The Night People by Edward D. Hoch Page A

effort….
    “Hello? Hello? Winston Chambers?”
    He recognized immediately the voice of the grey man, John Falconi. “It’s past midnight, for God’s sake! I’m getting ready for bed.”
    The telephone crackled foreignly. Win had never gotten used to foreign phones. “Mr. Chambers, I must see you again. Tonight. The matter has become extremely urgent.”
    “I’m sorry. I’ve said all I care to.”
    “Your life may be in danger, Mr. Chambers.”
    “Listen, I’m going to come over there and pop you in the nose! Maybe then you’ll stop bothering me with your spy games.”
    “As long as you come.”
    “Where are you?”
    “I have an apartment. 85 Rivage.”
    “All right,” Win hung up and put his tie back on, cursing himself for even coming back to the hotel. Well, he’d finish with this Falconi once and for all tonight. Then there’d be no more phone calls.
    The address proved to be only a few blocks distant, within walking distance. As the street name implied, the place overlooked the harbour area, where a narrow wandering river finally found its home in the sea. John Falconi lived on the second floor, in a building that must have been ancient when Win was born. He came to the door in answer to the knock and hurriedly closed it after Win had entered.
    “Thank you for coming,” he said.
    “Look, either you stop bothering me, or….”
    “Were you followed?”
    “How the hell should I know if I was followed? I told you I was a movie producer!”
    “Will you give me five minutes to speak to you? Over a drink?”
    Win sighed unhappily. “All right. Five minutes and no more.”
    While the grey man mixed the drinks Win looked around the apartment, seeing the ordered neatness so unusual in bachelor living. There were bookshelves, filled to capacity with classics and bestsellers, all in American editions. He took out an illustrated edition of The Red Badge of Courage and glanced through it, thinking it might still make a good movie in spite of a previous Hollywood attempt.
    “Here we are. Is scotch all right?”
    “Fine. Two of your minutes are up already.”
    Falconi smiled. “Then I’ll come to the point.”
    “I thought you did that this afternoon.”
    “I could not be completely frank until I got the okay from higher up.”
    “J. Edgar Hoover?”
    “You’ve been away. This sort of thing is handled by other people now.”
    “I’ve heard of the C.I.A.”
    Falconi only smiled. “Let’s just say the American taxpayers are paying the bills.”
    “Fine. You’ve got about ninety seconds left.”
    “You saw Tonia Dudorov today.”
    “I saw a lot of people today. I shook hands so much my right one feels like it might fall off.”
    “She was wearing the Lenin Award.”
    “Yes. Your sources of information are quite good.”
    “Not really. Your pictures are in the newspaper.”
    “Oh.” Oddly enough. Win was beginning to like the man. He stopped looking at his watch and sipped the scotch.
    “Listen, Mr. Chambers, it would be quite simple for you to get that pin for us, to substitute this one for it.”
    “Maybe it would, but why should I? Didn’t I make it clear that I owe nothing to the United States?”
    “Except some back taxes,” Falconi reminded.
    “Yes, except those. But the C.I.A. hardly makes a practice of recruiting tax dodgers as spies, does it?”
    Falconi spread his hands. “Your background has been cleared by Washington, and you’re the only man in a position to accomplish the mission.”
    “And just what is the mission? Why is Washington so anxious to steal a medal from a Russian film star?”
    “I can tell you now. I saw my immediate superior this evening and cleared it with him.”
    “You people have quite an outpost here. I suppose it’s a nice vacation spot, though.”
    The grey man smiled. “My superior is only visiting. But temporarily you might say we are birds of a feather here in Feru. It is a wonderful little city.” He chuckled to himself at some private