“Flown the coop, sir. Must have got out just minutes before we arrived. Couldn’t have taken more than a suitcase. Few papers scattered around the room he used for an office. By the looks of things he was ready to take off just any time at all.”
Susan gasped. “You mean Daddy?”
Steve Hackett rubbed a hand over his flattened nose. “Holy smokes,” he said. He thanked the cop and flicked off.
Larry said, “Look Zusanette, everything’s going to be all right. Nothing is going to happen to you. You say you managed to pick up two packets of all this money they have at headquarters. Okay. So you thought it wouldn’t be missed and you thought it was real money, and you’ve always wanted to spend money the way you see the stars do on Tri-Di and in the movies.”
She looked at him, taken aback. “How did you know?”
Larry said dryly, “I’ve always wanted to myself. But I would like to know one more thing. The Movement. What was it going to do with all this money?”
That evidently puzzled her. “The Professor says they were going to spend it on chorus girls. I guess… I guess he was joking or something. But Daddy and I’d just been up to New York and we saw those famous precision dancers at the New Roxy Theatre and all and then when we got back the Professor and Daddy were talking and I heard him say it.”
Steve said carefully, “Professor who?”
Susan said, “Just the Professor. That’s all we ever call him.” Her chin went to trembling again.
VI
Steve Hackett looked at Larry. “What in the hell will we do with her?”
Larry thought about it. He turned to the girl. “How old are you… Zusanette.”
“I’m… I’m nearly eighteen.”
“You don’t look it.” His eyes went back to Steve Hackett. “She’s too old for the juvenile authorities and too young to throw into the smasher with a bunch of addicts, prostitutes and lesbians. Besides, we’ll want to go over her story some more. If we arrest her, how do we know what this so-called Movement might come up with? We don’t want the Civil Liberties Union, or whoever, bailing her out.”
“Yeah,” Steve said, unhappily. “This professor and his boys probably control quite a bit of cash, not counting the counterfeit. They’d possibly have her out before the cell door clanked shut. But, on the other hand, we can’t hold her without some kind of a charge.”
Larry snorted. “Maybe your department can’t. You’d be surprised what ours pulls off from time to time.”
Susan Self was darting her eyes back and forth between them. She blurted, “What do you mean? What are you talking about? Aren’t you going to let me go? You practically promised. You said all you wanted was to ask me a few questions to help the government.”
“I better check this out with the chief,” Steve said, eyeing Larry without pleasure.
“Tell you what,” Larry said. “I’ll take her over to the Hilton and put her in a suite. You check with your chief and find,out what he wants to do. Obviously, there’s no foreign angle here. It’s a pure Secret Service matter. I’ll stay with her until you check back with me.”
“Right,” Steve came to his feet. He said to Susan, his voice more kindly now. “Don’t worry about it, kid. You’re not under arrest. And you’ll still be living it up as though that pile of fifties was still yours. The Greater Hilton is the biggest hotel in town and everything you eat or drink is on Uncle Sam. You should have the time of your life.” He added wryly, “What with your tastes.”
Susan said, “What I’d really like is to go home.”
Steve shook his head. “Look, your father isn’t even there. You’d be alone.”
Larry stood too. “Let’s go, Zusanette.” He took her arm and ushered her from the small office.
Susan Self was impressed by the Greater Hilton. She should have been. Short of, possibly, Versailles, Louis the 14th’s pad, there had probably never been a palace in more luxurious bad taste in history. This was not the first time Larry Woolford had kept someone under wraps in the swank hotel. His department maintained several suites on a full time basis. There was no need even for him to register. He led Susan directly across the lobby to the elevator banks.
The departmental suites were on the 18th floor. He led her down the ornate, all but gaudy, hall to Suite 18 and stood before the identity screen on the door.
The door opened and a lanky, yawning operative was there. He was dressed in tweeds, of course, Larry noted. Harris tweeds, rather than Donegal, and Larry wondered again if Donegal was going out. He’d have to check with his tailor. Damn it, he had just bought the suit he was wearing two weeks ago.
The other gave Susan Self the once over then turned his eyes back to Larry. He said, “Hi, Larry, what’s up? Damn it, you know we’re not supposed to bring broads here. Besides, aren’t you robbing the cradle?”
“Don’t be silly,” Larry Woolford said, escorting Susan inside and closing the door behind them. He saw her to the couch in the lavish living room before turning back to the other. He wondered if the girl knew what ‘robbing the cradle’ meant. Probably. Her generation knew everything. But she was probably too upset to think about it.
He said, “Listen, Art, this girl’s a kingpin in an operation we’re cooperating with Secret Service on. Whether or not we stay on it, I don’t know. At any rate, we’ll be hearing from Steve Hackett, shortly. You know Steve, don’t you? Meanwhile, post yourself out in the hall. Nobody but Steve gets in unless you clear it with me first.”
Art had raised his eyebrows, but now he said, “Right, Larry.” He drew his Gyro-jet from the holster beneath his left arm, threw the magazine, checked it, heeled it back into the the butt of the gun, threw a cartridge into the chamber, returned the deadly weapon to its nest and left for the corridor to stand guard.
Larry lowered himself into a chair across from her. “Well, here we are,” he said. “We’ll probably have a couple of hours or so before we hear from Mr. Hackett. Steven’s boss isn’t the easiest man in the world to get to see.”
Her under lip trembled slightly again. “You aren’t going to let me go?”
He said soothingly, “Possibly a little later, Zusanette. There are some other people who will probably want to talk to you.”
She said hesitantly, “You could let me go… if you wanted to? I mean, you’re the one in charge? I heard the superior way you talked to that other one—Steve.”
“Sure, sure. You can depend on me. Meanwhile, this isn’t as bad as all that. Let me show you around. There’s a king-size Tri-Di set over there in that wall. And lots of books there on the shelves. If you want anything to eat or drink, just phone for it. This is the most ritzy hotel in Greater Washington. There’s a delivery box in the kitchen over there. They’ll send up everything you want. Consider yourself a guest of the government, Zusanette.”
He led her about the suite. Two bedrooms, two baths, two dressing rooms, a dining room, a kitchen.
It was very well done, actually, though somewhat ostentatious. Which he assumed wouldn’t bother her at all. Some real VIPs had stayed here on more than one occasion—usually complete with call girls.
“It’s very nice,” Susan Self said lowly. “But I’d rather go home.”
“Your father isn’t even there, you know, Zusanette,” Larry said patiently.
They were in one of the bedrooms. She turned to him and swallowed. Then her fingers went to the buttons of her blouse and she slowly, obviously trying to be provocative, unbuttoned it.
Larry Woolford rather doubted that the girl was the nearly eighteen she claimed to be, but whether or not, her breasts were lush. She wore no brassiere, of course, and needed none. Her face was possibly overly made-up but her body could not be corrupted by’her gauche efforts to appear sophisticated.