"Going my way?" Sarah asked of Sam, and off they went, by the stairs to the next level down, to the ancient Worm; but Johnny hugged Poll against him and took the corridor that snaked its way with one of the waterpipes, toward the core of second level; the Pillar was liner even to its decor, which was old tackle and scrawled signatures. . . they walked in through an arch that distinguished itself only by louder music—one had to know where one was down at the Bottom, or have a guide, and pay; and no Residents got shown to the Pillar, or to the Worm, not on the guides' lives. He found his favored table; next the big support that gave the place its name, around which the tables wound, a curve which gave privacy, and, within the heartbeat throb of the music, calm and warmth after the shrieking winds.
He and Poll ordered dinner from the boy who did the waiting; a tiny-"tiny," he said, measuring a span with his fingers—glass of brew, because they were going out on the lines again tomorrow, and they needed their heads unswollen.
They had of course other pleasures in mind, because there was more to the Pillar than this smoky, music-pulsing den, and the food and drink; there were the rooms below, down the stairs beyond, for such rest as they had deserved.
He finished his good meal, and Poll did, and they sat there sipping their brew and eyeing one another with the anticipation of long acquaintance, but the brew was good too, and what they had been waiting for all day, with the world swinging under their feet and exertion sucking the juices out of them. They were that, old friends, and it could wait on the drink, slow love, and slow quiet sleep in the Bottom, with all the comforting weight of the City on their backs, where the world was solid and warm.
"Tallfeather."
He looked about, in the music and the smoke. No one used his last name, not among the highliners; but it was not a voice he knew. . . a thin man in Builders' blue coveralls and without a Builders' drawling accent either.
"Tallfeather, I'd like to talk with you. Privately."
He frowned, looked at Poll, who looked worried, tilted his head to one side. "Rude man, that."
"Mr. Tallfeather."
No onesaid Mister in the Bottom. That intrigued him. "Poll, you mind? This man doesn't get much of my time."
"I'll leave," Poll said. There was a shadow in Poll's eyes, the least hint of fear, he would have said, but there was no cause of it that he could reckon.
"No matter," the man said, hooking his arm to pull him up. "We've a place to go."
"No." He rose to his feet all right, and planted them, glared up at the man's face. Shook his arm free. "You're begging trouble. What's your name? Let me see your card." The man reached for his pocket and took one out. Manley, it said, Joseph, and identified him as an East Face Builder, and that was a lie, with that accent. Company number 687. Private employ.
So money was behind this, that could get false cards. He looked for Poll's opinion, but she had slipped away, and he was alone with this man. He sat down at the table again, pointed to the other chair. "I'd be crazy to walk out of here with you. You sit down there and talk sense or I do some talking to security, and I don't think you'd like that, would you?" Manley sat down, held out his hand for the card. Johnny gave it to him. "So who are you?" Johnny prodded.
There was no one, at the moment, near them. The huge pillar cut them off from sight and sound of others, and the serving boy was gone into the kitchen or round the bend.
"You're of the 48 East," Manley said, "and this project you're on. . . you know what kind of money that throws around. You want to stay on the lines all your life, Tallfeather, or do you think about old age?"
"I don't mind the lines," he said. "That's what I do."
"It's worth your while to come with me. Not far. No tricks. I have a friend of yours will confirm what I say. You'll trust him."
"What friend?"
"Jino Brown."
That disturbed him. Jino. Jino involved with something that had to sneak about like this. Jino had money troubles. Gambled. This was something else again. "Got a witness of my own, remember?
My teammate's going to know who you are, just in case you have ideas."
"Oh, she does know me, Mr. Tallfeather." That shook his confidence further, because he had known Poll all his life, and Poll was honest. And scared.
"All right. Suppose we take that walk."
"Good," Manley said, and got to his feet. Johnny rose and walked with him to the door, caught the young waiter before he went out it. "Tommy, lad, I'm going with Mr. Manley here." He took the order sheet from the boy's pocket and wrote the name down and the company number, probably false. "And you comp my bill and put your tip on it, and you remember who I left with, all right?"
"Right," the boy said. Builder by birth, Tommy Pratt, but small and unhealthy and sadly pale.
"You in some kind of trouble, Johnny?"
"Just remember the name and drop it in the liners' ears if I don't come back before morning; otherwise forget it."
"Yes, sir."
Manley was not pleased. Johnny smiled a taut, hard smile and walked with him then, out the winding ways where the man wanted to lead him. In fact it was curiosity and nerves that brought him with Manley, an ugly kind of curiosity. He was no Resident to go rubber-kneed at the sight of the lines, but this had something to do with those he was going out there with, and where their minds were, and this he wanted to know.
There was another dive a good distance beyond, down a series of windings and up and down stairs, on the very margin of the territory he knew in the Bottom; and being that close to lost made him nervous too.
But Jino was there, at the table nearest the door, stood up to meet him, but did not take him back to the table; walked him with his hand on his shoulder, back into one of the rooms most of these places had, where the pounding music and the maze gave privacy for anything.
"What is this?" Johnny asked, trusting no one now; but Jino urged him toward a chair at the round table that occupied this place, that was likely for gambling—Jino wouldknow such places. Manley had sat down there as if he owned the place, and stared at both of them as they sat down. "I'll tell you what it is," Manley said. "There's a flaw on the East Face 90th, you understand?"
"There's not a flaw."
"Big one," said Manley. "Going to deviate the whole project a degree over."
"Going to miss some important property," Jino said, "whatever the computers projected. We'rethe ones go out there; the computers don't. We say."
He looked at Jino, getting the whole drift of it and not at all liking it.
"Mr. Tallfeather," Manley said. "Property rides on this. Bigmoney. And it gets spread around. There is, you see, a company that needs some help; that's going to be hurt bad by things the way they're going; and maybe some other companies have an in with the comp operators, eh? Maybe this just balances the books. You understand that?"