Chapter 9

The odd part of it, Walton thought, was that there was absolutely nothing he could do.

He could call Sellors and give him a roasting for not guarding his office properly, but that wouldn’t restore the missing portfolio.

He could send out a general alarm, and thereby let the world know that there was such a thing as Lamarre’s formula. That would be catastrophic.

Walton slammed the cabinet shut and spun the lock. Then, heavily, he dropped into his chair and rested his head in his arms. All the jubilation of a few moments before had suddenly melted into dull apprehension.

Suspects? Just two--Lamarre, and Fred. Lamarre because he was obvious; Fred because he was likely to do anything to hurt his brother.

“Give me Sellors in security,” Walton said quietly.

Sellors’ bland face appeared on the screen. He blinked at the sight of Walton, causing Walton to wonder just how ghastly his own appearance was; even with the executive filter touching up the transmitted image, sprucing him up and falsifying him for the public benefit, he probably looked dreadful.

“Sellors, I want you to send out a general order for a Dr. Lamarre. You’ll find his appearance recorded on the entrance tapes for today; he came to see me earlier. The first name is--ah--Elliot. T. Elliot Lamarre, gerontologist. I don’t know where he lives.”

“What should I do when I find him, sir?”

“Bring him here at once. And if you catch him at home, slap a seal on his door. He may be in possession of some very important secret documents.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And get hold of the doorsmith who repaired my office door; I want the lock calibration changed at once.”

“Certainly, sir.”

The screen faded. Walton turned back to his desk and busied himself in meaningless paper work, trying to keep himself from thinking.

A few moments later the screen brightened again. It was Fred.

Walton stared coldly at his brother’s image. “Well?”

Fred chuckled. “Why so pale and wan, dear brother? Disappointed in love?”

“What do you want?”

“An audience with His Highness the Interim Director, if it please His Grace.” Fred grinned unpleasantly. “A private, audience, if you please, m’lord.”

“Very well. Come on up here.”

Fred shook his head. “Sorry, no go. There are too many tricky spy pickups in that office of yours. Let’s meet elsewhere, shall we?”

“Where?”

“That club you belong to. The Bronze Room.”

Walton sputtered. “But I can’t leave the building now! There’s no one who--”

“Now,” Fred interrupted. “The Bronze Room. It’s in the San Isidro, isn’t it? Top of Neville Prospect?”

“All right,” said Walton resignedly. “There’s a doorsmith coming up here to do some work. Give me a minute to cancel the assignment and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

“You leave now,” Fred said. “I’ll arrive five minutes after you. And you won’t need to cancel anything. I was the doorsmith.”

Neville Prospect was the most fashionable avenue in all of New York City, a wide strip of ferroconcrete running up the West Side between Eleventh Avenue and the West Side Drive from Fortieth to Fiftieth Street. It was bordered on both sides by looming apartment buildings in which a man of wealth might have as many as four or five rooms to his suite; and at the very head of the Prospect, facing down-town, was the mighty San Isidro, a buttressed fortress of gleaming metal and stone whose mighty, beryllium-steel supports swept out in a massive arc five hundred feet in either direction.

On the hundred fiftieth floor of the San Isidro was the exclusive Bronze Room, from whose quartz windows might be seen all the sprawling busyness of Manhattan and the close-packed confusion of New Jersey just across the river.

The jetcopter delivered Walton to the landing-stage of the Bronze Room; he tipped the man too much and stepped within. A door of dull bronze confronted him. He touched his key to the signet plate; the door pivoted noiselessly inward, admitting him.

The color scheme today was gray: gray light streamed from the luminescent walls, gray carpets lay underfoot, gray tables with gray dishes were visible in the murky distance. A gray-clad waiter, hardly more than four feet tall, sidled up to Walton.

“Good to see you again, sir,” he murmured. “You have not been here of late.”

“No,” Walton said. “I’ve been busy.”

“A terrible tragedy, the death of Mr. FitzMaugham. He was one of our most esteemed members. Will you have your usual room today, sir?”

Walton shook his head. “I’m entertaining a guest--my brother, Fred. We’ll need a compartment for two. He’ll identify himself when he arrives.”

“Of course. Come with me, please.”

The gnome led him through a gray haze to another bronze door, down a corridor lined with antique works of art, through an interior room decorated with glowing lumi-facts of remarkable quality, past a broad quartz window so clean as to be dizzyingly invisible, and up to a narrow door with a bright red signet plate in its center.

“For you, sir.”

Walton touched his key to the signet plate; the door crumpled like a fan. He stepped inside, gravely handed the gnome a bill, and closed the door.

The room was tastefully furnished, again in gray; the Bronze Room was always uniformly monochromatic, though the hue varied with the day and with the mood of the city. Walton had long speculated on what the club precincts would be like were the electronic magic disconnected.

Actually, he knew, none of the Bronze Room’s appurtenances had any color except when the hand in the control room threw the switch. The club held many secrets. It was FitzMaugham who had brought about Walton’s admission to the club, and Walton had been deeply grateful.

He was in a room just comfortably large enough for two, with a single bright window facing the Hudson, a small onyx table, a tiny screen tastefully set in the wall, and a bar. He dialed himself a filtered rum, his favorite drink. The dark, cloudy liquid came pouring instantly from the spigot.

The screen suddenly flashed a wave of green, breaking the ubiquitous grayness. The green gave way to the bald head and scowling face of Kroll, the Bronze Room’s door-man.

“Sir, there is a man outside who claims to be your brother. He alleges he has an appointment with you here.”

“That’s right, Kroll; send him in. Fulks will bring him to my room.”

“Just one moment, sir. First it is needful to verify.” Kroll’s face vanished and Fred’s appeared.