Fred chuckled. "Why so pale and wan, dear brother? Disappointed in
love?"
"What do you want?"
"An audience with His Highness the Interim Director, if it please His
Grace." Fred grinned unpleasantly. "A private, audience, if you please,
m'lord."
"Very well. Come on up here."
Fred shook his head. "Sorry, no go. There are too many tricky spy
pickups in that office of yours. Let's meet elsewhere, shall we?"
"Where?"
"That club you belong to. The Bronze Room."
Walton sputtered. "But I can't leave the building now! There's no one
who--"
"Now," Fred interrupted. "The Bronze Room. It's in the San Isidro,
isn't it? Top of Neville Prospect?"
"All right," said Walton resignedly. "There's a doorsmith coming up
here to do some work. Give me a minute to cancel the assignment and
I'll meet you downstairs."
"You leave now," Fred said. "I'll arrive five minutes after you. And
you won't need to cancel anything. _I_ was the doorsmith."
* * * * *
Neville Prospect was the most fashionable avenue in all of New York
City, a wide strip of ferroconcrete running up the West Side between
Eleventh Avenue and the West Side Drive from Fortieth to Fiftieth
Street. It was bordered on both sides by looming apartment buildings in
which a man of wealth might have as many as four or five rooms to his
suite; and at the very head of the Prospect, facing down-town, was the
mighty San Isidro, a buttressed fortress of gleaming metal and stone
whose mighty, beryllium-steel supports swept out in a massive arc five
hundred feet in either direction.
On the hundred fiftieth floor of the San Isidro was the exclusive
Bronze Room, from whose quartz windows might be seen all the sprawling
busyness of Manhattan and the close-packed confusion of New Jersey just
across the river.
The jetcopter delivered Walton to the landing-stage of the Bronze
Room; he tipped the man too much and stepped within. A door of dull
bronze confronted him. He touched his key to the signet plate; the door
pivoted noiselessly inward, admitting him.
The color scheme today was gray: gray light streamed from the
luminescent walls, gray carpets lay underfoot, gray tables with gray
dishes were visible in the murky distance. A gray-clad waiter, hardly
more than four feet tall, sidled up to Walton.
"Good to see you again, sir," he murmured. "You have not been here of
late."
"No," Walton said. "I've been busy."
"A terrible tragedy, the death of Mr. FitzMaugham. He was one of our
most esteemed members. Will you have your usual room today, sir?"
Walton shook his head. "I'm entertaining a guest--my brother, Fred.
We'll need a compartment for two. He'll identify himself when he
arrives."
"Of course. Come with me, please."
The gnome led him through a gray haze to another bronze door, down a
corridor lined with antique works of art, through an interior room
decorated with glowing lumi-facts of remarkable quality, past a broad
quartz window so clean as to be dizzyingly invisible, and up to a
narrow door with a bright red signet plate in its center.
"For you, sir."
Walton touched his key to the signet plate; the door crumpled like a
fan. He stepped inside, gravely handed the gnome a bill, and closed the
door.
The room was tastefully furnished, again in gray; the Bronze Room was
always uniformly monochromatic, though the hue varied with the day and
with the mood of the city. Walton had long speculated on what the club
precincts would be like were the electronic magic disconnected.
Actually, he knew, none of the Bronze Room's appurtenances had any
color except when the hand in the control room threw the switch. The
club held many secrets. It was FitzMaugham who had brought about
Walton's admission to the club, and Walton had been deeply grateful.
He was in a room just comfortably large enough for two, with a single
bright window facing the Hudson, a small onyx table, a tiny screen
tastefully set in the wall, and a bar. He dialed himself a filtered
rum, his favorite drink. The dark, cloudy liquid came pouring instantly
from the spigot.
The screen suddenly flashed a wave of green, breaking the ubiquitous
grayness. The green gave way to the bald head and scowling face of
Kroll, the Bronze Room's door-man.
"Sir, there is a man outside who claims to be your brother. He alleges
he has an appointment with you here."
"That's right, Kroll; send him in. Fulks will bring him to my room."
"Just one moment, sir. First it is needful to verify." Kroll's face
vanished and Fred's appeared.
"Is this the man?" Kroll's voice asked.
"Yes," Walton said. "You can send my brother in."
* * * * *
Fred seemed a little dazed by the opulence. He sat gingerly on the
edge of the foamweb couch, obviously attempting to appear blasé and
painfully conscious of his failure to do so.
"This is quite a place," he said finally.
Walton smiled. "A little on the palatial side for my tastes. I don't
come here often. The transition hurts too much when I go back outside."
"FitzMaugham got you in here, didn't he?"
Walton nodded.
"I thought so," Fred said. "Well, maybe someday soon I'll be a member
too. Then we can meet here more often. We don't see enough of each
other, you know."
"Dial yourself a drink," Walton said. "Then tell me what's on your
mind--or were you just angling to get an invite up here?"
"It was more than that. But let me get a drink before we begin."
Fred dialed a Weesuer, heavy on the absinthe, and took a few sampling
sips before wheeling around to face Walton. He said, "One of the minor
talents I acquired in the course of my wanderings was doorsmithing.
It's really not very difficult to learn, for a man who applies himself."
"You were the one who repaired my office door?"
Fred smirked. "I was. I wore a mask, of course, and my uniform
was borrowed. Masks are very handy things. They make them most
convincingly, nowadays. As, for instance, the one worn by the man who
posed as Ludwig."
"What do you know about--"
"_Nothing._ And that's the flat truth, Roy. I didn't kill FitzMaugham,
and I don't know who did." He drained his drink and dialed another.
"No, the old man's death is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you.
But I have to thank you for wrecking the door so completely when you
blasted your way in. It gave me a chance to make some repairs when I
most wanted to."
Walton held himself very carefully in check. He knew exactly what Fred
was going to say in the next few minutes, but he refused to let himself
precipitate the conversation.
With studied care he rose, dialed another filtered rum for himself, and
gently slid the initiator switch on the electroluminescent kaleidoscope
embedded in the rear wall.
A pattern of lights sprang into being--yellow, pale rose, blue, soft
green. They wove together, intertwined, sprang apart into a sharp
hexagon, broke into a scatter-pattern, melted, seemed to fall to the
carpet in bright flakes.
"Shut that thing off!" Fred snapped suddenly. "Come on! Shut it! _Shut
it!_"
Walton swung around. His brother was leaning forward intently, eyes
clamped tight shut. "Is it off?" Fred asked. "Tell me!"
Shrugging, Walton canceled the signal and the lights faded. "You can
open your eyes, now. It's off."