Greybeard

“With her energy and talent, could be both.” They winked at each other’s images in the vision screens and cut off. Timberlane and Martha caught a prowling taxi-cab into town after dark. The enemy attack consisted of two missiles, one of which broke into suitcases over the now almost derelict slaughter and marshalling yards, while the other, causing more damage, broke over the thickly populated Cleveland Park suburb. On the sidewalks, police uniforms seemed to predominate over service uniforms; the Choy had served to make a lot of people stay at home, and as a result the streets were clearer than usual.

At the Thesaurus, Timberlane climbed out and inspected the façade of the club. It was studded with groups of synonyms in bas-relief — Chosen Few, Prime, Picked Bunch, Crême of the Cream, Elite, Salt of the Earth, Top Drawer, Pick of the Pops, Best People. Smiling, he turned to pay the cabby.

“Hey, you!”, he yelled. The taxi, with Martha in it, swerved out into traffic, squealed round a private car, and sped down a side street. Timberlane ran into the road. Brakes and tyres whined behind him. A big limousine bucked to a stop inches from his legs, and a red face was thrust from the driver’s window and began to curse him. A crunching noise sounded from behind, and the red face turned towards the rear to curse even more ferociously. As a cop came running up, Timberlane grabbed his arm.

“My girl’s been kidnapped. Some chap just drove off with her.”

“Happens all the time. You sure have to watch them.”

“She was made away with!”

“Go and tell it to the sergeant, Mac. Think I haven’t got troubles? I’ve got to get this tin real estate rolling again.” He jerked a thumb at an approaching prowl car. Biting his lip, Timberlane made his way towards it.

At eleven o’clock that night, Dyson said, “Come on, Algy, we’re doing no good here. The police’ll phone us if they get a lead. We must go and find a bite to eat before my stomach falls apart.”

“It must have been that devil that sent her the flowers,” Timberlane said, by no means for the first time. “Surely the flower shop could give the police a lead.”

“They got no change from the manager of the flower store. If only you recalled the taxi number.”

“All that I can remember is that it was mauve and yellow, with the words Antelope Taxis across the boot.

Hell, you’re right, Bill — let’s go and get a bite to eat.” As they left the police station, the superintendent said sympathetically, “Don’t worry, Mr. Timberlane.

We’ll have your fiancée tracked down by morning.”

“What makes the man so confident?” Timberlane asked grumpily, as they climbed into Dyson’s car.

Although both Dyson and Jack Pilbeam, who had been down at the station earlier, had done all they could, he felt unfairly eager to annoy them. He felt so vulnerable in what was, however much he liked it, a strange country. Trying to button down his emotions, he remained silent as he and Dyson went to a nearby all-night stall and wolfed down hamburgers with chillies and mustard; the hamburgers were synthetic but good.

“Thank God for chillies,” Dyson said. “They could put a bit of fire into sawdust. I’ve often wondered if chillies aren’t the things the scientists are really looking for in all their megabuck’s worth of research into a way of restoring our poor old shattered genes.”

“Could be,” Timberlane assented. “Bet you they invent synthetic chillies first.” He got to bed after a final nightcap and fell asleep at once. When he woke next morning, he phoned the police station straight away, but they had nothing new to offer him. Moodily, he washed and dressed for breakfast, and went down the hall to collect his mail from the mail slot.

A hand-delivered letter awaited him in the rack. He tore it open to find a sheet of paper bearing the words: “If you want your girl back, take a look in God’s Sufferance Press. Go alone, for her sake. Then call off the cops.” Suddenly, he wanted no breakfast. He almost ran to the hall phone booth and thumbed through the appropriate volume of the phone directory. There it was, under an old-style non-vision number: God’s Sufferance Press, and its address. Should he ring first or go straight round ? He hated the feeling of indecision that flooded him. He dialled and got the disconnected tone.

Hurrying back to his room, he wrote a hasty note to Pilbeam, giving the address to which he was going, and left it on the pillow of his unmade bunk. He pocketed his revolver.