It’s volatile stuff.”
Spengler’s little eyes went back to the stack of papers.
A pale pointed tongue came out and slid along his lips. “Aw,” he said. “Aw.”
“It’ll take out this floor and some of the Lively Arts,” I went on. “The book section anyway.”
“What do they want to go and mess around with that stuff for?” His voice got shrill. “Can’t a guy do his work without he gets shipped back in an envelope?”
The deputy lowered his arm. “I’ll radio police headquarters, get the city bomb boys down here.”
“Well, I ain’t paid to babysit no bombs.” Spengler pointed a finger the size of a zucchini at Jed Dutt. “The stuff stays till we get back.”
“Peddle your fat butt, Lionheart. It’s private property until you get ready to serve that order.”
“You got God in a box, smart guy. You went to college.”
The two intruders went out of there on a crackle of applause and Bronx cheers.
“They don’t make them like that anymore,” I told Dutt.
“Only five times a week and twice on Sundays.”
As the white-haired editor shooed the reporters back to their desks, Dutt said, “That sign’s been giving me the willies. I’m afraid to use the office.”
I stepped inside and pulled the end of the wire loose from the drawer. It ended in two frizzed tails of shredded copper, like the ones you hook to the antenna terminals on a television set, which is what kind of wire it was. He stared at me over the tops of his glasses. “How’d you know?”
“Nobody who lost pieces of himself to a dynamite charge is going to be fooling around with Primacord. Can I look through this stuff?”
“We got orders to cooperate. I can’t let you take any of it out of the building, though. House rules.”
“I won’t be able to read all of it here,” I said.
“The line is we can bend all the regulations we want out there, but in here they’re stone city.” He touched his bow tie. “Seen our new copying machine? It takes a few minutes on your way back to the elevators, but it’s worth it.”
I grinned. “I’ll be sure and take the time.”
He put his hands in his pockets, nodded. “You get anything on this would look good in print.” He let it flutter.
“Yeah.”
He nodded again and left me, his rounded shoulders and back-tilted posture describing a lazy S.
I rolled Barry’s swivel around the desk and sat down and started picking through the stack. I wasn’t going to find anything. I didn’t know for sure if the series he’d been working on had anything to do with why he had gone underground, and knowing him I figured the papers were a decoy anyway. If there was a danger of them falling into public hands he’d have destroyed his notes and relied on his phenomenal memory. I was bobbing for wax apples.
Five minutes in I bit into real fruit.
9
I DIDN’T KNOW THAT’S what it was when I found it, of course. You hardly ever do, which is why it’s called detecting. Before I got to it I skimmed through a dozen sheets of dog-eared copy paper bearing the typewritten beginnings of several columns, watching Barry grind down the leads to that famous Stackpole edge—he never composed on the computer, refusing to share his dynamite with the office system until it was ready for show—tried to make sense out of his pencil scrawl on some loose sheets torn from his telephone pad and gave up on that. There were check stubs made out to cash in unspectacular amounts, a reminder to himself to buy Irene something for her birthday, random figures in columns; the usual impedimenta of life in an imperfect world. It will take more than machines with memories to make us give up our little scraps of paper. He had apparently emptied his drawers to build a convincing pile for the Spenglers he knew would be dropping in.
When I got to it, it was a three-ring folder bound in slick black plastic with the name of a local heating and cooling firm stamped in green on the spine and cover, one of those
Spengler’s little eyes went back to the stack of papers.
A pale pointed tongue came out and slid along his lips. “Aw,” he said. “Aw.”
“It’ll take out this floor and some of the Lively Arts,” I went on. “The book section anyway.”
“What do they want to go and mess around with that stuff for?” His voice got shrill. “Can’t a guy do his work without he gets shipped back in an envelope?”
The deputy lowered his arm. “I’ll radio police headquarters, get the city bomb boys down here.”
“Well, I ain’t paid to babysit no bombs.” Spengler pointed a finger the size of a zucchini at Jed Dutt. “The stuff stays till we get back.”
“Peddle your fat butt, Lionheart. It’s private property until you get ready to serve that order.”
“You got God in a box, smart guy. You went to college.”
The two intruders went out of there on a crackle of applause and Bronx cheers.
“They don’t make them like that anymore,” I told Dutt.
“Only five times a week and twice on Sundays.”
As the white-haired editor shooed the reporters back to their desks, Dutt said, “That sign’s been giving me the willies. I’m afraid to use the office.”
I stepped inside and pulled the end of the wire loose from the drawer. It ended in two frizzed tails of shredded copper, like the ones you hook to the antenna terminals on a television set, which is what kind of wire it was. He stared at me over the tops of his glasses. “How’d you know?”
“Nobody who lost pieces of himself to a dynamite charge is going to be fooling around with Primacord. Can I look through this stuff?”
“We got orders to cooperate. I can’t let you take any of it out of the building, though. House rules.”
“I won’t be able to read all of it here,” I said.
“The line is we can bend all the regulations we want out there, but in here they’re stone city.” He touched his bow tie. “Seen our new copying machine? It takes a few minutes on your way back to the elevators, but it’s worth it.”
I grinned. “I’ll be sure and take the time.”
He put his hands in his pockets, nodded. “You get anything on this would look good in print.” He let it flutter.
“Yeah.”
He nodded again and left me, his rounded shoulders and back-tilted posture describing a lazy S.
I rolled Barry’s swivel around the desk and sat down and started picking through the stack. I wasn’t going to find anything. I didn’t know for sure if the series he’d been working on had anything to do with why he had gone underground, and knowing him I figured the papers were a decoy anyway. If there was a danger of them falling into public hands he’d have destroyed his notes and relied on his phenomenal memory. I was bobbing for wax apples.
Five minutes in I bit into real fruit.
9
I DIDN’T KNOW THAT’S what it was when I found it, of course. You hardly ever do, which is why it’s called detecting. Before I got to it I skimmed through a dozen sheets of dog-eared copy paper bearing the typewritten beginnings of several columns, watching Barry grind down the leads to that famous Stackpole edge—he never composed on the computer, refusing to share his dynamite with the office system until it was ready for show—tried to make sense out of his pencil scrawl on some loose sheets torn from his telephone pad and gave up on that. There were check stubs made out to cash in unspectacular amounts, a reminder to himself to buy Irene something for her birthday, random figures in columns; the usual impedimenta of life in an imperfect world. It will take more than machines with memories to make us give up our little scraps of paper. He had apparently emptied his drawers to build a convincing pile for the Spenglers he knew would be dropping in.
When I got to it, it was a three-ring folder bound in slick black plastic with the name of a local heating and cooling firm stamped in green on the spine and cover, one of those
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