Noyes decided to ask Elena. Elena seemed to know everything about everyone. She was at the center of the nexus, tentacles reaching toward Mark Kaufmann on the one hand, toward Santoliquido on the other, toward Noyes on the third. And she still had a tentacle or two left to extend in Roditis’ direction. She’d be a likely source of information.
She had a small apartment registered in her on name in New Jersey. Noyes scarcely expected to find her there, but it was the logical place to begin. He called from the airport and was surprised to find her answering.
Her privacy code appeared on the screen. Noyes identified himself. The screen cleared, and Elena came into view. She was nude, but the scanner cut her off at the breasts, and in any case the tiny screen in the booth did not give him much of a view.
“I’ve just come hack from a visit to Roditis,” he said. “In Indiana.”
“You told him about—”
“St. John? Yes.”
“He must have been furious!”
“Actually, he was quite cool about it,” Noyes said. “He seemed to be expecting some sort of fast shuffle of that kind, and he was braced. Listen, Elena, how soon can I get to see you?”
“Why not right now?”
“You’re free this evening?”
“Very much so. Would you like to take me to Jubilisle again?”
“No,” he said. “I’d just like a quiet visit. There are — some questions I’d like to ask.”
“Questions, questions, questions! Very well. Come to my apartment. When should I expect you?”
“How about an hour from now?”
“That will do.” She tapped out the hopter program for reaching her house, fingers moving swiftly over the data keys. An instant later the program card came chuttering out of the data slot in Noyes’ telephone booth. He seized it and blew her a kiss. Grabbing his one suitcase, he rushed up the ramp and stepped into a traveler’s-aid station, where he underwent a vibrator bath while his clothes were being pressed and refurbished. Freed of the grime of his journey from Indiana, Noyes proceeded toward the hopter zone, pausing on the way for a short snack. He chartered a hopter and slipped Elena’s house program into the receptor slot. The vehicle took off, found itself hung up momentarily in a delay pattern over the crowded airport, then discovered an exit vector and made its way toward New Jersey.
He arrived at Elena’s place a little after nine that evening. Noyes had never been there before. His previous meetings with Elena had taken place at his apartment. He did not know what to expect: a place of palatial luxury, perhaps, or some steamy, overdecorated temple of amour. But in reality the apartment was nothing more than a pied-а-terre, as simple and austere as his own little suite. Despite Elena’s known predilections for opulence, she did not seem to require it here, perhaps because it served only as a way station for her on those rare nights when she was not sleeping out. Greeting him in diaphanous, swirling pink robes that did very little to hide the exaggerated voluptuousness of her body. Elena seemed like some overblown tropical blossom blooming in a humble northern meadow.
They embraced tentatively and distantly. Elena evidently was ready for any kind of overtures he cared to make, but Noyes was too tense, too bound up in his own situation, to do more than go through a kind of ritualistic contact.
They broke away. She offered drinks. He settled into a chair; she chose a divan. Her robes parted to reveal tawny thighs. Noyes wondered if, as a matter of strategy, he should respond to her wanton unvoiced invitation. Or was she only teasing him? He was well aware that in all their relationships she regarded him only as a surrogate for other men. Sexually, she reached through him to make love to Jim Kravchenko. And when she passed secret information to him about the doings of Mark Kaufmann or Santoliquido, it was in the hope of winning favor with Roditis.
He said, “I need your help, Elena. I’m trying to find Martin St. John.”
Her eyebrows rose. Her full lips drew apart. “Roditis is after him so soon?”
Noyes made an effort to conceal his reaction. “I’d simply like to talk to the man.”
“About what?”
“Does it matter?”
“It might,” she said. Fidgeting, Noyes improvised. “All right. Roditis is interested in working out a deal with Paul Kaufmann. As long as old Kaufmann’s back in circulation and Roditis can’t have the persona himself, he’d like to come to an understanding with him. You see, Roditis is worried that Paul and Mark will form a family alliance to crush him. So he’d like to drive a wedge between them as rapidly as possible. Does that make sense to you?”
“A great deal of sense.”
“So I’ve been sent here to make contact with Kaufmann/ St. John. Only I don’t know where to find him.”
“And you think I do?”
“If anyone does, you do. Certainly Santoliquido’s aware of St. John’s location, and probably Mark as well. You’re close to both of them. So—”
“You’re right,” said Elena. “I do know.”
“Will you tell me?” She stirred idly. Her robes opened, probably not by accident, and for a brief dazzling moment her entire body was bare to him. Noyes let his eyes rest on the huge globes of her breasts. She had mounted a fusion node in the great valley between them, and its tireless sparkle lulled him. Just as casually, Elena covered herself.
Softly she said, “Perhaps I might tell you. But there would be a price, Charles.”
“Name it. Any amount.” She laughed. “Not money. A favor.”
“What?” he asked uneasily. “You carry the persona of a man who once meant a great deal to me,” Elena said. “You stand between me and that man, Charles. If I lead you to Martin St. John, you will step aside and make that man available to me. Yes? I can take you to St. John tonight.”
“You mean I should have Kravchenko erased and let his persona be given to someone else?”
“Not exactly,” she replied. “I mean that you should allow him to take you over. So that I may enjoy him directly in your body.”
Noyes was thrown into such turmoil that Kravchenko nearly was able to eject him then and there. He struggled for control. Never had he experienced so direct a blow to his ego. Calmly, casually, Elena had invited him to commit suicide for her convenience! His lips worked incoherently. At length he said, “You have no right to ask that of me. It’s insane to think that I’d do any such thing!”
“Is it? Why do you carry that flask of carniphage, then?”
“Well—”
“Your suicidal tendencies are well-known. Very well, Charles: here’s your moment. Be of some use. Restore Jim Kravchenko to the world he loves, and remove yourself from the world you hate. While at the same time fulfilling your obligations to Roditis by speaking with St. John. Yes? It is perfect, you see.”
In a stunned silence Noyes contemplated the symmetry of Elena’s proposal. True enough, he had already contracted with himself to swallow the carniphage once he had done this last deed for Roditis. Elena seemed to recognize, somehow, that he had declared himself superfluous. In the long run, what difference did it make which exit he chose? To drink the carniphage would be a petty way of revenging himself on Kravchenko for many slights, but in short order Kravchenko’s persona would be in a new body, and what then of his revenge? This way, at least, he could graciously step aside and deliver up his body to Kravchenko, not for Kravchenko’s sake but for Elena’s.