Excalibur And The Atom Part 5

PERMANENT.

Lynn got out. Guinn leaned across the seat and looked up at her. "I owe you an outfit."

"You do not. I owe you a whole lot more."

"A clout on the neck?"

"I got hit much harder than that," she twinkled. "Shall I come to your office tomorrow?"

"Call me," he said. Her face seemed to fall a trifle. He said, "I meant what I said about that, Lynn. Square yourself with your boss at the cafe."

"Thanks. Oh, thanks so much."

"I'm ahead." He waved his hand and started the car. He had to turn it around, and he sped past her place again she was still on the porch, tiptoe on her bare feet, waving.

Guinn parked the car in front of his building and sagged for a moment. He felt as if he had earned the luxury of letting his back bend for a few seconds. He thought.

He thought about Lynn, and about the extraordinary scene in the wood, about the man in the convertible who shot at girls and flayed off the skin on people's faces, strip by strip. He thought back and back through his day's work until he got to lunch time, where it started. The Morgan girl and her vagueness and her fantastic expense money. He took out his wallet.

In it were five one-hundred-dollar bills.

He sat very quietly, with his eyes closed.

She'd given him five centuries. He'd put three in the drawer before he left. At the hospital he'd found he had five left, not two. He'd given two hundred to Cheryl. Now he had five left instead of three.

He thought, there are two kinds of things going on around here. One is the kind of thing I understand, and the other is the kind of thing I don't understand.

Is that simple enough? he asked himself.

It should be.

I understand about guys who make rough pa.s.ses at girls. I understand about guys who torture people to get information from them. I even understand about girls who have guts enough to dive out of a moving car over the railing of a forty-foot cliff.

But I don't understand about men who can coax rabbits out to have their throats cut, and can pluck a .32 slug out of the air. I don't understand a guy who makes a chanting and somehow controls a girl's voice to synchronize with it like that. And I especially don't understand about this money.

Guinn sat up a little straighter: He knew he would be better off if he forgot the things he couldn't understand. He also knew that he couldn't. What he could do was seal them up in the back of his mind. Maybe he'd find the bridge between the known and the unknown; maybe some silly little piece of evidence would show up that would be the missing link. Until then, he wasn't going to beat his brains out.

He swung the door open, pulled out the ignition key, dropped it in his pocket and climbed out. He stretched. He felt tired. He kicked the car door closed and went into the building.

Old George, the night elevator man, was asleep on a battered rung chair, his Adam's apple still pretending it was a chin, and chewing. Guinn walked up the two flights. He was glad to be back. He thumbed out his door key and let himself into the dark waiting room, crossed to the inner office, turned on the light.

"h.e.l.lo," somebody said gravely.

He stood dangling his key stupidly. He was stiff with shock. Shock was a vise on his abdomen, a clamp on his heart, a quick-freeze on his lungs. He didn't show it.

"Please shut it. There's a draft," said the girl called Morgan.

Guinn tossed the key, caught it, put it away. He crossed the office and got behind the desk and sat down. He glowered at her. She sat where she had been before. Her legs were crossed and her hair gleamed and she still had the most exquisite mouth he had ever seen. Her skin was still young and her eyes ancient. Instead of the caped dress, she now wore a lime-colored number with a demure little white collar b.u.t.toned under her chin. There was another b.u.t.ton an inch above her waistline. Between the two b.u.t.tons the material separated, no wider than a finger, all the way down. This was a garment with something to say, and it made its points.

"I'd like a progress report," she said.

He snorted and reached for the phone, dialed. While he waited for the connection, he glared at her. If she had grinned at him he would have thrown the phone at her. She didn't grin. She watched him levelly, and waited.

"Sam," Guinn said into the phone. "Yeah, I know it's late. Look, I want you climb into your jalopy and take a trip. No-not tomorrow; now! Don't say that, chum. You know I wouldn't call you if it wasn't important. Okay, then...That's better.

"I want you to get up to Percival's cave. Yeah. No, he won't. Somebody knocked him off today. d.a.m.n you, would I kid about a thing like that? All right then. Sorry, I knew him a long time. Anyway, the wagon's come and gone by now, but his goats are still up there. I want you to round 'em up and take care of them. Yeah. And don't forget to milk the nannies. They've missed one milking already, maybe two, and that's no good. It hurts 'em.

"Right. All right, Sam. You're okay, you short-tempered old scut. Stay with 'em; I'll be up in the morning. Sam-thanks."

He put the phone down, took out his wallet, got out the five bills, dropped them on the desk, and pushed them across the desk with a pencil eraser. "Here."

She lowered her lids to look at the money. Her lashes almost touched her cheeks. When she was asleep they probably did. "What's that for?"

"It's your money. I don't want it. I don't want your case, either."

She nodded, almost placidly.

She picked up the money, opened the chartreuse and black handbag she carried, and dropped the money into it. "That's not all the money you've gotten from me, is it?"

"I gave you five."

Her gaze dropped to the desk. He cursed suddenly, viciously, ripped the drawer open and got the telephone bill. The old envelope tore in two as he pulled the banknotes out of it.

Three bank notes. C-notes.

He looked up at her, his face frozen. "The hand," he said, "is quicker than the-" He stopped, because he remembered saying, or thinking, the same thing just recently. This afternoon, or was it- She took the money and put it away in her purse. She asked, without smiling, without frowning either: "Why don't you want the case?"

He said, "I wouldn't be so foolish as to accuse you of sending me up on the Hill when you did just so old Percival would get what he got. But it figures the same way. I'll never live so long that I'll forget this afternoon-or the fact that you had something to do with it."

"How do you figure that?"

He reached behind him and switched on a hot plate. He swizzled the pot that stood on it to see how much water was in it. Satisfied, he turned back to her. "You've been asking questions about this stone, this cup, or whatever it is. Some hood figured it was valuable, went after it. Percival got-Miss Morgan, do you know what was done to him?"

"I can imagine."

He snorted. "The h.e.l.l you can."

She considered him in her expressionless way. "I take it you're going to drop the whole thing, then."

"I didn't say that. I said I didn't want your case. How far I chase down my own affairs is up to me."

Her expression changed, but there was no saying exactly how. It wasn't in the eyes, the mouth. It was, if anything, something inside. But now she looked pleased.

He was annoyed. "I gave you the money," he said pointedly. When she simply sat, watching him, he said, "And tomorrow I change that lock."

"Locks mean nothing to me," she said.

"They do to me, if they're mine. Miss Morgan, I think I'm taking up too much of your time."

"Oh, no." She shook her head solemnly.

He rummaged into his desk, found a jar of instant coffee and some restaurant-style containers. He spooned the powder into a container, switched off the hot plate, and poured steaming water into the coffee. He sat stirring it, looking at her. He didn't offer her any.

From his top right-hand drawer he got a handful of pretzel sticks. Dunking one, he stuck the end into his mouth.

"This is where you came in," he said.

She nodded.

"d.a.m.n it!" he exploded. "What are you after?"

She said, "Wouldn't it be better with rye?"

He had the container to his lips as she spoke. His nostrils distended. There's a distinctive odor to strong black coffee with a dollop of rye in it-and this had it.

Guinn's first reaction was to drop it; his second to throw it. His third was to drink it. He did none of these things. He put it down with a consciously controlled rock-steadiness. He selected a pretzel-stick carefully and dunked it. It tasted of rye. He finished it slowly, wiped his hand across his mouth, and took out a cigarette. As he clawed a book of matches up from the desk, the girl raised one hand from her lap and pointed a finger at him. Something like a swift b.u.t.terfly of flame whisked across from the finger to his cigarette, and was gone. He drew back violently, followed by a faint curl of tobacco smoke. He automatically dragged on the cigarette. It was lit, and the unexpected gout of smoke made him cough. He thought he smelled ozone.

"Do something else casual," said the girl, as quietly and offensively as ever. "I can keep this sort of thing up all night."

"Okay," he said harshly. "What's your story, Miss Morgan?"

"Look in your wallet."

"I know what's in the wallet."

"You do?"

A dangerous light came into his eyes. Silently he took out his wallet, opened it, drew out five one-hundred dollar bills and put them and the wallet down side by side on the desk.

"Very good." He wet his lips. I guess this means that the two yards I left at the hospital for Garry are phoney-if they're there at all. I'm beginning to like you, Miss Morgan."

"No," she said quickly. "They're real. They're all real."

"They come from some place."

"They come from people who won't miss it-or who shouldn't have it."

"How?"

"You wouldn't understand." There was no effrontery in her voice; she was stating a flat fact.

"I'm a pretty understanding guy," he said.

She rose and came close to the desk. She smelled of vanilla, and, faintly, of mignonette. She glanced back at the chair and gestured slightly. It slid across to her. It must have been lifted a fraction of an inch off the floor, because it made no sound. She sat in it and said, "Do you think you're going crazy?"

"No," he said positively. "If that's what you're after, you've done everything wrong."

"How so?"

He stretched out his legs. "I don't know that you've earned a lecture on the secrets of my success. But I don't mind telling you that I can be puzzled but not mystified. If I throw that switch, the hotplate lights up. I understand that. If Einstein tells me that light can only go just so fast, I don't understand it, but I accept it. If another five yards shows up in that wallet I won't understand it-" His fist came down with a crash-"and d.a.m.n if I accept it. Now, quit your skylarking around, or-"

"Or?"

He shrugged, suddenly, and smiled. "Or make sense."

The smile, apparently, worked. She smiled too, and it was the first time. He'd seen a lot of wonderful things today, but nothing like this.

"Pour us a drink, and I'll talk sense."

"I haven't got any liq-" he began, and then caught the bare suggestion of an amused crinkle at the corners of her age-old eyes. He opened the top drawer, then remembered what he had done with the bottle. He scooped it up out of the wastepaper basket and held it up. It had about two fingers in it. He raised his eyebrows resignedly and found a couple of shot-gla.s.ses under "G" in the filing cabinet. He poured. There was just enough to fill both gla.s.ses, and when he put the bottle down there was about two fingers of liquor surging around the bottom.

They lifted their gla.s.ses. It didn't look like any rye he had ever seen. It had gold flecks which were in constant, dazzling motion, and it seemed to have an elusive blue cast to its gleaming amber. Her gla.s.s touched his, and one of her fingers, and he experienced a distinct and pleasant shock.

He drank.

For a split second he thought he had swallowed nothing at all, so smoothly did it go down. Then his earlobes warmed up like radiant heaters, and there came a feeling in his throat as if it had grown an internal pelt of finest mink.

"This you get for nothing?"

She shook her head. "From nothing. But it isn't easy."

"It's worth the trouble." He poured again. "Talk."