Chapter 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 pass.

“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 reassignment. 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 competition 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 space--if that talk hadn’t been a cover-up--would not carry the power of a Russian plot.

A space invasion? Too science-fictional. It had been done by H. G. Wells and God knew how many other writers. Break a yarn like that and nobody 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.

But the body of one of the androids--there should be a way--there had to be a way.

Suddenly Crane smiled. Then he chuckled. Then he took an address book out of his desk drawer and thumbed through the pages.

Frank Corson stared dejectedly at the carpet in Rhoda Kane’s apartment. “I tried,” he said. “I tried damned hard. But it just didn’t do any good.”

Rhoda sat beautifully poised, a picture of sophisticated perfection. She wore an obviously expensive costume featured by lounging slacks that could have been molded to her body. The afternoon sun glinted on a hairdo right out of Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar. Her expression was distant; a look of impersonal pity showed on her face as she regarded Frank.

“Tell me about it, sweetie.”

Frank cringed inwardly at the appellation. In Manhattan, everyone called everyone else sweetie.

“There wasn’t much to it. I called Taber and then went down to see him. I told him exactly how I felt about things and demanded more information.”

Rhoda frowned. “You demanded? Frank! I’m disappointed in you. The indignant citizen bit, I suppose. Don’t you know how to talk to people? Your bedside manner must be tremendous.”

“Rhoda! For God’s sake!”

She brushed his anger away with a graceful, deprecating wave of her hand. “What did you say to him?”

“I was just telling you. I said that with a man killed in my room I had a right to some protection. I--”

“Protection! What did you do? Ask the man to hide you? Why didn’t you get down on your knees and beg his pardon for living?”

Frustrated anger made Corson’s lips tremble. “I did the best I could! I told him that if I couldn’t find out from him what was going on, I’d go to the New York police. I told him I had a right to know about these androids.”

“And he told you the only right you had was to drop dead, I suppose.”

Frank Corson got to his feet. His face was stiff. His eyes were tortured. He ran a helpless hand along his jaw.

“All right, Rhoda. All right. If this is the way you want it, there’s nothing I can do.”

“What do you mean--the way I want it? All I’ve been trying to do is put a little courage into you? Didn’t Taber tell you a thing about the androids?”

“He wasn’t as brutal as I made it sound. In fact, he’s a rather nice guy in a tough spot.”

“I’m sure of that, but we couldn’t care less. What did he say about the androids?”

A new, desperate wariness had been born in Frank Corson. He could take only so much and now he regarded Rhoda with a hostility of his own. “A short time ago you hooted the android idea. What changed you?”

“I use it as a term of identification! Good heavens! You act like a child. All I’m trying to do is get a little information--”

“For whom, Rhoda?”

He threw the question so suddenly it put Rhoda off balance. Quick fear flashed into her eyes. Then it vanished behind a wall of defiance.

“Are you out of your mind? Why would I have any interest in this mess except by way of protecting your interests?”

“My interests. I can remember not long ago when you’d have called them our interests.”

“There you go again. Talking like a child!”

Frank crossed the room and stood close to Rhoda’s chair. He looked down at her, and when he spoke there was a change in his manner. Now there was a finality in his tone that had ice in it.

“I don’t know what this is all about, Rhoda, but I’m not as much of a child as you seem to think. Subjectiveness does make a person sound and act that way at times. This is a reflection of inner confusion and bewilderment. I’ll admit I’m confused and bewildered. But I’m getting your message, too. I think you’re telling me that whatever has happened to you is none of my business. Very well. You know where to find me if you need me.”

He was walking toward the door, his back turned, so he did not see the mute appeal in Rhoda’s face. “Frank--!”

He had opened the door and turned. “I’m sorry, Rhoda. I thought we had something. I’ll admit I didn’t handle it very well but I did my best.”

He went out and closed the door softly behind him and was gone.

Pure tragedy ripped across Rhoda’s eyes as she sprang to her feet, took several steps toward the door, and stopped. A wordless cry rose within her and came out as a miserable little kitten whimper.

But then she stiffened. The moment of panic passed. She straightened and touched a displaced lock of hair. The warmth of the new excitement she lived with gushed anew, and the bright, nervous smile touched her lips.

She went over, made herself a drink and went to the window. She looked down. He was out there somewhere, going about his mysterious business. The smile she thought of as soft and tender was really brittle and quite hard. She downed her drink thirstily as though it helped quench the fever in her throat.

She put the glass down and heard a whisper: “John, John, why don’t you come to me? I’ll help you. I’ll understand. I’ll teach you to make love. Let me help you, darling.”

The whisper was her own and it ended in a sob.

Brent Taber was studying some reports on his desk. They were not sources of satisfaction in any sense. Most of them were memos noting changes in the departmental assignments of staff men: Due to unforeseen emergencies and the reassessment of current workloads it has become necessary to transfer from your subdepartment three ... two ... four...

And so it went.