The man in the gray suit smiled. "Who else in any world would stand up
for you?"
"I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you
around, of course," Gabriel added too quickly. "You do come in useful
at times, you know."
"So you don't mind having me around?" The nondescript man smiled again.
"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from
yourself--you lost yourself a while back, remember?"
Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. "Come on, have a drink
with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you
something--I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out."
"I drank with you once too often," the nondescript man said. "And
things worked out fine, didn't they? For you." His eyes studied the
other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of
bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were
not pleased with what they saw. "Watch yourself, colleague," he warned
as he left. "Soon you might not be worth the saving."
"Who was that, Gabe?" the girl asked.
He shrugged. "I never saw him before in my life." Of course, knowing
him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he
happened to have been telling the truth.
* * * * *
Once the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel
suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as
he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again
that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a
coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions,
reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to
the letter combination _bodyguard_, he went out into the street.
If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have
been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real
identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for
years.
The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. "Where to, fellow-man?"
the driver asked.
"I'm new in the parish," the other man replied and let it hang there.
"Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?"
But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head.
"Games?" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was
wanted by then. "Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?"
"Is there a good zarquil game in town?"
The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the
teleview. A very ordinary face. "Look, colleague, why don't you commit
suicide? It's cleaner and quicker."
"I can't contact your attitude," the passenger said with a thin
smile. "Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it
happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a
thrill-mill." He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and
which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy.
"Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?" The driver spat out of the
window. "If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the
cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ...
anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em."
"But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a
commission, wouldn't it?" the other man asked coolly.
"Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though."
"I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun."
"You're the dictator," the driver agreed sullenly.