"So?"
"We'll help you. We'll have an operative collect Miss Hannon at the
Denver Spaceport. All you have to do is live with this trouble for
about fifty more hours. For delivering this information, and for taking
Miss Hannon to Denver, we will be happy to divide the reward."
"I'll deliver Miss Hannon to Denver," he said, thinking that for
twenty-five hundred he could stick cotton in his ears and sweat it out
at about fifty dollars an hour.
"Good, Mr. Farradyne. I'll make arrangements to have our Mr. Kingman
meet you at Denver."
Lawson handed Farradyne a few pages of dossier on the case and showed
him out of the office. Farradyne took a deep breath and decided that
what he wanted was a drink to his good fortune. He could look forward
to getting rid of Norma Hannon, at last. He made the street and glanced
around. Finding a small bar not far from the office door of the
Bennington Agency, he went in to relax and think.
At a small table with a tiny lamp, he opened the papers that Lawson had
given him, to read them more thoroughly. The waitress was high-breasted
in a manner that invited him to look, but he merely barked, "White Star
Trail," and went back to his reading.
"Spaceman?" she asked.
Farradyne nodded in an irritated manner. She flounced off after a
moment of futile attempt to beguile a spaceman.
So when a moment later someone slid into the bench beside him,
Farradyne turned to tell her to please go because he wasn't having any,
thanks. Instead of looking into a vapidly willing face Farradyne's eyes
were met by an equally cold blue stare from the face of a hard-jawed
man dressed in a jacket tailored to half-conceal the shoulder holster
he wore. Farradyne blinked.
"Farradyne?"
"So?" said Farradyne. He tried to think but all he could cover was the
idea that someone was now playing games with guns.
"Hear tell you're running blossoms."
"Who says?"
"People."
"People say a lot of things. Which people?"
"Well, are you?"
"Who, me?"
"Can it!" snapped the newcomer.
Farradyne shrugged angrily. "What do you want me to do?" he asked in a
mild tone. "You have the jump on me. You slide into my seat and bar my
exit and then without introducing yourself you start asking questions
that could get me twenty years in poor surroundings with bad company
and no pay."
"Call me Mike. Michael Cahill is the name."
"Any identification that doesn't bark for itself?"
"It's usually good enough."
"Probably. But the numbers on its calling cards are always someone
else's."
Mike laughed. "That's not bad, Farradyne. But so far as I know your
number isn't among those present."
"I'll bet you could change a number fast enough."
"Could be," nodded Cahill. He turned over his shoulder and called to
the waitress. "Hey, Snookey, make it two instead of one."
"Mine's White Star."
"That's all right with me. It's easier to drive this rod with a clear
head."
"No doubt," said Farradyne. "So now that we are about to drink together
let's face it. You had more in mind than to pass the time of day with a
nervous spaceman who wanted to be alone."
"Correct. Or as you birds say, 'Aye-firm.' How's the hellblossom
business?"
"That's easy to answer. I haven't any and I am not in the business.
See?"
"People say you are."
Farradyne grunted. "Not too long ago someone accused me openly. The
story started when someone suggested that the only way a guy could come
from down on his bottom to the top of the heap in one large step was
to be among the big-time operators. The heavy-sugar know-how. To the
limited imagination this meant running love lotus."
Mike Cahill was silent while the waitress brought their drinks. When
she left Cahill lifted his glass to Farradyne. "Is you is or is you
ain't?" he chuckled.
"I ain't," said Farradyne, drinking with Cahill.
"Or is it maybe?"
"Maybe it's maybe."
"Stop sounding like a parrot. As I heard it that tomato in the bar on
Ganymede must have known something. You spent four years as flat on
your duff as a musclebound wrestler and then you come bouncing along in
a last-year model Lancaster. Since we know damned well that you're no
hellblossom runner, where did you get the stack?"
"Thrift and good management."
"Yeah. How'd you do it?"
"I told you."
"Maybe it's a rich uncle?"
"I haven't one. I'm just a capable operator."
"The label is sour, Farradyne."
"Then what do you make of this?" asked Farradyne, handing Cahill his
license folder.
"It looks nice and legal but it is as phony as a ten-cent diamond and
both of us know it. So how did you get it--and the Lancaster to go
along with it?"
Farradyne sipped his drink. "Look, Cahill, it just happens that it's
none of your damned business! I am not talking."
"It might make a difference if you did."
"Let's stop fencing. I may be of use to you. Now it might be that you
are a SAND agent and it might be otherwise, I still may be of use to
you either way. But the first time I start shooting off my trap, you'll
begin to get the idea that I'm not close-mouthed enough for whatever
job you have in mind for me. So let's leave it this way. I have a
ticket that gets me in and out and a spacer that takes me there and
back."
"And that's your story?"
"That's my story. Finis." Farradyne sipped his drink and then offered
Cahill a smoke which Cahill took.
"We've had a rather moist spring," observed Cahill.
"It was moister on Venus," commented Farradyne.
"It's on Terra that the weather is fine," said Cahill. "The crops are
coming up excellently, I'm told. Nothing like fresh vegetables."
Farradyne nodded. "No matter how well we convert the planets to Terra
condition, nothing grows like on earth."
"Ever enjoy lying on your back in the sun in a field of flowers with
nothing to do but get sunburned?"
"Not for a long time."
"Funny how a guy gets out of his kid-habits," mused Cahill. "And even
funnier how he wants to go and do it all over again but never quite
makes it the same."
"Yeah."
"Farradyne, you're not sold up on this next jaunt to Terra, are you?"
"I've plenty of room. Just one passenger going to Denver."
"Mind if I buy a stateroom?"
"Not at all."
"I want to go pick flowers on Terra," yawned Cahill. "If you like,
maybe we can pick some together."
"Maybe we can," said Farradyne, draining his glass and starting to get
up. Cahill got up, too, and led the way out of the joint. Farradyne
flagged down a taxicab. "Spaceport," he told the driver. "Coming?" he
asked Cahill.
"Yeah. Might as well. Nothing else to do this week. I'll go along--for
kicks."
5
Farradyne took the Lancaster up and set the ship on its course to
Terra. As soon as he could spare the time to think of anything but
handling the ship, he began to wonder about Norma and Mike Cahill.
She had not been visible when they arrived, but no doubt by now she
had made her presence known. It bothered him a bit because he was as
certain as a man can be that Cahill was a hellflower operator, and he
did not want the man to get cold feet because Farradyne was connected
with an addict, if even for a short hop.
So as soon as he could leave the board, Farradyne went down to the
salon.
They had met. Norma, for the first time in her trip with Farradyne, was
presiding over the dining table. She was wearing a slinky, sea-green
hostess gown Veed down to about here and slit on both sides to just
below the knees. Her white, bare legs twinkled as she walked and almost
forced the eye to follow them. She was giving Cahill all the benefit of
her physical beauty, and Cahill was enjoying it. Farradyne had a hunch
that Norma was about to start slipping him the old jealousy routine.
He wondered about his reaction. He was extremely wary of Norma, but he
did feel a sort of responsibility for her. She might make him jealous,
but it would not be the jealousy of passion or desire, but the jealous
concern that stems from a desire to protect.
Norma's lissome figure slipped out of the salon toward the galley and
as she disappeared Cahill wagged a forefinger at Farradyne.
"That dame's a blank," he said in a very low voice.
"I know. She's not my woman, Cahill."
"Maybe not," responded Cahill. "But it sure looks like it from a
distance. What are you doing with her?"
"Delivering her to her parents in Denver."
"That all?"
Farradyne nodded. "She latched onto me on Ganymede; she's the dame that
made the loud announcement of my being a hellflower runner."
"Maybe she's right."
"She isn't. I'm not."
Cahill grinned. "This much we know," he said.
"You do?"
"Yes. But maybe she'll be right sooner or later. But get rid of her,
see?"
Farradyne nodded vigorously. "That I'll do. She has been hell on high
heels to have around."
"Looks like she might be fun."
"She hates my guts."
Cahill nodded. "Probably. They usually end up in a case of anger and
violence. Tough. But--"
Norma came back with a tray and set food on the table. They ate in
silence, with Norma still giving Cahill the full power of her charm.
Cahill, who had undoubtedly seen many a hellflower girl, still seemed
to enjoy her advances although he accepted them with a calloused,
self-assured smile. Once dinner was finished, Norma began to clear the
table. This act annoyed Farradyne because he could not account for it,
and the only thing that seemed to fit the case was the possibility
that Norma was acting as she did to soften his wariness of her, but
she was carrying the thing too far. He did not think she was so unable
to calculate; she must know that this act now pointed up her former
disdain for any kind of cooperation.
As she left again, Farradyne turned to Cahill and asked, "How can a man
tell a love lotus from a gardenia?"
"That takes experience, Farradyne. You'll learn."
"The thing that stops me," said Farradyne, "is that the Sandmen have
been trying to stamp the things out for about forty years and they
can't even tell where they come from."
"They'll never find out," said Cahill. "Maybe you won't either."
"But I--"
"Better you shouldn't. Just enjoy living off the edges. It's safer that
way. Remember that."
"Where are we going after we leave Denver?"
"I'm not too sure we're going anywhere. I'm not too sure of you,
Farradyne. You've some holes to fill in." Cahill lit a cigarette and
leaned back, letting the smoke trickle through his nostrils. "I don't
mind talking to you this way because it would be your word against
mine, if you happen to be a Sandman. Some of your tale rings true. The
rest sticks hard."
"For instance?"
"Well, let's suppose you are a Sandman. Humans are a hard-boiled lot,
but somehow I can't see killing thirty-three people just to establish
a bad reputation. So that tends to clear your book. As to the chance
of your laying low for four years until the mess blew over, I might
buy that except for the place. A guy who can ultimately turn up with
enough oil to grease his way into a reinstated license and a late model
Lancaster Eighty-One isn't likely to spend four interim years living in
a fungus field."
"Maybe I hit it rich?"