Thank God, the luck was beginning to turn! Fatty—eight hundred credits. On account. On account of what? The machine? Was it the solution to Fatty’s problem, or to J. W.’s? Gallegher prayed with brief fervency that Fatty had requested a device that ate dirt and sang “St. James Infirmary.”
The image blurred and flickered, with a faint crackling. Fatty said hurriedly, “Something’s wrong with the line. But—did you do it, Mr. Gallegher? Did you find a method?
“Sure,” Gallegher said. If he could lead the man on, gain some hint of what he had ordered—
“Oh, wonderful! DU’s been calling me for days. I’ve been putting them off, but they won’t wait forever. Cuff’s bearing down hard, and I can’t get around that old statute—”
The screen went dead.
Gallegher almost bit off his tongue in impotent fury. Hastily he closed the circuit and began striding around the lab, his nerves tense with expectation. In a second the visor would ring. Fatty would call back. Naturally. And this time the first question Gallegher would ask would be, “Who are you?”
Time passed.
Gallegher groaned and checked back, asking the operator to trace the call.
“I’m sorry, sir. It was made from a dial visor. We cannot trace cafls made from a dial visor.”
Ten minutes later Gallegher stopped cursing, seized his hat from its perch atop an iron dog that had once decorated a lawn, and whirled to the door. “I’m going out,” he snapped to Narcissus. “Keep an eye on that machine.”
“All right. One eye.” The robot agreed. “Ill need the other to watch my beautiful insides. Why don’t you find out who Cuff is?”
“What?”
“Cuff. Fatty mentioned somebody by that name. He said he was bearing down hard—”
“Check! He did, at that. And—what was it?—he said he couldn’t get around an old statue—”
“Statute. It means a law.”
“I know what statute means,” Gallegher growled. “I’m not exactly a driveling idiot. Not yet, anyhow. Cuff, eh? I’ll try the visor again.”
There were six Cuffs listed. Gallegher eliminated half of them by gender. He crossed off Cuff-Linx Mfg. Co., which left two—Max and Frederick. He televised Frederick, getting a pop-eyed, scrawny youth who was obviously not yet old enough to vote. Gallegher gave the lad a murderous glare of frustration and nipped the switch, leaving Frederick to spend the next half-hour wondering who had called him, grimaced like a demon, and blanked out without a word.
But Max Cuff remained, and that, certainly, was the man. Gallaegher felt sure of it when Max Cuff’s butler transferred the call to a downtown office, where a receptionist said that Mr. Cuff was spending the afternoon at the Uplift Social Club.
“That so? Say, who is Cuff, anyhow?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What’s his noise? His business, I mean?”
“Mr. Cuff has no business,” the girl said frigidly. “He’s an alderman.”
That was interesting. Gallegher looked for his hat, found it on his head, and took leave of the robot, who did not trouble to answer. “If Fatty calls up again,” the scientist commanded, “get his name. See? And keep your eye on that machine, just in case it starts having mutations or something.”
That seemed to tie up all the loose ends. Gallegher let himself out of the house. A cool autumn wind was blowing, scattering crisp leaves from the overhead parkways. A few taxiplanes drifted past, but Gallegher hailed a street cab; he wanted to see where he was going. Somehow he felt that a telecall to Max Cuff would produce little of value. The man would require deft handling, especially since he was “bearing down hard.”
“Where to, bud?”
“Uplift Social Club. Know where it is?”
“Nope,” said the driver, “but I can find out.” He used his teledirectory on the dashboard. “Downtown. ’Way down.”
“O. K.,” Gallegher told the man, and dropped back on the cushions, brooding darkly. Why was everybody so elusive? His clients weren’t usually ghosts. But Fatty remained vague and nameless—a face, that was all, and one Gallegher hadn’t recognized. Who J. W. was anyone might guess. Only Dell Hopper had put in an appearance, and Gallegher wished he hadn’t. The summons rustled in his pocket.
“What I need,” Gallegher soliloquized, “is a drink. That was the whole trouble. I didn’t stay drunk. Not long enough, anyhow. Oh, damn.”
Presently the taxi stopped at what had once been a glass-brick mansion, now grimy and forlorn-looking. Gallegher got out, paid the driver, and went up the ramp. A small placard said Uplift Social Club. Since there was no buzzer, he opened the door and went in.
Instantly his nostrils twitched like the muzzle of a war horse scenting cordite. There was drinking going on. With the instinct of a homing pigeon, Gallegher went directly to the bar, set up against one wall of a huge room filled with chairs, tables, and people. A sad-looking man with a derby was playing a pin-ball machine in a corner. He looked up as Gallegher approached, lurched into his path, and murmured, “Looldng for somebody?”
“Yeah,” Gallegher said. “Max Cuff. They told me he was here.”
“Not now,” said the sad man. “What do you want with him?”
“It’s about Fatty,” Gallegher hazarded.
Cold eyes regardedPhim. “Who?”
“You wouldn’t know him. But Max would.”
“Max want to see you?”
“Sure.”
“Well,” the man said doubtfully, “he’s down at the Three-Star on a pub-crawl. When he starts that—”
“The Three-Star? Where is it?”
“Fourteenth near Broad.”
“Thanks,” Gallegher said. He went out, with a longing look at the bar. Not now—not yet. There was business to attend to first.
The Three-Star was a gin mill, with dirty pictures on the walls. They moved in a stereoscopic and mildly appalling manner. Gallegher, after a thoughtful examination, looked the customers over. There weren’t many. A huge man at one end of the bar attracted his attention because of the gardenia in his lapel and the flashy diamond on his ring ringer.
Gallegher went toward him. “Mr. Cuff?”
“Right,” said the big man, turning slowly on the bar-stool like Jupiter revolving on its axis. He eyed Gallegher, librating slightly. “Who’re you?”
“I’m—”
“Never mind,” said Cuff, winking. “Never give your right name after you’ve pulled a job. So you’re on the lam, eh?”
“What?”
“I can spot ’em as far away as I can see ’em. You…you… hey!” Cuff said, bending forward and sniffing. “You been drinking!”
“Drinking,” Galleghef said bitterly. “It’s an understatement.”
“Then have a drink with me,” the big man invited. “I’m up to E now. Egg flip. Tun!” he roared. “ ’Nother egg flip for my pal here! Step it up! And get busy with F.”
Gallegher slid onto the stool beside Cuff and watched his companion speculatively. The alderman seemed a little tight.
“Yes,” Cuff said, “alphabetical drinking’s the only way to do it. You start with A—absinthe—and then work along, brandy, cointreau, daiquiri, egg flip—” “Then what?”
“F, of course,” Cuff said, mildly surprised. “Flip. Here’s yours. Good lubrication!”
They drank. “Listen,” Gallegher said, “I want to see you about Fatty.”
“Who’s he?”
“Fatty,” Gallegher explained, winking significantly. “You know. You’ve been bearing down lately. The statute. You know.”
“Oh! Him!” Cuff suddenly roared with Gargantuan laughter. “Fatty, huh? That’s good. That’s very good. Fatty’s a good name for him, all right.”
“Not much like his own, is it?” Gallegher said cunningly.