned. “I can believe that.”

“You mentioned other people interested in locating Louis Agrounsky....”

“Several.”

“They identify themselves as the police or a government agency?”

“It wasn’t me they approached.”

“Oh?”

“Claude Boster mentioned it. He was queried twice by persons saying they were Lou’s friends and when he ran into one of Lou’s former associates at the project, that one had been approached too. However, neither could supply any information. Lou seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.”

“No communication at all?”

“None whatsoever. Now, may I ask you a question?”

“My pleasure.”

“What is your interest in this?”

“Money, Mr. Small,” I said. “My employer wants to purchase one of Agrounsky’s inventions very badly, and if I can locate him before the competition, I’m in, so to speak.”

“Then you’re a ... a ...”

“Call it investigator.”

“And you’ve killed people,” he stated.

“Only when it was necessary.”

“Do you think it will be necessary in this case?”

“There’s a distinct possibility. We’re at war, Mr. Small. Right now a cold war, but war nevertheless.”

His nod was solemn. “I see. And the competition isn’t the local commercial variety.”

I didn’t answer him. I didn’t have to.

Finally he said, “Can you identify yourself, sir?”

“Curious?”

“All philosophers are.”

“Then call the New York office of I.A.T.S. and ask for Charles Corbinet. He’ll be glad to supply my ID.”

“Perhaps I will,” he told me. “You interest me strangely. This whole affair is very peculiar. It will make for some curious speculation.”

“Don’t philosophize on it, Small. If you can think of any place Agrounsky might be, keep it to yourself. I’ll contact you off and on while I’m around. That is ... if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. Lou’s disappearance disturbs me deeply. I’m quite concerned for him.”

I got up, stuck my hat on and held out my hand to Vincent Small. “Thanks for the talk.”

“No bother at all.”

“Know where I might locate Claude Boster right now?”

“Without a doubt. He’ll be in his shop behind his house, brains deep in hairlike wiring, circuits he’s trying to reduce to pea size, and a headache as big as a house from squinting into microscopes.”

And he was right. Twenty minutes after I left Vincent Small I was watching Claude Boster through the casement window of his small machine shop, back hunched over a small lathe he operated under an enlarging glass, stopping occasionally to rub his head over one ear and make a grimace of disgust.

When I knocked he shut off his power and shuffled to the door, opened it to peer out at me, and said, “Yes?”

“Claude Boster?”

He nodded. “That’s right.”

“Mann is my name. I just came from Vincent Small who suggested I see you about a matter.”

Small’s name wiped the puzzled frown from his face. “Oh. Yes, please come in.”

I walked inside, took in the entire room with a sweep of my eyes, gauging the extent of his activities and cataloguing them in my mind. Although the layout was compact and gave no illusion of any size whatsoever, it was an extensive operation with equipment well into the five figure mark.

At one corner was a table with two metal chairs and Boster pulled one out, offered it to me and sat in the other one. “Now, Mr. Mann ...”

“Louis Agrounsky. I’m looking for him.”

A shadow seemed to pass over Boster’s face and his eyes had a withdrawn look. “Yes, indeed,” was all he said.

“I understand you’ve been approached before.”

“That is correct. I also understand that Louis was engaged in project work that put him in a special category.”

“There’s no security involved now. There’s a commercial aspect of one of his inventions I’m interested in. I’m authorized to locate him if possible.”

“By whom, sir?”

Sometimes you have to go all the way and I did the same thing with him I did with Vincent Small. I told him to contact I.A.T.S. in New York and ask for Charlie Corbinet. He studied me a moment, then, without answering, pulled a phone out from under the desk, dialed the operator and gave her the information. The call went through in thirty seconds and Claude Boster had Charlie on the other end giving him my name, a description, then handed the phone to me. I talked for ten seconds more, enough so Charlie was certain it was me, then handed the phone back. What he said satisfied Boster and he hung up.

“Cloak-and-dagger business, eh?”

I shrugged, watching his face relax, and said, “Can we get to Agrounsky now?”

He opened his palms helplessly. “What can I say? Louis just disappeared.”

“People like him don’t just disappear.”

“He did,” Boster insisted.

“How well did you know him?”

“We were good friends, Mr. Mann. Closer, perhaps, from a technical viewpoint than a social one, but friends. I presume you know about his hobby.”

“Slightly. You both seem to have the same one.” I nodded toward the rest of the room.

“With me it isn’t a hobby. It started that way, but it’s serious work now. Miniaturization is a vital aspect of most engineering developments today and offers me a comfortable livelihood. I only wish Louis were with me now. I hate to admit it but he was well ahead of me in the major stages of mini-work.”

“You familiar with the details?”

Boster shook his head. “Unfortunately, no, otherwise I would be tempted to duplicate his experiments. If his work is lost to the world, it’s a great pity.” He sighed and leaned back in the chair. “Louis was a genius,” he said simply.

“How great?”

“Possibly one of the greatest. There was a power unit he developed that could be activated remotely, capable of lighting an entire house. The whole thing was small enough to hold in the hollow of your hand. His subminiature circuits, even at that time, were several times smaller than my most recent refinements, and I might say that I am foremost in this particular field at this moment. Yes, it was quite a pity.” He looked up at me seriously and added, “Have you any idea where he might be?”

“No.”

Claude Boster nodded again. “I believe you,” he told me. He seemed to purse his lips in thought, then: “But it is strange. He was always so vitally interested in his work. You see ... he too believed that subminiaturization was the answer to the complicated technical problems that beset space projects. He searched for the answers and found them. Then ... it was all changed. It was that accident,” he mused.

“The car wreck?”

“That’s right,” Boster agreed. “It seemed to be nothing at first. After he was released from the hospital everything seemed to be all right, then he started to change.”

“How?”

Boster made an impatient gesture. “Oh, nothing definite. He ... he seemed withdrawn, distant. We weren’t as close any more. It was a surprise to me when he sold everything and left. I never heard a word from him.”

“No complaints about the accident ... no permanent injury?”

“He never mentioned anything and he seemed fit enough except for periods of extreme nervousness. At these times he’d leave for a few days and come back feeling better. I assumed he merely rested somewhere. We never discussed it.” Boster paused, thought a moment, then went on. “Those periods became more frequent. Frankly, I couldn’t understand it and since he was loath to talk about it, I never mentioned it. Such a pity.”

“And he left no records?” I prompted.

Boster smiled wistfully. “None. I inquired personally. I searched what little effects he had here and found nothing. In fact ... one day ... it was one of those times when he was feeling very badly ... he mentioned in passing that when he completed his special project he was going to destroy all written details of it. Frankly, I didn’t think he would. It was much too unscientific a thing to do, so I passed it off to his condition. But ... I guess he meant it, all right.”

I took a cigarette from the pack, offered one to Boster, and lit them up. “He ever discuss politics with you?”

“Never. The subject didn’t seem to interest him. Only his work was important.”

I said, “He discussed philosophy with Vincent Small.”

“That and politics are far different matters. Occasionally he would make statements that seemed to be connected with his work—whether or not the world should exist with such products in its hands ... that sort of thing. A bit incoherent, I thought. The present world situation always distressed him, but doesn’t it everyone?”

“Everyone with sense,” I agreed.

“A few times he left and didn’t return for three days.”

“I see,” I said absently.

“I wish I did, Mr. Mann.”

“Well, thanks for the talk.”

“Did I help?”

“Everybody helps somehow or other. I may call on you again. If anything occurs to you, keep it in mind.”

“Gladly. I wish I could do more. He had few friends and I doubt if any of us could give a complete picture of him. However, you might consult the doctor who attended him after the accident. During that time he was fairly close to Louis. At least he saw him several times a day.”

“Remember his name?”

“Carlson. Dr. George Carlson. He has his own clinic now one block from the shopping center.”

I stood up and held out my hand. “I’ll do that. And thanks. Hope I didn’t put you out.”

“Not at all.”

Boster went to the door and opened it for me. I stuck my hat on and flipped my cigarette out into the night, watching it arc like a tiny flare ... and that pinpoint of light saved my skin because it was cut off briefly by something that moved in front of it and I shoved Boster back with one hand and hit the floor even as two shots blasted above me and ricocheted around the room behind us.

There wasn’t time to get the .45 out ... barely enough to kick the door shut and yell, “The lights!”

Boster hit a switch by the door sill and the room went dark. I said, “Stay there,” then yanked the door open, pulled the gun from the sling and cocked it, then went out into the night in a diving roll, hoping I wasn’t going into a sucker trap.

I hit the bushes, waited, watched for movement against the lights in the background, but whoever it had been hadn’t waited to see the results of his attempted kill. When I was sure the area was clear I went back inside, turned the lights back on and had Boster pull the blinds shut.

“Mr. Mann,” he said, his breath caught in his throat. “What ... was that for?”

“I don’t know, friend,” I said. “I’m just curious about one thing.”

“What ... is that?”

“Were they shooting at me ... or you?”