Part 3 (2/2)

”I'm sorry,” he said. ”But if you rise, I'll have to turn on my grav-plates and rise as well to be sure you don't try to call for help-which would be foolish since I don't wish to harm you. And since I would merely tell the police I was here for an interview and show them the notes I've made. I'd pretend you were a headline hunter.”

”Notes? But-”

”I made them beforehand. Just for such an eventuality as this.”

She smiled again. ”You are clever, aren't you?”

”I like to think so, yes.”

”Well, what is this favor?” She leaned back, sipped her own drink, her anger totally abated.

He hoped she would never meet someone who would be too sharp and cold to be won over by her charm and innocence. The proper sort of s.a.d.i.s.t could bring her world down in a day, could break and ruin her without half trying. It might have been nice to have been raised in a world where evil had not existed-but it could also be deadly never to have formed the proper methods to cope with enemies.

”You dated the late Klaus Margle, didn't you?” he asked.

He thought he saw her eyes eyes get a little gla.s.sy, as if she were holding back tears. When she spoke, there was a tremble in her voice. This amazed him when he considered the Klaus Margle he knew, a man without scruples or morals, willing to kill when the need arose. He supposed that it was possible that there was a totally different side to the man, though such a realization surprised him. He was relieved that the papers had not reported how Margle had died, and that the actual shootout was implied to be the doing of the police. ”I did,” she said. ”I went with him for a good while. He was like a little boy around me. Very gentlemanly. I just don't believe all these things in the papers.” get a little gla.s.sy, as if she were holding back tears. When she spoke, there was a tremble in her voice. This amazed him when he considered the Klaus Margle he knew, a man without scruples or morals, willing to kill when the need arose. He supposed that it was possible that there was a totally different side to the man, though such a realization surprised him. He was relieved that the papers had not reported how Margle had died, and that the actual shootout was implied to be the doing of the police. ”I did,” she said. ”I went with him for a good while. He was like a little boy around me. Very gentlemanly. I just don't believe all these things in the papers.”

”They're true,” he said as gently as he could.

”So you say.”

It was impossible to get angry at her, but he could feel anger at her almost cultured blindness to reality. He held his reaction in check and said, ”His brother is trying to kill me.”

Surprisingly, her response to this was not as naive as her comment about Klaus. ”I don't like Jon,” she said. ”Klaus you could always have fun with. He enjoyed life. I never saw Jon smile. I think he would have liked to take me away from Klaus. But he frightened me a little.”

”I want to get Jon Margle before he gets me,” he said.

Her face went sickeningly pale, and she took a long sip of her drink.

He realized what had terrified her, and he attempted to explain what he meant. ”I don't mean kill him. I just want to get him, for the police. If they want to execute him, they can. Or put him away for life. But I have to find some way to get something on him, or I won't have peace of mind.”

She ordered another drink, took the plastic bulb out of the receival tray, broke it and poured the contents into her gla.s.s. ”I don't understand what you want of me,” she said, her hands trembling.

”You must know other people in the Brethren.”

”No,” she said, clearly meaning it.

Her answer unsettled him for a moment, and then he realized how ignorant she might have been of Klaus Margle's other self. ”You know some of his close friends?”

”Yes, but they aren't-”

”Let me decide what they are and aren't,” he said. ”I want you to think very carefully about Klaus's friends. Was there any one of them who disliked his brother?”

”Many,” she said.

”Good. But think about them and come up with the one who liked Jon the least. Maybe someone who was terrified of him. Or contemptuous. Someone who would not like working under him.”

”I don't have to do any of this,” she said, genuine anguish in her voice. ”Why should I even sit here and listen to you tell me Klaus and his friends were gangsters?”

”Because they were,” he said. ”And if you don't cooperate on this little thing I want, I'll use the voice of Enterstat Enterstat to discredit you, to ruin your career.” to discredit you, to ruin your career.”

”Impossible!” she said, looking up, defiant. She was a good actress, and she knew it.

”Not if I lie,” he said. ”We'll fake evidence and write atrocious lies. And sure, you'll take us to court. But by then you'll be ruined. And even if you get a million or so in settlement, it can be absorbed by Enterstat Enterstat-not easily, I admit, but without ruining me. And I think you much prefer the art of acting to the money it makes for you. You are primarily an actress, not a moneymaker. Being blackballed from senso-films would hurt emotionally, not financially.” He saw that she believed him, but that she could hardly accept that anyone would be this cruel to her-or to anyone, for that matter. He had cracked her naivete, and he was not exactly pleased with himself. ”It's my life,” he said in a way of explanation and justification for his crudity.

”I think I know the man you need,” she said.

”When can I get in touch with him?” He was not happy with the way she slumped now, with the way he had broken her spirit.

”I can't just go phone him, if Jon is as deadly as people say. It will have to be-discreet.”

”Tomorrow,” he said. ”Make an excuse to see him if you must. But I can't wait longer than tomorrow. I might be dead if you don't help me soon.” He laid a card with his comscreen number on it on the coffee table. ”Call me as soon as it's arranged.”

”Tomorrow,” she said dismally.

He felt terrible. The yearning and the hollowness in him had been augmented now by a feeling of brutishness, of insensitivity. But, d.a.m.n, it, this was the only way to reach the girl, and through her was the only way to reach someone within the Brethren structure who might be willing, for the proper consideration, to turn over information that would send Jon Margle up the river. ”Tell him the money is unlimited. Almost any price he names within reason.”

He found his own way out. It seemed like several thousand miles miles ... ...

Almost twenty-four hours later to the minute, in the middle of Wednesday afternoon, she called him. Her face, larger than life on the comscreen, was painfully beautiful, though in no way as fascinating as it had been in person. She avoided his eye, staring at points beyond him in the room, staring down at her own hands which-he thought-twitched and intertwined in her lap. She spoke softly, almost inaudibly, like a small, embarra.s.sed child. He could not understand this. Had she been frightened, he could have reasoned why. But embarra.s.sment? ”In an hour,” she said. ”My place again.”

”I'm afraid not,” he countered, wis.h.i.+ng that she would look him in the eyes just once so that he could see that marvelous, s.h.i.+mmering sea-green once again. ”That could be too easy a trap. It has to be someplace public.”

She seemed confused, but then she flipped her long yellow hair out of her face and said, ”Huzzah Amus.e.m.e.nt Park,” as if the informer was sitting beside her, giving her instructions out of camera range. ”Around the-around the fountain. Where they throw coins and make wishes. An hour.”

”I'll be there,” he a.s.sured her.

She rang off, blanking the screen, though he stared at it for some minutes longer, retaining a vision of b.u.t.tery hair, tan skin, and a quick flash of green...

Timothy was oblivious to the stares he elicited as he entered the amus.e.m.e.nt park. He had long ago learned to live with the attention he drew, ignore it and rise above it. The sign of an ignorant and tasteless man, Taguster had once told him, was the tendency to stare at someone else who was different, whether they were abnormal in form or only in the clothing they chose to wear.

A number of people stood at the mammoth pool into which the fountain emptied its water and drew more to spout. They tossed coins into the blue water, trailed hands in the coolness of it. Then he caught sight of Polly London. She was wearing a relatively expensive pants suit and a large and floppy hat with great, round sungla.s.ses. Her hair was black-she was wearing a wig-but even that change in coloration could not camouflage her beauty. She seemed, in fact, even more stunning than before.

”He's around the fountain,” she said. ”It's not so public on the other side.”

”Let's go,” he said.

The pool had a diameter of two hundred feet, and to walk around its circ.u.mference required a good deal of nudging, jostling and-in Polly's case-trampled feet. In a few minutes, they broke out of the worst of the crowd, through scattered tourists, to the far back of the pool where the bench that rimmed it looked out onto woods and was screened from the other side by the rock tower of the fountain and the huge spray of water. Here there was only one couple, arms around each other, watching the rise of the water, and a small, thin, intense man in a dark suit. He rose as they approached, then sat down when Polly did. Ti hovered before them, very close so that whatever was said could be kept from the ears of the young lovers.

Introductions were made, and Ti discovered the man was Mr. Kealy; he thought it likely this name was a cover ident.i.ty. The thin man was nervous, looking about as if he expected someone to jump from one of the trees. ”I doubt your friends would be here,” Ti said, trying to rea.s.sure the man. ”It's hardly their form of entertainment.”

Kealy nodded, looked at Polly; their eyes locked a short moment She seemed to wince, and Timothy wondered what the two of them had just exchanged without benefit of words. ”Timothy,” Polly said, drawing his attention to her lovely face. ”Mr. Kealy wants to talk money first. He-” She abruptly stopped talking, raising a tightly clenched fist from her lap toward her mouth, and the look on her face gave Timothy almost enough warning.

He whirled as Kealy slipped the hypodermic syringe into his hip, just above the silver cap of his mobility system. Had it been a narcodart, he might still have had time to deflect it.

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