And if the blind lead the blind,
both shall fall into the ditch.
--Matthew, XV, 14
The phone rang. It was the desk clerk saying it was 12:15 A.M.
I thanked him and asked him to get me the number I'd been unable to
reach the previous afternoon. There was a reluctant answer on the
eleventh ring.
"Hello?" a male voice said. To my surprise it was one I recognized.
"Is this Mr. Avery?"
"It should be," the voice said cautiously. "Who is this?"
"Sam Kent," I said.
"I thought so. Have you been trying to reach me? I've been out."
"I know. But now I'd like to see you. When can we meet?"
"Not now. It's after midnight."
"I know; but it's important."
"I suppose it is. Where are you?"
"Brooklyn," I said. "But not very deep. I can make it in half an hour."
"All right. But be careful."
"Of course."
My clean clothes were ready by then and I dressed. I made sure I had
all the flat black boxes I'd swiped from Ultra.
When I was halfway to the subway I realized I was being followed. At
the same instant my head began to throb, for the first time since I'd
gone berserk in Joy's apartment. That seemed to mean my shadow was
a Monolithian. I continued on toward the subway, walking a little
faster. There were half a dozen people on the street behind me and I
couldn't be sure which one of them was after me.
I bought some tokens at the change booth and asked the attendant a
series of complicated questions about how to get to a fictitious
address in Queens. Two men came down the stairs a few seconds apart
and went onto the subway platform. Neither one looked at me, nor did I
recognize either of them.
I prolonged my conversation at the change booth until a Manhattan-bound
train came in. Both men boarded it. But the throb in my head continued.
It was annoying but not painful.
I thanked the attendant and went through the turnstile. There was a
long wait for the next train. Just as I'd gone in and sat down, a man
came running through the turnstile and got into my nearly empty car a
second before the doors closed.
He took a seat opposite and looked at me with a little smile. It could
have been no more than the smile one stranger gives another at his
small success in triumphing over a machine, but when the throbbing
in my head intensified I knew it was more than that. This was my
Monolithian shadow.
He was neatly dressed in a brown gabardine suit. He was
sixtyish, hatless and wore gold-rimmed eyeglasses. He had a big,
retired-English-officer type of mustache and looked vaguely familiar.
The train went through the East River tunnel and at the Wall Street
station I got up as if to get out. My friend in gabardine stood up
casually and strolled to the same door. I had thought of waiting till
just before the doors closed, then stepping out, but he would have been
right behind me. I walked down the car and picked up a _Daily News_
someone had discarded.
My friend meanwhile pretended to study the subway map near the door,
then sat down again, not quite opposite me.
The tabloid's headline reflected a non-Monolithian development in an
international romance. PRINCE'S 'DREAM GIRL' SHUNS YACHT TRYST, it
said, making it clear that the _Daily News_ was getting bored with
interstellar intrigue. I looked in vain for the Rod Harris-Sam Kent
exposé.
I got out at Times Square, waiting till the last second. But my shadow
was too quick to be fooled. He was right at my heels as the doors shut,
then dropped back a few paces.
I went up the stairs and into a phone booth. I dialed the number of the
man who called himself Mr. Avery while my shadow stood a dozen feet
away, buying himself a cup of soda from an automatic vending machine
and drinking it slowly.
"Hello?" Avery said.
"I'm at Times Square but I'm being followed," I said.
Instead of telling me to go back to my hotel, as I expected him to,
Avery said, "Good!"
"That's good?"
"Perfect," Avery said. "You come right on up--and be sure not to lose
him. We want him. How's your head?"
"Throbbing," I said. "What makes you ask?"
"Never mind. Just bring your friend. One thing--there's a little
delicatessen on the corner just before you get to the apartment-house
entrance. Pick up half a dozen cans of frozen orange juice on your way,
will you?"
"Sure. Will it be open?"
"It's open till 3. Six cans. Don't forget."
"Okay."
I went back down to the subway platform. My gabardine friend followed
me. I took an uptown local and got off at 91st Street, at not quite the
last second. My shadow made it safely to the platform.
At the corner of Columbus Avenue I went into the delicatessen. The man
behind the counter was a big Negro. He looked familiar, somehow. There
were no other customers.
"Any frozen orange juice?" I asked.
My shadow came in and put coins into the cigarette machine.
"Yes, sir," the Negro said. "How many?"
"Six."
The Negro came out from behind the counter. He took six cans out of the
freezer chest and put them in a heavy ice-cream bag. To the Monolithian
he said, "Pardon me." Then he hit him over the head with the six cans
of frozen orange juice. My shadow crumpled to the floor.
The Negro pulled the shade down over the door and locked it. He put out
most of the lights.
"I guess we can close up now, Mr. Kent," he said. "We'll go the back
way, through the building."
My head had stopped throbbing.
* * * * *
I recognized the Negro as we went up in the freight elevator with the
unconscious Monolithian.
"You're Timmie Johnson, aren't you?"
"That's right, Mr. Kent."
Timmie was Gov's valet--and probably much more than that, I now
realized.
The elevator doors opened at the top of the apartment house and Gov
Allison stood there waiting. Half a dozen men were with him.
"Well done, Timmie," the President of the United States said. "You,
too, Sam."