“Impossible to believe.”
“The Greek’s evidence and deduction can’t be argued. There’s a Moleman who’s declared war on the Group.”
“Who?”
“Not known. You’re right, Boris. A baby Moleman and a stretch computer in collaboration are bad, but not terror-making. Add a renegade Moleman with centuries of knowledge, experience, wealth, hatred, running amok against the Group — that’s pure panic for me, and that’s why I want no part of the disastrous mess. Let a Group hero-type take it on. I’ll outlive it if I can keep under cover, which I have every intention of doing.”
“And your beloved wife?”
“W?”
“Will she outlive it?”
“You crafty cossack son of a bitch! All the same, my answer stands. I won’t tangle with him or any or all three of them. I’m no hero.”
“Then I will, alone,” Natoma said grimly. “Boris, you please take me to Mexifornia on your way home. If you can’t, I go myself.”
“Natoma—” I began angrily.
“Edward!” She cut me off in the peremptory voice of the daughter of the most powerful Sachem in Erie.
What could I do? She had the Indian sign on me. I surrendered. “All right. I’ll go. I’m just a squaw man.”
Boris beamed. “I will now sing Rubinstein’s ‘Persian Love Song’ in honor of your beloved, beautiful, valiant wife.”
“If we can find the music room,” I grumbled, reaching for the map.
10
Then came the unexpected epiphany of Hillel, the Jew; saturnine, Sephardic black and white, and twice as smart as the rest of the world put together.
As Natoma and I came out of customs in the Northeast Corridor (Brazil has no franchise to put down in Mexifornia; don’t ask me why) there he was with the live and mecho porters. He answered a signal I never made, fought to us, picked up our luggage, and hustled us to a pogo. When I started to greet him he shook his head. As he put us in he mouthed, “Tip.” I tip. He growl in disappointment and disappear. He reappear in a different coverall as the pogo hackie, demanding in a debased Spang where we had the nerve to want to go. When I told him he started a fight for extra fares. I’ve never been so abused in my life, and hot-tempered Natoma was ready to slug him.
“Cool,” I soothed her. “This is typical of the Corridor. It’s all a rage trip.”
Hilly passed me a note. It read: Careful. You’re monitored. Will contact soonest. I showed it to Natoma. Her eyes widened but she nodded in silence.
We made the hotel in three jumps and damn if Hillel didn’t start another fight over the tip. The concierge rescued us and escorted us through the security barriers, followed by the Hebe’s screams of outrage. Beautifully in character. Chronic fury was the beau ideal of the Corridor.
We took a suite with water, both hot and cold, an extravagance that erased the desk clerk’s sneers. The Corridor suffered from a perpetual water shortage. Most of it was black market and you had to pay through the nose for it. In the Corridor you didn’t ask a girl to come up and see your etchings; you invited her to come up and take a shower.
So we took our showers, which made me feel like a deliciously dirty old man, and while we were drying off, the floor steward came in carrying a couple of leather gun cases.
“The shotguns you ordered, sir,” he said in affected hotel Euro. “Over-and-under .410’s. Lady-size for modom. Box of shells in each case.”
I started to deny everything. Then I saw it was the Jew again and shut up.
“Sunrise tomorrow morning on the Heath. Five thirty ack emma,” Hillel continued suavely. “The club has agreed to release twenty chickens. Most generous. If you will permit a suggestion, Mr. Curzon, one would be advised to offer a generous bonus.”
“Chickens!” I said incredulously. “No grouse, pheasant, partridge?”
“Impossible, sir. Those are extinct species in the Corridor. They could be imported from Australasia but that would take weeks. However, the chickens have been bred for cunning and guile. You and modom will have a fine morning’s sport.”
A range safety officer came up to us on the Heath while we were waiting for sunrise and the birds. He wore brilliant protective crimson and I thought he was going to ask to inspect our permits. Then I saw it was Hillel again.
“Gottenu!” he groaned, sitting down on the concrete. It was called “The Heath” only by courtesy. It had been a jetport centuries ago; square miles of concrete now owned by the gun club. “I had to walk it. Sit alongside me, Mrs. Curzon. Otherwise if Guig introduces us I’ll have to stand up, and I don’t think I can make it.”
“Walked!” I exclaimed. “Why?”
“Taking no chances. The Extro network is damned thorough, which is why we’re meeting here where we can’t be monitored. Good morning, Mrs. Curzon. I’m called Hillel the Jew.”
“What is Jew?” Natoma asked curiously.
The Hebe chuckled. “If only that question could have been asked five centuries ago, what a difference it might have made for the Chosen People. It is an ancient race and culture that predated Christianity, Mrs. Curzon.”
“What is Christianity?”
“I like this girl,” Hilly said. “She has exactly the right gaps in her education. Bird, low, at ten o’clock, Guig.”
I shot and missed on purpose. I hate killing creatures.
“You seem to be everybody everywhere,” Natoma said. “What is it you do?”
“He’s a professional Inductor,” I said.
“I don’t know that word, Glig.”
“I invented it especially for Hillel. He’s a genius of induction. That means he can observe and appraise separate, apparently unrelated facts, and add them up to a conclusion about a whole scene that hasn’t occurred to anyone else.”
“You’re too complicated for her, Guig. Put it this way, Mrs. Curzon. I see what everyone else sees, but I think what no one else has thought. Bird, two o’clock, coming over fast. Try to bring yourself to get a few, Guig, to keep up appearances.”
You see? He knew I was missing on purpose. Acute.
“I think I understand,” Natoma said. “My husband told me you were the smartest man in the world.”
“When did he say that?” the Hebe demanded savagely. “I warned you to be careful.”
“He did not say, Mr. Hillel. He wrote a note. We have been mostly talking by note.”
“Thank God.” Hilly was relieved. “For a moment I thought I’d had the schlep out here for nothing.”
“But is being an Induction a profession, Mr. Hillel? How?”
“I’ll give you an example, Nat,” I said. “He was in a dealer’s gallery in Vienna where they had a Claude Monet displayed. Something about the painting seemed odd to the Jew.”
“It ended abruptly at two edges,” Hilly explained. “Bad composition.”
“Then he remembered another Monet he’d seen in Texas. In his mind’s eye he put edges together. Two of them fitted exactly.”
“I don’t understand yet,” Natoma said.
“It’s a crooked practice of art dealers to take a large canvas by a high-priced painter, cut it up into pieces, and sell each piece as a complete work.”
“That’s not honest.”
“But very profitable. Well, Hilly went on a treasure hunt, found and bought the rest of the pieces, and had the original Monet restored.”
“Also v. profitable?”
The Hebe laughed. “Y, but that wasn’t the real motive. Actually it was a case of being unable to resist the challenge. I never can.”
“And that’s why you’re here, Hilly,” I said.
“There, love. He’s as smart as he thinks I am. Perhaps more so.”
“But always too flippant.”