"I hope not," he said, smiling back. "The fuzz might see it, too."
It had been easy to make the acquaintanceship of all three, and when Kickaha said he would buy them something to eat, he felt a definite strengthening of their interest.
After eating they had wandered around Sunset, "grooving" on every-thing. He learned much about their sub-world that night. When he mentioned that he had no roof over his head, they invited him to stay at their pad. It was a big run-down spooky old house, they said, with about fifty people, give or take ten, living in it and chipping in on the rent and utilities, if they had it. If they didn't, they were welcome until they got some bread.
Rodriga Elseed (he was sure that wasn't her real name) had recently come here from Dayton, Ohio. She had left two uptight parents there. She was seventeen and didn't know what she wanted to be. Just herself for the time being, she said.
Kickaha donated some more money for marijuana, and the other girl, Jackie, disappeared for a while. When she returned, they went to the big house, which they called The Shire, and retired to this room. Kickaha smoked with them, since he had the feeling that he would be a far more accepted comrade if he did. The smoke did not seem to do much except to set him coughing.
After a while, Jackie and the boy, Dar, began to make love. Rodriga and Kickaha went for a walk. She said she liked Kickaha, but did not feel like going to bed with him on such short acquaintance.
Kickaha said that he understood. He was not at all disgruntled. He just wanted to get some sleep. An hour later, they returned to the room, which was then empty and fell asleep on the dirty mattress.
But the night's sleep had not lessened his anxiety. He was depressed because Anana was in Red Orc's hands, and he suspected that Wolff and Chryseis were also his prisoners. Somehow, Red Orc had guessed that the ad was from Kickaha and had answered. But he would not have been able to answer so specifically unless he had Wolf and had gotten out of him what he knew about Kickaha.
Knowing the Lords, Kickaha felt it was likely that Red Orc would torture Wolff and Chryseis first, even though he had only to administer a drug which would make them tell whatever Orc asked for. After that, he would torture them again and finally kill them.
He would do the same with Anana. Even now...
He shuddered and said, "No!"
Rodriga opened her eyes and said, "What?"
"Go back to sleep," he said, but she sat up and hugged her knees to her breasts. She rocked back and forth and said, "Something is bugging you, amigo. Deeply. Look, I don't want to bug you, too, but if there's anything I can do..."
"I've got my own thing to do," he said.
He could not involve her in this even if she could help him in any way. She would be killed the first time they contacted Red Orc's men. She wasn't the fast, extremely tough, many-resourced woman that Anana was. Yes, that's right, he said to himself. Was. She might not be alive at this very moment.
Tears came to his eyes.
"Thanks, Rod. I've got to be going now. Dig you later, maybe."
She was up off the floor then and said, "There's something a little strange about you, Paul. You're young but you don't use our lingo quite right, you know what I mean? You seem to me to be just a little weird. I don't mean a creep. I mean, as if you don't quite belong to this world, I know how that is; I get the same feeling quite a lot. That is, I don't belong here, either. But it isn't quite the same thing with you, I mean, you are really out of this world. You aren't some being off a flying saucer, are you now?"
"Look, Rod, I appreciate your offer. I really do. But you can't go with me or do anything for me. Not just now. But later, if anything comes up that you can help me with, I sure as hell will let you do something for me and be glad to do so."
He bent over and kissed her forehead and said, "Hasta la vista, Rodriga. Maybe adios. Let's hope we see each other again, though."
Kickaha walked until he found a small restaurant. As he ate breakfast he considered the situation.
One thing was certain. The problem of the Beller was solved. It did not matter whether Kickaha or Orc killed him. Just so he was killed and the Bellers forever out of the way.
And Red Orc now had all but one of his enemies in his hands, and he would soon have that last one. Unless that enemy got to him first. Red Orc had not been using all his powers to catch Kickaha because his first concern was the Beller. But now, he could concentrate on the last holdout.
Somehow, Kickaha had to find the Lord before the Lord got to him. Very soon.
When he had finished eating, he bought a Times. As he walked along the street, he scanned the columns of the paper. There was nothing about a girl being kidnapped or a car on Wilshire with the bottom halves of the left wheels sliced off. There was a small item about the police sighting Paul J. Finnegan, the mystery man, his getting away, and a resume of what was known about him in his pre-1946 life.
He forced himself to settle down and to think calmly. Never before had he been so agitated. He was powerless to stop the very probable torture of his lover and his friends, which might be happening right now.
There was one way to get into the Lord's house and face him. If he gave himself up, he could then rely upon his inventiveness and his boldness after he was brought before the Lord.
His sense of reality rescued him. He would be taken in only after a thorough examination to make sure he had no hidden weapons or devices. And he would be brought in bound and helpless.
Unless the Lord followed the custom of always leaving some way open for an exceptionally intelligent and skilled man. Always, no matter how effective and powerful the traps the Lords set about their palaces, they left at least one route open, if the invader was perceptive and audacious enough. That was the rule of the deadly game they had played for thousands of years. It was, in fact, this very rule that had made Red Orc leave the gate in the cave unguarded and untrapped.
Because he had nothing else to do, he went into a public phone booth on a gas station lot and dialed Cambring's number. The phone was picked up so swiftly that Kickaha felt, for a second, that Cambring was still alive and was waiting for his call. It was Cambring's wife who answered, however.
Kickaha said, "Paul Finnegan speaking."
There was a pause and then, "You murderer!" she screamed.
He waited until she was through yelling and cursing him and was sobbing and gasping.
"I didn't kill your husband," he said, "although I would have been justified if I had, as you well know. It was the big boss who killed him."
"You're a liar!" she screamed.
"Tell your big boss I want to speak to him. I'll wait on this line. I know you have several phones you can use."
"Why should I do that?" she said. "I'll do nothing for you!"
"I'll put it this way. If he gets his hands on me, he'll see to it that you get your revenge. But if I don't get into contact with him, right now, I'm taking off for the great unknown. And he'll never find me."
She said, "All right," sniffled, and was gone. About sixty seconds later, she was back. "I got a loudspeaker here, a box, what you call it?" she said. "Anyway, you can speak to him through it."
Kickaha doubted that the man he was going to talk to was actually the "big boss" himself. Although, Mrs. Cambring had revealed that she now had information that she had not possessed when he had drugged her. Could this be because the Lord had calculated that Kickaha would call her?