Ten From Infinity Part 22

"Shut the door quietly on the way out," she retorted.

He stared at her, his face revealing nothing. He turned, went to the door, and opened it. He looked back. She had not moved. He left without a word.

Rhoda Kane lit another cigarette. She stared out across the East River at the expensive view that went with her high-rent apartment. She got up and went to the liquor cabinet and made herself a drink.

She was back on the sofa when a key turned in the lock. The door opened.

Frank Corson came in, walked to her and stood looking down at her. There was misery in his face, a beaten look in his eyes.

"You knew I couldn't do it."

"Couldn't do what, sweet?"

"Walk out on you. I'm in love with you, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. If I stayed away tonight, I'd be back tomorrow."

Rhoda set her gla.s.s down and held out her arms. "Darling," she whispered. "You wouldn't have had to. I'd have been down in the Village after you."

He kissed her hungrily and she pressed her hand against the back of his head, holding his mouth tight to hers. His hand slipped inside her blouse. She laid her own hand on it and held it firm.

"It's for your own good, darling, that I want you to contact this Taber and demand what you're ent.i.tled to. You have a right to know. If you don't find out, there might be a policeman at your door, any minute of the day or night."

"I'll call him."

"And if he tells you it's none of your business, stand up to him."

"I will."

She allowed his hand to go on with its exploring now. His finger touched her nipple, played with it. She closed her eyes as his mouth again sought hers. "Darling ..." she murmured.

But she was speaking to a man who had come from nowhere and had identified himself only as John Dennis. She had no number at which to call him. She could only wait until he returned again, if he ever did.

She thought: _Oh, G.o.d, John Dennis. Why do you turn away from me? Why did you strip me naked and look at me as though I were a statue? Will you come back again? Please come back and make love to me._

She felt Frank Corson unsnapping her bra.s.siere. She closed her eyes and lay back and waited, and for all the effect he had on her, Frank Corson could have been a statue.

At the last moment she insisted, "Remember, Frank, you've got to find out _everything_!"

9

The man had sallow skin; the look of a consumptive. He sat in a chair beside Crane's desk and dropped the ash from his cigar on Crane's wall-to-wall carpeting. Crane scowled, but let it pa.s.s.

"All right. Dorfman, what have you got to show for the money I've paid you?"

Dorfman, an old hand at confidential snooping, refused to quail before the much-publicized senatorial scowl. "It's tough putting on a hunt when you're not quite sure what you're after."

"I told you what I wanted. I wanted you to watch for any New York contacts Brent Taber might be using at the present time. That's simple enough, isn't it?"

"Taber contacts a lot of people. And he's a dangerous man to tail. He knows all the tricks."

"Are you telling me he caught you following him? If he did, you're no longer of any value to me."

"He didn't spot me," Dorfman said. "I followed him to New York and kept tabs on a Manhattan office, one he uses as his headquarters there."

"A directory check would tell me that."

"Take it easy. I staked out the place all day yesterday. Five men entered and left. Four were his own men."

Crane made a notation on a pad. He knew about those men. They'd been pulled off Taber's staff without notice. No doubt they'd made their last report to Taber and had headed back to Washington for rea.s.signment.

Dorfman would not know this, of course.

Or so Crane thought. Dorfman smiled as though he'd read Crane's mind and said, "I think Taber's losing his staff. They were government men--four of them--reporting in or out. My guess was _out_." He peered keenly at Crane for a moment. "Who's slicing away at Taber behind his back?"

"That's none of your--look here, Dorfman, I can get a better man than you at half the price!"

"No, you can't," Dorfman said easily. "Like I told you, there were five.

The other one turned out to be a Doctor Frank Corson, an intern at Park Hill Hospital in Manhattan."

Crane made another quick notation. A Manhattan doctor. One of the androids had been found in the East River with its throat slit and a broken leg. Now a doctor had contacted Taber. Was there a connection?

Somehow, Crane had to get on the track of the tenth android Taber was hunting. Cutting the ground out from under Taber had been a satisfying victory but it wasn't enough. To be of service to his electorate, Senator Crane realized, he had to have something tangible in the way of evidence. The only way to get this was to ferret out Taber's contacts and locate the tenth android himself, or at least be there when Taber located the creature.

A man of supreme confidence in his destiny, Crane had been working on the speech he would make when he was ready for the _I accuse_ scene from the Senate floor. He had even gone so far as to alert a fashionable Washington hotel to be ready with a suite at a moment's notice. Crane felt his office would be far too small to handle the traffic that would result from his revelation.

It did not occur to Crane to compliment Dorfman on his skill as an operative, for getting the book so completely and swiftly on a casual visitor to Taber's office. He said, "You've got this doctor's address?"

Dorfman put a folded slip of paper on the desk. "Another little item I'll throw in as a bonus. Taber had another tail--here in Washington."

This disturbed Crane. Did he have compet.i.tion in the matter of the android? Was someone else trying to get into the act?

"A New York free-lance photographer named King. I didn't have to check on him. I recognized him. He's been around Manhattan for years."

"A photographer. What do you suppose he's up to?"

"No way of telling, at the moment. Want me to switch to him?"

"No. Stay on Taber. There's more chance there."

Dorfman got up from his chair, stepping on the ashes as he did so and ground them into the rug. "Okay, I'll report tomorrow."

After Dorfman left, Crane pondered the situation. Were the Russians behind this? Somehow, he was beginning to doubt it. And this dismayed him somewhat. He was enough of a realist to know that even a possible invasion from outer s.p.a.ce--if that talk hadn't been a cover-up--would not carry the power of a Russian plot.

A s.p.a.ce invasion? Too science-fictional. It had been done by H. G. Wells and G.o.d knew how many other writers. Break a yarn like that and n.o.body would believe it. Still, if he could get his hands on the evidence.

He scowled as he contemplated the one stone wall he hadn't been able to penetrate. No connection he had, no contact, would reveal the secret laboratory where the dissection of the androids had taken place, or the specialist who'd done the job. Porter might give it to him in exchange for a guarantee of the hydroelectric post. But Crane suspected that even Porter did not have this information. The higher you went in these top-secret projects, the more silence and stubbornness you found. The men up above, it seemed, were never as open to discussion as were the lower-echelon eager beavers. They indulged in horse-trading and played politics to a certain extent, but the lines of demarcation were sharper.

That was why he could get Taber discredited, even crippled. But knocking a man of his proven ability completely out was another matter. The men on the top floor measured a lot of evidence before they acted.