[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

think clear enough to do this, you know, put out clean type just by thinking the right stuff out
my left ear interface port.
I showed Dogwalker a little bit about research. Took me ten minutes. I know my way right
through the Greensboro Public Library. I have P-words for every single librarian and I'm so
ept that they don't even guess I'm stepping upstream through their access channels. From
the Public Library you can get all the way into North Carolina Records Division in Raleigh,
and from there you can jumble into federal personnel records anywhere in the country. Which
meant that by nightfall on that most portentous day we had hardcopy of every document in
Jesse H. Hunt's whole life, from his birth certificate and first grade report card to his medical
history and security clearance reports when he first worked for the feds.
Dogwalker knew enough to be impressed. "If you can do all that," he says, "you might as
well pug his P-word straight out."
"No puedo, putz," says I as cheerful as can be. "Think of the fed as a castle. Personnel files
are floating in the moat-- there's a few alligators but I swim real good. Hot data is deep in the
dungeon. You can get in there, but you can't get out clean. And P-words-- P-words are kept
up the queen's ass."
"No system is unbeatable," he says.
"Where'd you learn that, from graffiti in a toilet stall? if the P-word system was even a little
bit breakable, Dogwalker, the gentlemen you plan to sell these cards to would already be
inside looking out at us, and they wouldn't need to spend a meg to get clean greens from a
street pug."
Trouble was that after impressing Dogwalker with all the stuff I could find out about Jesse
H., I didn't know that much more than before. Oh, I could guess at some P-words, but that
was all it was-- guessing. I couldn't even pick a P most likely to succeed. Jesse was one
ordinary dull rat. Regulation good grades in school, regulation good evaluations on the job,
probably gave his wife regulation lube jobs on a weekly schedule.
"You don't really think your girl's going to get his finger," says I with sickening scorn.
"You don't know the girl," says he. "If we needed his flipper she'd get molds in five sizes."
"You don't know this guy," says I. "This is the straightest opie in Mayberry. I don't see him
cheating on his wife."
 "Trust me," says Dogwalker. "She'll get his finger so smooth he won't, even know she took
the mold."
I didn't believe him. I got a knack for knowing things about people, and Jesse H. wasn't
faking. Unless he started faking when he was five, which is pretty unpopulated. He wasn't
going to bounce the first pretty girl who made his zipper tight. Besides which he was smart.
His career path showed that he was always in the right place. The right people always
seemed to know his name. Which is to say he isn't the kind whose brain can't run if his jeans
get hot. I said so.
"You're really a marching band," says Dogwalker. "You can't tell me his P-word, but you're
obliquely sure that he's a limp or a wimp."
"Neither one," says I. "He's hard and straight. But a girl starts rubbing up to him, he isn't
going to think it's because she heard that his crotch is cantilevered. He's going to figure she
wants something and he'll give her string till he finds out what."
He just grinned at me. "I got me the best Password Man in the Triass, didn't I? I got me a
miracle worker named Goo-Boy, didn't I? The ice-brain they call Crystal Kid. I got him, didn't
I?"
"Maybe," says I.
"I got him or I kill him," he says, showing more teeth than a primate's supposed to have.
"You got me," says I. "But don't go thinking you can kill me."
He just laughs. "I got you and you're so good, you can bet I got me a girl who's at least as
good at what she does."
"No such," says I.
"Tell me his P-word and then I'll be impressed."
"You want quick results? Then go ask him to give you his password himself."
Dogwalker isn't one of those guys who can hide it when he's mad. "I want quick results," he
says. "And if I start thinking you can't deliver, I'll pull your tongue out of your head. Through
your nose
"Oh, that's good," says I. "I always do my best thinking when I'm being physically threatened
by a client. You really know how to bring out the best in me."
"I don't want to bring out the best," he says. "I just want to bring out his password."
"I got to meet him first," says I.
He leans over me so I can smell his musk, which is to say I'm very olfactory and so I can tell
you he reeked of testosterone, by which I mean ladies could fill up with babies just from
sniffing his sweat. "Meet him?" he asks me. "Why don't we just ask him to fill out a job
application?"
 "I've read all his job applications," says I.
"How's a glass-head like you'going to meet Mr. Fed? " says he. "I bet you're always getting
invitations to the same parties as guys like him."
"I don't get invited to grown-up parties," says I. "But on the other hand, grown-ups don't pay
much attention to sweet little kids like me."
He sighed. "You really have to meet him?"
"Unless fifty-fifty on a P-word is good enough odds for you." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]