“They gave you deeptrance. I don’t suppose you know what you told them.”
“While I was under? All I know is they didn’t get what they wanted. They put me under four times, I think it was, and every time I came to, Rick was madder.”
“In that case, you might have told the man with the beard about dinner at the Old College Inn.”
“I suppose, if he’d asked the right questions.”
“I admit is isn’t likely,” Skip said. He leaned back in his chair. “It’s possible, however. He could also have planted the suggestion that you would recognize him as your father the first time you saw him with your mother. I’ll admit that neither of those are very plausible.”
“I’ll say! That’s Charlie. A lot older, but still Charlie. Did you buy that story about his just happening to go into the cabin looking for me?”
“Certainly not.” Skip paused. “He lied about having met Jerry Brice and half a dozen other things.”
Chelle nodded. “He said all he had to do was say he’d been sent by headquarters, and they bought it. It was damn hard not to laugh in his face.”
“Hard but wise.”
“Yeah. He came to save me, just like you did. Only he pulled it off.”
Skip nodded. “You don’t know how he established his bona fides?”
“I’m pretty sure I was under when he came in, but I know somebody who does.”
“Who might,” Skip said. “So do I, and I want to talk to her.”
“Will she tell you the truth?”
He shrugged. “Susan won’t lie to me intentionally. But she may not have understood what was said or what sort of ID was shown. She may have been busy doing something, most probably because Rick Johnson saw to it that she was.”
“Do you really think there would be papers? Something like a service card?”
Skip shrugged again. “Almost certainly not, but there may have been something else. A ring, a coin, a button. Maybe a gesture. A secret handshake sounds absurd, I know; but it might be good for just that reason. Or the repeated use of some particular phrase. Or something else—there’s always the chance it was something else.”
Chelle grinned. “You said ‘something else’ twice. I bet you thought I wouldn’t catch it.”
“I said it three times. Seriously now, it might be good for us to know what the ID was; but I doubt that we can get it from Susan because I doubt that she has it. I hoped you did.”
Chelle shook her head. “Do you really, seriously think Charlie might be spying for the Os?”
“You knew him far better than I did, and your memories of him will be far more recent. Do you?”
“You want to give me time to think about it?”
“No. Off the top of your head. Would he do it?”
Chelle looked thoughtful. “For enough money, yes, he might. But he’d double-cross them as soon as he found out how to make double-crossing pay. You want more?”
“Absolutely.”
“Charlie’s loyal to Charlie. If God pays off on total no-slacking loyalty to a cause, there’s a gold throne in heaven just waiting for Charlie. If he doesn’t kill goats in front of his own picture, it’s because he’s never found goats good enough.”
“He tried to save your life.”
“Wrong. He saved it. It kind of worries me, because he figured he’d get something out of it and I don’t know what. I’ve got a dozen guesses when what I need’s one good one.”
“He sees you as a detached part of himself. All right if I have the first shower?”
“No way. You’ll be all nice and clean and smell good, and I won’t take one at all. So me first. Do you think that’s really it? I’m part of him? In his mind, I mean?”
“Biologically you are. You’ve got a bunch of his genes, and he certainly knows that. Would Virginia be as quick to take him back if she didn’t know he’d saved you?”
Chelle rose. “I think so. It’s money, not me. He’s rich, or she thinks he is, or anyway she thinks he might be. She’s poor now, and she doesn’t like it. I’ll try to leave you a dry towel.”
There would be no one in Zygmunt’s office this late, but there would be an answering machine. Skip selected Zman from his contacts list. “This is Skip Grison. Here’s a phone number.” He read the number the white-bearded man had supplied. “Find out who’s answering that number and what they’re doing. It’s supposed to belong to somebody named Coleman Baum.” He spelled it. “See if he’s real.”
He leaned back, conscious that he was very tired, and conscious, too, that he sometimes made bad decisions when he was tired. Something hard tapped the door softly. He stood, went to the peephole, and opened the door to admit Achille.
“You want see me, mon?”
“Sit down.” Skip motioned toward the other chair. “Chelle’s taking a shower, and that ought to give us all the time we need. We’ll make port tomorrow. Will you go ashore?”
Achille shrugged. “Got to, mon. They don’t let me on the ship no more.”
“You could hide on board so that they would never find you. We both know that. Are you going to?”
“What you want, mon?”
“I want you to bring something in for me. There’ll be money in it for you.”
Achille thrust out his lower lip. “I’m going, mon. What you want?”
Skip unlocked his bag, rummaged through his dirty laundry, and produced the pistol he had wrested from Rick Johnson’s dead hand. “You could sell this in the city for a good price.”
Lips pursed, Achille nodded.
“I think I know about what you could get for it, but I’d like to hear your guess.”
Achille leaned closer to inspect the pistol. At last he shrugged. “I ask five thous’. You give it to me, mon? I split.”
“You’d ask five. What would you settle for?”
The spike that had replaced Achille’s right hand scratched his chin. “For four thous’, I think.”
“What about thirty-five hundred?”
“You sell for this? Sell to me?”
Skip shook his head.
“Then I don’ sell for him too.”
“All right, here’s my offer. This gun’s mine. If you can get it ashore and deliver it to me, at my office, I’ll give you three thousand noras. If you don’t deliver it, you’ll have turned a good friend into an enemy. I’ll see to it that you’re picked up and deported. Say no deal and walk away, if you won’t bring it to me. That way, we’re still friends.”
Achille hesitated. “Cash. Must be cash, mon, or I don’ bring.”
“Three thousand noras in cash. Furthermore, if you’re caught trying to bring it in, I’ll defend you; but only if you say nothing about me to anyone.”
Achille nodded. “I don’ never talk, mon.”
“I may have another gun for you before we dock. If so, I expect the same deal. You’ll get three thousand more when you deliver it to me. Six thousand in all.”
“I need him soon, mon. Where your office?”
Skip gave him a business card, tucking it into his shirt pocket.
When Achille had gone and Chelle remained in the bathroom, Skip telephoned the bridge. “Is Captain Kain there?”
“Who’s calling?”
“Skip Grison.”
“I’ll see, sir.”
A moment later the captain was on the line. “What’s up, Skip?”
“You dropped by our table at dinner. Virginia was there with an elderly man. Virginia Healy.”
“Yes.”
“I need information about the elderly man, and I’m hoping you’ve got some. Who is he?”