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about people?"
"Sir, one might possibly say... pest, should this go on too much longer. Oh!
My word! Are you a pilot? Is it about that... currency matter?"
"I am not a pilot. But some currency might enter into it. I just remembered
something. Somebody said at one point that to get to Santo with a certain
suggestion, they had to clear through Mary Smith. Is that a person or some
kind of a code name for something?"
"Mary Smith would be a person, sir."
"A special personal private secretary, maybe?"
"Praps just private secretry, sir, might be suitable."
"Now, please don't tell me I need an appointment with her."
She studied me for a moment, tilted her head, looked slightly quizzical and
inwardly-and possibly bitterly-amused. The appraisal was like unto that given
a side of beef when the US Grade stamp is not easy to read.
"You could give me your name, sir?"
"McGee. T. McGee."
"This is teddibly irregular. Just a chawnce, y'know."
"Tell her I do card tricks, have never been completely domesticated, and show
signs of having been struck sharply in the face in years gone by."
"At least you are amusing," she said.
"Quite!" said I.
"Please have a seat. I'll find out what she says, Mr. McGee."
I sat cautiously in a chair that looked like the slope-end of a blue bathtub
resting on a white pedestal, and found it more comfortable than it looked.
Windowless rooms always give me the feeling of having been tricked. Now
they've got you, boy, and they're going to come through all the doors at once.
I opened a mint copy of Fortune and a grizzled fellow looked out at me with
alert and friendly squint of eye, advertising my chummy neighborhood power
company. I think I could remember having seen him on somebody's television set
shilling an adenoidal housewife into squealing in ecstasy about suds.
The limey maiden murmured into the oversized mouthpiece of one of those
privacy telephones. In a little while she hung up and said with a certain air
of accomplishment and mild surprise, "She will be out in a few moments, sir."
A flush door, bone-white, off to the left of the receptionist opened, and
little Miss Mary Smith came through and toward me without a glance at the
receptionist. I put Fortune aside and stood up. She marched to within four
feet of me and stopped and looked up into my face. At least it was not a name
they handed around the office. She was the one I had seen with Tush Bannon in
the bar lounge atop the International Hotel. The dark and rich brownauburn
hair fell in a straight gloss. I had misread, across the room the last time,
the expression on her face. It was not petulance, not discontent. It was a
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total and almost lifeless indifference, a completely negative response. In a
special way it was a challenge. It said, "Prove I should relate to you,
buddy." Her eyes were the improbable emerald of expensive contact lenses, made
more improbable by just enough eye makeup to make them look bigger than they
were. And they were generous to start with. Her skin texture was a new
grainless DuPont plastic. The small mouth did not really pout. It was just
that both upper and under lip were so heavy it was the only choice it had.
They were artfully covered with pink frost. White blouse, navy skirt that
nunnery flavor of offices and hospital wards.
She looked up at me, motionless as department store wax, with two millimeters
of query in one eyebrow.
"The eyebrow," I said, "is the exact same shade of those wooly bear
caterpillars I remember from my childhood. You'd look for them in the fall to
see if they were heading north or south. It was supposed to predict what kind
of a winter we'd have."
"So you've verified Elizabeth's claim you're mildly amusing. This is a busy
office."
"And I just happened to come bumbling in off the street to bother all you
busy; dedicated people."
She took a step back, a quarter turn. "Then, if that's all."
"I want to see Santo. What do I have to say to you? A magic word?"
"Try good-bye."
"My God, you are a silly, pretentious little bitch!"
"That doesn't work either, Mr. McGee. The only thing that does work is to
state your business. If Mr. Santo did not employ people of some judgment to
screen out the clowns, his time would be taken up with clowns... and
eccentrics, and clumsy con men. Do you want him to finance a flying saucer?"
She rested a finger against her, small chin and tilted her head. "No, you have
that deepwater look. A bit salty? This is probably more of that treasure-map [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]