Squaring his shoulders once again, Dr. Young took the three steps that carried him to the door and knocked on it sharply.
«Come in,» said an equally sharp voice.
The office was kept as dark and shadowy as the anteroom, but Dr. Young recognized the man sitting rather tensely behind the desk.
«Dr. Kiss—!»
«No names! Please! Absolute security, Dr. Young.»
«I under—no, come to think of it, I don’t understand. Why keep the fact that you’re using a computer-dating service so secret? What do the Russians and Chinese care—» The man behind the desk cut him short with a gesture. «It’s not the Russians or Chinese. It’s the Democrats. If they find out—» He waggled both hands in the air—a Semitic gesture of impending doom.
Dr. Young took one of the plush chairs in front of the desk. «But Dr. K—»
«Just call me Henry,» the other man said. «But don’t get personal about it.»
«All right, Henry. I still don’t see what’s so terrible about a man in your position using a computer dating service. After all, some of the top Senators and Congressmen on the Democratic side of the aisle have been clients of mine.»
«I know, I saw it all in the FBI report. Or was it the DIA report? Well, never mind.» He fixed Dr. Young with a penetrating stare. «How would it look if the Democrats knew that the President’s most trusted and valued aide couldn’t get a girl for himself? Eh?»
«Oh, I’m sure you could—»
«I can’t!» The penetrating stare melted into something more pathetic. «I can’t, the God our forefathers knows I’ve tried. But I’m a failure, a flop. There are times when I can’t even talk to a woman.»
Dr. Young sat there in shocked silence. Even his advanced degrees in psychology might not be enough for this task, he began to realize.
«It’s my mother’s fault!» Henry all but sobbed. «My pushy mother! Why do you think I took this job in the White House? Because she pushed me into it, and because I thought it might help me to get girls. Well, it hasn’t. I can tell the President when to invade Cambodia. I can eat shark’s fin with Chou En-lai, but I get totally tongue-tied when I try to talk to an attractive woman! My momma— what can I do?»
Henry started to bury his head in his hands, then with an obvious effort of great willpower, he straightened up in his chair. «Sorry,» he said. «I shouldn’t get emotional like that.»
«No, it’s good for you,» Dr. Young soothed. «You can’t keep everything bottled up all the time.»
«Well I have been,» Henry retorted sourly, «and I’m getting very uptight about it.»
Uptight? thought Dr. Young. And everyone thinks he’s a man of the world. I’ve got to help him.
«Listen,» he said, «you tell me the kind of girl you like, and I’ll comb my computer files until I find her—»
Henry smiled faintly, stoically. «So what good will that do? I’ll take one look at her and collapse like a pricked balloon, you should excuse the expression.»
But Dr. Young expected that response and was ready for it. «You don’t understand, Henry. The girl that I’ll find for you will be special. She’ll be anxious to make you happy: she’ll know that the future of the nation—of the whole world—depends on her pleasing you.»
«How can you be sure that she’ll really want to?»
«Leave it to me,» Dr. Young said, with his best professional smile of assurance. «Just tell me what you’d like, and I’ll get my computer cracking on it before the sun comes up.»
Henry gave a little shrug, as if he didn’t really believe what he was hearing but was desperate enough to give it a try anyway.
«I’ve already taken the liberty,» he said, «of coding my»—he smiled bashfully—«my dream girl onto this floppy disk. And you won’t have to use your own computer. Too risky, security-wise, for one thing. Besides, the FBI computer has everybody on it.»
Dr. Young gasped. «The FBI computer?»
Henry nodded.
Then it hit!
For the first time, it struck home to Dr. Young that he was really playing in the big leagues. Was he ready for it?
The room was sumptuous, with thick carpeting and rich drapes framing the full-length windows that looked out over Manhattan’s glittering skyline. A thousand jewels gleamed in the skyscrapers and across the graceful bridges, outshining by far the smogged-over stars of heaven.
Henry swallowed his nervousness as he stood at the doorway with the famous movie star.
«Um, nice room you’ve got here,» he managed to say.
She smiled at him and slid out of her coat. «The studio arranged it. It’s mine until the premiere tomorrow night.»
Her dress glittered more than the view outside. And showed more, too. Henry worked a finger into his shirt collar. It was starting to feel uncomfortably tight, and warm.
«Here, let me help you,» she purred, still showing her perfectly capped teeth in a smile that earned a thousand letters per week, most of them obscene.
She undid his tie and popped the collar button open. «Make yourself comfortable and tell me all about those nasty Russians you outsmarted.»
«I—uh—um—»
Taking him by the wrist, she led Henry to the plushest couch he had ever seen and pulled him down into it, right next to her lush, lascivious body.
«You’re not going to be shy with me, are you? After all, I’m just a lonely little girl far from my home, and I need a big strong daddy to look after me.»
He could smell her musky perfume, feel the brush of her beautiful plasticized hair against her cheek.
«I, uh, I’ve got to catch a plane for—for Ulan Bator in one hour!» As the words popped out of his mouth, Henry sat up stiffly on the edge of the couch. He looked at his wristwatch. «Yes. One hour, to Ulan Bator. That’s in Mongolia, you know.»
She stared at him, pouting. «But what about our date tomorrow night? The premiere of my new movie!»
«I’m sorry. You’ll have to go with someone else. The President needs me in Mongolia. Top secret negotiations. You mustn’t say a word about this—any of this! To anyone!»
With a shrug that nearly popped her breasts out of the low-cut gown, she said, «Okay. Okay. But tell those creepy friends of yours that I’ve done my patriotic duty, and don’t come around here looking for more!»
«But she liked you,» Dr. Young said. He felt surprised and slightly hurt as he sat in the same dimly lit office in the Pentagon. Again it was late at night, and again Henry sat nervously behind the desk.
«It was all an act. She’s an actress, you know.»
«Of course, I know. But she genuinely liked you. It was no act. Take my word for it.»
«How can you be sure?»
«Well—» Dr. Young hesitated, but then realized he’d find out anyway. «We had her room bugged. She cried for twenty minutes after you left.»
Instead of getting angry, Henry looked suddenly guilty. «She did?»
A kaleidoscope of emotions played across Henry’s face. Dr. Young saw surprise, guilt, pride, anxiety, and then he stopped watching.
At length Henry shook himself, as if getting rid of something unpleasant. «She was too—flighty. A silly child.»
«She was what you programmed into the computer,» Dr. Young retorted. «I checked out the characteristics myself, mathematically, of course.»
«Well, the computer goofed!»
«No, Henry. That’s not possible. You simply didn’t give us a description of what you really want in a woman. You told us what you think you want, you gave us some idealizations. But that’s not what your heart’s really set on.»