Cue for Quiet Part 3

"Mr. Miller, I, speaking personally, know exactly how you must feel.

Close custody is as unpleasant for the jailor as it is for the jailee, if there is such a word, sir."

I snorted at that one. A jail is a jail, and the turnkey can walk out if he chooses.

"You must remember that you are and have been dealing with an official agency of the Government of the United States of America, of which you are a citizen; an agency that, officially or otherwise, can never be too careful of any factor that affects, however remotely, the security or safety of that Government. You understand that quite well, don't you, Mr. Miller?" He didn't wait to find out if I did. "For that reason, and for no other, you were brought here with the utmost speed and secrecy, and kept here."

"Oh, sure," I said. "I'm going to blow up a tax collector, or something like that."

He nodded. "You might."

"Blah. So you made a mistake. So you're sorry, so my wife is probably completely out of her head by now, I'm crazy myself, and you want to talk politics. All I want to know is this--when do I get out of here?"

He looked at me with an odd, queer smile. "This, Mr. Miller, is where the shock lies. I think, diametrically opposite to the opinions and, I might add, to the direct pleadings of some of my colleagues involved in this rather inexplicable affair, that you are the adaptable Teutonic type that likes to know exactly the odds against him, the type of man who likes to know where and when he stands."

"I know exactly where I stand," I told him. "I want to know just one thing; when do I get out of this rat trap?"

He mulled that over, his forehead wrinkled as he searched for the right words. "I'm afraid, Mr. Miller, very much afraid that you're going to get out of here very soon. But never out of any place else."

And with that he walked out the door before I could lift a finger to stop him.

But when they came after me to put me away I wasn't stunned. It took four of them, and one more that came in as reinforcement. They weren't rough deliberately, but they weren't easy. They had a time, too. I think I've been around long enough to know a few dirty tricks. I used them all, but I still went back to my room, or cell. I got no sleep at all for the rest of the night, nor most of the next night. I wondered if I could ever sleep again. If someone had mentioned "Helen" to me I likely would cry like a baby. I couldn't get her out of my mind.

When they came after me again they were all prepared for another argument. I didn't care, this time. Meekly I went along, back to that same conference room. Four men; the old man who had given me the spurs before, one of the high school boys, and a couple of uniforms. The old man stood up very formally to greet me.

"Good morning, Mr. Miller."

I snarled at him. "Good for what?"

One of the uniforms was indignant. "Here, here, my man!"

I let him have it, too. "In your hat, fatty. My discharge went on the books in forty-five!" He was shocked stiff, but he shut up.

The old man kept his face straight. "Won't you sit down, Mr. Miller?"

I sat. I still didn't like the chair. "This is General Hayes, and this is General Van Dorf." They nodded stiffly, and I ignored them. He didn't introduce the young man, not that I cared.

"Mr. Miller, we'd like to talk to you. Talk seriously."

"Afraid that I'll get mad and fly out the window?"

"I said seriously. It won't take long. Let's compress it into one short sentence without the preliminaries: give these gentlemen a demonstration like the last one."

I told him what he could do with his demonstration, and I told him what he could do with his generals. The high school boy grinned when I said that. He must have been old enough to have served in the army.

The generals were crimson. You don't get that kind of talk where they worked. But the old man was unperturbed. "Let's make that one sentence a paragraph. Give these gentlemen a demonstration as effective as the last--and ten minutes after, if you like, you can walk out of here free as the air."

I jumped at that. "Is that straight? If I do it again you'll let me loose?"

He nodded. "If you really want to."

I persisted. "Straight, now? On your word of honor?"

He wasn't lying. "If you want my word you have it."

I grinned all over like a dog. "Bring on your fans, or whatever you have cooked up."

The young man went out and came right back in with a little cartload of electric fans. Either they had too many for general use, or someone had very little imagination. Come summer, with Detroit ninety in the shade, they were going to miss their ventilation. Me, I was going to be a long way from the Federal Building. He set the fans on the desk, and the generals craned stork-like to see what was going on. The old man bowed to them.

"Name one, gentlemen. Any one you like." They named the middle one again.

I called my shots again, as free and easy as though I'd been doing it for years. "The middle one first, you say? No sooner said than done, gentlemen. Right? Right! Now the far left, and right down the line.

Eeney, meeny, and out goes me." They were all dead, and I stood up and asked the room, "Which is the express elevator to the main floor?"

The old man held up his hand. "One moment, Mr. Miller." He read my mind, which, at that second, wasn't hard to do. "Oh, no. You're free to go any time you so desire. But I would like to make this demonstration a little more convincing."

He meant it. I could go if I liked.

"You also, Mr. Miller, as I understand it, exhibit somewhat the same degree of control over internal combustion engines." And well he knew I did. That traffic tieup I'd engineered had traveled via newsreels all over the world. "Will you gentlemen step over to the window?" This was to me and the generals.

We all crowded over. I looked down and saw we were on the ninth floor, maybe the eighth or tenth. It's hard to judge distance when you're looking straight down.

"Mr. Miller--"

"Yeh?"

"If one of these officers will pick out a car or a truck down on the street below can you stop it? Stop it dead in its tracks?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"All right, then. General Hayes, we'll let you do the honors. Will you select from all those cars down there any particular item?"

I broke in. "Or any streetcar." I was feeling c.o.c.ky.

"Or any streetcar. I would suggest, General, that you choose a target for its visibility. One that you cannot mistake."

The uniforms were suspicious, as they conferred with their noses flat against the gla.s.s. They beckoned to me and pointed.

"That one there."

"Which one where?" They had to be more explicit than that.

"The big truck. The one with the green top and the pipe sticking out."

I spotted it. It slowed for a red light, and came to a complete stop.

I concentrated. Blow, Gabriel.