Friday (43 page)

I punched the Tormeys’ Winnipeg call code, resigned to hearing: “The code you have signaled is temporarily out of service at the subscriber’s request.”

What I got was: “Pirates Pizza Palace!”

I muttered, “Sorry, I punched wrong,” and cleared the board. Then I punched again, most carefully—

—and got: “Pirates Pizza Palace!”

This time I said, “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m in Las Vegas Free State and have been trying to reach a friend in Winnipeg—but twice I’ve reached you. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“What code did you punch?”

I told the friendly voice. “That’s us,” she agreed. “Best giant pizzas in British Canada. But we opened just ten days ago. Maybe your friend used to have this call code?”

I agreed with that, thanked the pleasant voice, and cleared—sat back and thought. Then I punched ANZAC Winnipeg while wishing mightily that this minimum-service terminal could bring in a picture from farther away than Las Vegas itself; in trying to play Pinkerton it helps to watch faces. Once ANZAC’s computer answered, I asked for the operations duty officer, I having become somewhat more sophisticated in how to handle that computer. I told the woman who answered, “I’m Friday Jones, a New Zealand friend of Captain and Mrs. Tormey. I tried to call their home and could not reach them. I wonder if you can help me?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Really? Not even a suggestion?”

“I’m sorry. Captain Tormey resigned. He even cashed in his pension rights. I understand that he’s sold his house, so I assume that he is gone for good. I do know that the only address we have for him is his brother-in-law’s address at the University of Sydney. But we can’t give out addresses.”

I said, “I think you mean Professor Federico Farnese, Biology Department, at the University.”

“That’s right. I see you know it.”

“Yes, Freddie and Betty are old friends; I knew them when they lived in Auckland. Well, I’ll wait till I’m home to call Freddie and that will get me Ian. Thanks for being so helpful.”

“My pleasure. When you talk to Captain Tormey, please tell him that Junior Piloting Officer Pamela Heresford sends her best.”

“I will remember.”

“If you are going home soon, I have good news for you. The semi schedule for Auckland is now fully restored. We’ve run ten days of cargo-only and we are now certain that there is no longer any way our ships can be sabotaged. We are offering a forty percent discount on all fares now, too; we want to get our old friends back.”

I thanked her again but told her that, since I was in Vegas, I expected to leave from Vandenberg, then switched off before I had to improvise more lies.

Again I sat and thought. Now that the SBs were running should I go to Sydney first? There was—or used to be—a weekly trajectory from Cairo to Melbourne, and vice versa. If it was not running it was possible to go by tube and float craft via Singapore, Rangoon, Delhi, Teheran, Cairo, then down to Nairobi—but it would be expensive, long, and uncertain, with squeeze at every move and always the chance of being grounded by some local disturbance. I might wind up in Kenya without money enough to go up the Beanstalk.

A last resort. A desperate one.

I called Auckland, was unsurprised to be told by the computer that Ian’s call code was not operative. I checked to see what time it was in Sydney, then called the university, not doing it the routine way through its admin office but punching straight through to its biology department, a call code I had obtained a month back.

I recognized a familiar Strine accent. “Marjorie Baldwin here, Irene. Still trying to find my lost sheep.”

“My word! Luv, I tried, I did try, to deliver your message. But Professor Freddie never did come back to his office. He’s left us. Gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“You wouldn’t believe how many people would like to know! I’m not even supposed to be telling you this. Somebody cleaned out his desk, there’s no hide nor hair in his flat—gone! I can’t tell you more than that, because nobody knows.”

After that dismaying call I sat still and thought, then called the Winnipeg Werewolves Security Guards. I went as high as I could, to a man who described himself as Assistant Commandant, and told him truthfully who I was (Marjorie Baldwin), where I was (Las Vegas), and what I wanted, a lead to my friends. “Your company was guarding their home before it was sold. Can you tell me who bought it, or who the agent was who sold it, or both?”

Then I certainly wished for vision as well as sound! He answered, “Look, sister, I can smell a cop even through a terminal. Go back and tell your chief that he got nothing off us last time and he gets nothing off us this time.”

I held my temper and answered quietly, “I am not a cop although I can see why you might think so. I really am in Las Vegas, which you can confirm by calling me back, collect.”

“Not interested.”

“Very well. Captain Tormey owned a matched pair of black Morgans. Can you tell me who bought them?”

“Copper, get lost.”

Ian had shown excellent judgment: The Werewolves really were loyal to their clients.

If I had plenty of time and money, I might dig up something by going to Winnipeg and/or Sydney and rooting at it myself. If wishes were horses—Forget it, Friday; you are at last totally alone; you’ve lost them.

Do you want to see Goldie badly enough to get involved in a war in East Africa?

But Goldie did not want to stay with you badly enough to stay out of that war—doesn’t that tell you something?

Yes, it tells me something I know but always hate to admit: I always need people more than they need me. It’s your old basic insecurity, Friday, and you know where it comes from and you know what Boss thought about it.

All right, we go to Nairobi tomorrow. Today we write up the Black Death report for Gloria and for the Mortensons. Then get a full night’s sleep and leave. Uh, eleven hours time difference; try to get an early start. Then don’t worry about Janet and Co. until you get back from the Beanstalk with your mind made up about where to colonize. Then you can afford to spend your last gram in a flat-out attempt to find them…because Gloria Tomosawa will handle things once you tell her what planet you have picked.

I actually did get a long night’s sleep.

The next morning I had packed—same old jumpbag, nothing much in it—and was puttering around the kitchen, dumping some items and saving others with a note to my landlord, the leaseholder, when the terminal buzzed.

It was the nice gal with the six-year-old boy at HyperSpace. “Glad I caught you,” she said. “My boss has a job for you.”

(
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes
.) I waited.

Fawcett’s silly face showed. “You claim to be a courier.”

“I’m the best.”

“In this case, you had better be. This is an off-planet job. Okay?”

“Certainly.”

“Take this down. Franklin Mosby, Finders, Inc., suite six hundred, Shipstone Building, Beverly Hills. Now hurry; he wants to interview you before noon.”

I didn’t write down the address. “Mr. Fawcett, that costs you one kilobuck, plus round-trip tube fare. In advance.”

“Huh? Ridiculous!”

“Mr. Fawcett, I suspect that you may hold a grudge. It might strike you as funny to send me on a wild-goose chase and cause me to waste a day and the price of a round-trip fare to Los Angeles.”

“Funny girl. Look, you can pick up your fare here at the office—after the interview; you’ve got to leave now. As for that kilobuck, shall I tell you what to do with it?”

“Don’t bother. For master-at-arms I would expect only master-at-arms wages. But as courier… I am the best and if this man really does want the best, he will pay my interview fee without a second thought.” I added, “You’re not serious, Mr. Fawcett. Good-bye.” I cleared.

He called back seven minutes later. He talked as if it hurt him. “Your round trip and the kilobuck will be at the station. But that kilobuck is against your salary and you pay it back if you don’t get the job. Either way, I get my commission.”

“It will not be paid back under any circumstances, and you get no commission from me because I have not appointed you my agent. Perhaps you can collect something from Mosby but, if so, it does not come out of my salary or my interview fee. And I’m not going down to the station to wait around like a boy playing snipe hunt. If you mean business, you’ll send the money here.”

“You’re impossible!” His face left the screen but he did not clear it. His assistant came on. “Look,” she said, “this job really does have heat behind it. Will you meet me at the station under the New Cortez? I’ll get there as fast as I can make it and I’ll have your fare and your fee.”

“Certainly, dear. A pleasure.”

I called my landlord, told him I was leaving the key in the refrigerator and be sure to salvage the food.

What Fawcett did not know was that
nothing
could have induced me not to keep this appointment. The name and address was that which Boss had caused me to memorize just before he died. I had never done anything about it because he had not told me
why
he wanted me to memorize it. Now I would see.

All the sign on the door said was
FINDERS
,
INC
. and
SPECIALISTS IN OFF-PLANET PROBLEMS
. I went in and a live receptionist said to me, “They filled the job, dearie; I got it.”

“I wonder how long you will keep it. I’m here by appointment to see Mr. Mosby.”

She looked me over carefully, in no hurry. “Call girl?”

“Thank you. Where do you get your hair dyed? Look, I’m sent here by HyperSpace Lines, Las Vegas office. Every second is costing your boss bruins. I’m Friday Jones. Announce me.”

“You’re kidding.” She touched her console, spoke into a hushphone. I stretched my ears. “Frankie, there’s a floozie out here says she has an appointment with you. Claims to be from Hypo in Vegas.”

“God damn it, I’ve told you not to call me that at work. Send her in.”

“I don’t think she’s from Fawcett. Are you two-timing me?”

“Shut up and send her in.”

She pushed aside the hushphone. “Sit down over there. Mr. Mosby is in conference. I’ll let you know as soon as he is free.”

“That isn’t what he told you.”

“Huh? Since when do you know so much?”

“He told you not to call him Frankie at work, and to send me in. You gave him some backtalk and he told you to shut up and to send me in. So I’m going in. Better announce me.”

Mosby appeared to be about fifty trying to look thirty-five. He had an expensive tan, expensive clothes, a big, toothy smile, and cold eyes. He motioned me toward a visitor’s chair. “What took you so long? I told Fawcett I wanted to see you before noon.”

I glanced at my finger, then at his desk clock. Twelve-oh-four. “I’ve come four hundred and fifty kilometers plus a crosstown shuttle since eleven o’clock. Shall I go back to Vegas and see if I can beat that time? Or shall we get down to business?”

“I told Fawcett to see to it that you caught the ten o’clock. Oh, well. I understand you need a job.”

“I’m not hungry. I was told that you needed a courier for an off-planet job.” I took out a copy of my brag sheet, handed it to him. “Here are my qualifications. Look it over and, if I am what you want, tell me about the job. I’ll listen and tell you whether or not I’m interested.”

He glanced at the sheet. “The reports I have tell me that you are hungry.”

“Only in that it is getting on toward lunchtime. My fee schedule is on that sheet. It is subject to negotiation—upwards.”

“You’re pretty sure of yourself.” He looked again at my brag sheet. “How’s Kettle Belly these days?”

“Who?”

“It says here that you worked for System Enterprises. I asked you, ‘How is Kettle Belly?’ Kettle Belly Baldwin.”

(Was this a test? Had everything since breakfast been carefully calculated to cause me to lose my temper? If so, the proper response would be not to lose my temper no matter what.) “The Chairman of System Enterprises was Dr. Hartley Baldwin. I’ve never heard him called Kettle Belly.”

“I believe he does have some sort of a doctor’s degree. But everybody in the trade calls him Kettle Belly. I asked you how he is.”

(Watch it, Friday!) “He’s dead.”

“Yeah, I know. I wondered if you knew. In this business you get a lot of ringers. All right, let’s see this marsupial pouch of yours.”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, I’m in a hurry. Show me your bellybutton.”

(Just where did the leak occur? Uh—No, we killed that gang. All of them—or so Boss thought. Doesn’t mean it couldn’t have leaked from there before we killed them. No matter—it
did
leak…as Boss said it would.) “Frankie boy, if you want to play bellybuttons with me, I must warn you that the bleached blonde in your outer office is listening and almost certainly recording.”

“Oh, she doesn’t listen. She has her instructions about that.”

“Instructions she carries out the way she carries out your injunction not to call you Frankie during working hours. Look, Mr. Mosby, you started discussing classified matters under not-secure conditions. If you want her to be part of this conference, bring her in. If not, get her out of the circuit. But let’s have no more breaches of security.”