"No," Johnny said quietly. "Please," Mason said. "Something else."
"Tea," he said. The secretary left in haste. Mason sat in another chair, staring at him. . . a thin man, white-haired, with hard lines.
"Mr. Tallfeather," Mason said. "I've been briefed on your case. My staff came across with it. I've heard what happened."
"Heard," he echoed. Maybe there was still a craziness in his eyes. Mason looked uneasy.
"It was a man of ours, George Bettin. That's as far as it went; you've followed the trial." He nodded, staring at Mason all the while.
"ATELCORP has no legal liability—certainly no criminal fault—but we want to make amends for this. To do right by you."
"To get the liners working again," he said bitterly.
"That, too, Mr. Tallfeather. I think your case, more than the end of the trial—I think justice done on this level may do more to heal the breach. We want to offer you a position. This office. A job."
"Only I stop talking. I stop saying what happened."
"Mr. Tallfeather, the public welfare is at stake. You understand that; it's more than the project. The strike. . . is illegal. We can't have that."
He sat still a moment. "Yes, sir," he said, very, very softly. Wiped at his face. He looked about him. "Thoughtful of you. No windows."
"We're terribly sorry, Mr. Tallfeather. Our extreme condolences. Sincerely."
"Yes, sir."
"You just come to the office when you like. The door. . . doesn't go past the windows out there. You come when you like."
"Doing what, Mr. Mason?"
"We'll develop that."
"And I don't talk about my sister; about my team."
"We'd prefer not."
"You're scared," he said.
Mason's face went hard.
"I'll take the job," he said. The tea had just arrived. Mason put on a smile and rose, offered him a hand and clapped him on a still-bruised shoulder. "Your own secretary, you choose from the pool. Anything you want in the way of decor. . ."
"Yes, sir."
Mason smiled, which was not a smile. The secretary stood there with the tea, and stepped aside as Mason left. Johnny walked over and took the tray, set it down himself. "That's enough," he said. "Go away."
And that afternoon the press came, escorted by Mason.
"What do you think of the investigation, Mr. Tallfeather?"
"What was it like, Mr. Tallfeather?"
He gave it to them, all the titillation the vid addicts could ask for, how it felt, dangling in air like that, watching the others die. He was steady; he was heroic, quiet, tragic; appealed for the liners to go to work, for an end to the civic agony.
They left, satisfied; Mason was satisfied, smiled at him. Clapped him on the shoulder and offered him a drink. He took it, and sat while Mason tried to be affable. He was pleasant in turn. "Yes, Mr. Mason. Yes, sir."
He went back to his office, which had no work, and no duties.
He was back in the morning. Sat in his office and stared at the walls.
Listened to vid. The liners went back to work. The strike was over. The whole City complex breathed easier.
He stayed all the day, and left by his own door, when Mason left; used a liner's key to prep the service elevator; waited in the hall outside.
"Mr. Mason."
"Hello, Johnny."
He smiled, walked to join Mason, and Mason looked uncomfortable there in the hall, the quite lonely hall, in front of ATELCORP'S big soundproof doors.
"Want you to come with me," he said to Mason.
"I'm sorry—" Mason started to say, headed for the doors.
Johnny whipped the hand and the razor from his pocket, encircled his neck, let it prick just a little. "Just want you to come with me," he said. "Don't yell." Mason started to. The razor bit, Mason stopped, and yielded backward when he pulled him, down the hall, which at this time just before quitting time, with the Man in the hall—was very quiet.
"You're crazy," Mason said.
"Move." He jerked Mason backward, to the service elevator. Someone hadcome out. Saw. Darted back into the office. Mason started resisting and stopped at another nick.
"Look here," Mason gasped. "You're sick. It won't go bad for you; a hospital stay, a little rest. . . the company won't hold grudges; I won't. I understand—"
He dragged Mason backward into the lift; pushed TOP; and PRIORITY, with the key in. The door closed. The car shot up with a solid lift, that long, impossible climb. He let Mason loose, while he stood by the lift controls.
Mason stood against the wall and stared at him.
"I just want you," Johnny said ever so softly, "to go withme." Mason's lips were trembling. He screamed aloud for help. It echoed in the small car.
"We have a head start," Johnny said. "Of course they'll come. But it takes the computers to override a service key. It'll take them a moment to realize that." Mason stood and shivered. The car rose higher and higher, lurched at last to a stomach-wrenching stop. The door opened on a concrete room, and he took Mason by the arm and walked him outside the car. It left again. "I think they've called it," he said calmly. Used his left hand to pull the hatch lever.
The door slammed open, echoing; the wind hit them like a hammer blow, and Mason flinched. There was a wide balcony outside, heavy pipe from which lines were strung. Mason clung to the door and Johnny dragged him forward by the arm. All the world stretched about them in the twilight, and there was ice underfoot, a fine mist blowing, bitter cold, making muscles shake. Mason slipped, and Johnny caught his elbow, walked a step farther.
"I can't go out on the lines," Johnny said. "Can't look out the windows. But company helps. Doesn't it?" He walked him far out across the paving, his eyes on the horizon haze, and Mason came, shivering convulsively within the circle of his left arm. The wind hit them hard, staggered them both, made them slip a little on the ice. His right side was numb. He kept his arm about Mason, walked to the very railing. "No view like it, Mr. Mason. I dream of it. It's cold. And it's far. Look down, Mr. Mason."
Mason clutched at the railing, white-knuckled. Johnny let him go, moved back from him, turned and walked back toward the lift doors.
The hatch opened. Police were there, with guns drawn. And they stayed within the doorway, leaned there, sickness in their eyes, hands clenched together on the levelled guns. He laughed, noiseless in the wind, motioned toward the edge, toward Mason. None of the police moved. The world was naked about them. The soaring height of the other towers was nothing to this, to the City itself, the great Manhattan tower. He grinned at them, while the wind leached warmth from him.
"Go get him," he shouted at the police. "Go out and get him." One tried, got a step out, froze and fell.
And slowly, carefully, holding up hands they could see as empty, he walked back to Mason, took his right hand and pried it from the icy rail; took the other, stared almost compassionately into a face which had become a frozen mask of horror, mouth wide and dried, eyes stark and wild. He put his arm about Mason like a brother, and slowly walked with him back to the police.
"Mr. Mason," he said to them, "seems to have gotten himself out where he can't get back. But he'll be all right now." Mason's hands clung to him, and would not let go. He walked into the housing and into the lift with the police, still with his arm about Mason, and Mason clutched at him as the lift shot down. He smoothed Mason's hair as he had once smoothed Sarah's. "I had a sister," he said in Mason's ear. "But someone shut a door. On all of us. They'll convict Bettin, of course. And it'll all be forgotten. Won't it?"
The lift stopped at a lower floor. The police pushed him out, carefully because of Mason; and there were windows there, wide windows, and the twilight gleaming on the other buildings on the horizon. Mason sobbed and turned his face away, holding to him, but the police pulled them apart; and Mason held to the wall, clung there, his face averted from the glass.