"Well, she made me do it. What'm I supposed to do?"
"Dobble, you're perfectly justified!" But Lukia's eyes remained on
Brendel, bright and greedy.
Pollony glared. She would not stay and fight Lukia for Brendel.
* * * * *
She flung the door open. The two collectors snapped alert. "I want to
be alone," she intoned.
Brendel eyed her balefully. But he had already noticed Lukia's
interest. "Where we gonna go?"
"We can go to my live," Lukia said. "I think Dobble deserves her little
whim."
Brendel could not believe she was not going to fight. "You, kid! You're
acting like a kid."
Ferren took Brendel's arm. "Don't stoop to conventional pettiness,
Brendel."
Brendel flushed. "I'm coming back. You're not rooking me out of my
collections." He turned abruptly and stepped on the grid. Giving a
three-passenger order, he disappeared. Lukia followed. Ferren stepped
on, tossed bills to the collectors, and disappeared.
Pollony closed the door. She leaned against it, breathing the silence.
Then she hurried through the live, setting it in order. She
straightened the books Ferren had been examining and found two missing.
Even as Lukia was punching dinner and saying all the things designed
to make Brendel want Pollony back only briefly, as a point of pride,
Pollony was whisking into a brisk trousersuit and wondering how much
had piled up in the account where she kept her parents' gifts.
Even as Brendel was feeling Lukia's face with his eyes, letting her
excitement speak to his own, Pollony was at the bank having her balance
marked into her deposit clip.
Even as Ferren was smiling and wondering how much the two books would
bring, Pollony was rapping at the door of the apartment house in
centercity and being told that, yes, Mr. Smith still lived there.
Presently Latsker Smith roared around the corner and braked his car. He
unfolded from the cockpit. He nodded.
"Have you got money to go to Boston yet?" She held herself very
straight.
He shook his head.
"I have money," she said.
The pale eyes clung to her.
"My parents give me an allowance, and I could get jobs wherever we
were. I just want to ride with you. I wouldn't even talk unless you
wanted me to." She had to be with him. She had to sit and stand beside
him, as relaxed and withdrawn as he was. She had to freeze people with
her words and with her unrespondingness. She had to make an end of
stupidness.
He took a deposit clip from a pocket. He pointed to a figure. "Match
that?"
She withdrew her own clip and showed him a figure that exceeded his.
"How much allowance?"
She told him.