I helped Lefty up, then dusted off a chair and listened to a half-hour
briefing on conditions in the city. They weren't good. Then I went
upstairs to the chart room to wait for a call.
* * * * *
It was almost ten o'clock when Lefty came into the room where I was
looking over the maps of the city. He jerked his head.
"Hey, you."
A weasel-faced man who had been blowing smoke in my face slid off his
stool, dropped his cigarette and smeared it under his shoe.
"You," Lefty said. "The new guy."
I belted my coat and followed him down the dark stairway, and out
across the littered tarmac, glistening wet under the polyarcs, to where
Haug stood talking to another man I hadn't seen before.
Haug flicked a beady glance my way, then turned to the stranger. He
was a short man of about fifty with a mild expressionless face and
expensive clothes.
"Mr. Stenn, this is Smith. He's your escort. You do like he tells you
and he'll get you into the city and see your party and back out again
in one piece."
The customer looked at me. "Considering the fee I'm paying, I sincerely
hope so," he murmured.
"Smith, you and Mr. Stenn take number 16 here." Haug patted a
hinge-sprung hood, painted a bilious yellow and scabbed with license
medallions issued by half a dozen competing city governments.
Haug must have noticed something in Stenn's expression.
"It ain't a fancy-looking hack, but she's got full armor, heavy-duty
gyros, crash-shocks, two-way music and panic gear. I ain't got a better
hack in the place."
Stenn nodded, popped the hatch and got in. I climbed in the front and
adjusted the seat and controls to give me a little room. When I kicked
over the turbos they sounded good.
"Better tie in, Mr. Stenn," I said. "We'll take the Canada turnpike in.
You can brief me on the way."
I wheeled 16 around and out under the glare-sign that read "HAUG
ESCORT." In the eastbound linkway I boosted her up to 90. From the way
the old bus stepped off, she had at least a megahorse under the hood.
Maybe Haug wasn't lying, I thought. I pressed an elbow against the
power pistol strapped to my side.
I liked the feel of it there. Maybe between it and old 16 I could get
there and back after all.
* * * * *
"My destination," Stenn said, "is the Manhattan section."
That suited me perfectly. In fact, it was the first luck I'd had since
I burned the uniform. I looked in the rear viewer at Stenn's face.
He still wore no expression. He seemed like a mild little man to be
wanting into the cage with the tigers.
"That's pretty rough territory, Mr. Stenn," I said. He didn't answer.
"Not many tourists go there," I went on. I wanted to pry a little
information from him.
"I'm a businessman," Stenn said.
I let it go at that. Maybe he knew what he was doing. For me, there was
no choice. I had one slim lead, and I had to play it out to the end. I
swung through the banked curves of the intermix and onto the turnpike
and opened up to full throttle.
It was fifteen minutes before I saw the warning red lights ahead. Haug
had told me about this. I slowed.
"Here's our first roadblock, Mr. Stenn," I said. "This is an operator
named Joe Naples. All he's after is his toll. I'll handle him; you sit
tight in the hack. Don't say anything, don't do anything, no matter
what happens. Understand?"
"I understand," Stenn said mildly.
I pulled up. My lights splashed on the spikes of a Mark IX tank trap. I
set the parking jacks and got out.
"Remember what I told you," I said. "No matter what." I walked up into
the beam of the lights.
A voice spoke from off to the side.
"Douse 'em, Rube."
I went back and cut the lights. Three men sauntered out onto the
highway.
"Keep the hands away from the sides, Rube."
One of the men was a head taller than the others. I couldn't see his
face in the faint red light from the beacon, but I knew who he was.
"Hello, Naples," I said.