Griffin told him. The fat man listened. Then he said, "Rough. That's
Government records. It'll take time."
"We've got no time," the girl snapped.
"Then it'll take money." His pale eyes flicked up to the girl. "You
financing?"
"I'm financing."
"All right." He rubbed his chin with a greasy finger. "How much time
can you give me?"
"About twelve hours. There's a flight leaving at ten tonight. I've got
to be on it."
The fat man hoisted himself out of the chair. "Relax," he said. "You
got a long wait." Then he was gone in a breath of stale air.
* * * * *
They waited. They didn't relax. They sat in the reeking little room,
and the noise from the front drifted back to them, tinny and unreal.
There was laughter, and footfalls on the stairs beyond their wall. Then
there was a clink of broken glass, and more laughter over their heads
somewhere. The girl watched Griffin, and paced the room, her hands so
jittery she could hardly hold them still to light a cigarette. Finally
she said, "I'm going up front for a drink."
"You're staying here."
"Who do you think you are, you damn--"
"You leave, I leave," Griffin snapped. "In the opposite direction.
Think it over."
She picked up a dusty whiskey bottle and slammed it against the far
wall with a snarl. It bounced off, without even breaking. "Go to
hell!" she spat. Then she sat down. "You'd think they were robbing the
Treasury or something."
He closed his eyes, trying to get his breath in the dead air. His mind
screamed with impatience. Why was it taking so long? But then, what
good would it do him when he had his information? Whatever the plan
had been, he had already upset it. Whoever was pushing the button,
manipulating the strings, must be in a fine state by now. The thought
gave him a certain degree of sour pleasure. The button had been
pushed, and he had not responded quite properly. And here, he knew he
was beyond manipulation, beyond the grasp of whatever agency was making
the plans for him. But whoever was directing the show would know now
that he knew--
And he didn't doubt for a minute that something was planned for him.
A man who was legally dead, a man whose wife would be resigned to his
being dead, to her, and never expect to see him again, a man whose
family had received the death insurance money that was due them upon
his signature on the death certificate--whether he ever returned to his
old life or not, that insurance would be paid--and now, a man who was
wandering and frightened, a ghostly nonentity, existing in a society
where he could not fit in, seeking something that he did not know.
Personalities change, they had said. Perhaps.
But there were other changes, carefully controlled changes, he was
certain of that now, changes that were made for a purpose, concealed
from public inspection and public wrath by a careful groundwork of
legal nonsense and humanitarianism. If anything about prosthesis went
wrong, the public would fall upon it in an instant. Prosthesis was too
touchy a thing, life was too fearful and mysterious and sacred, for
halfway measures. The prosthesis had to be perfect. It could not have a
price-tag....
But now he knew that the sixty years' extension of life did have a
price-tag, somehow. And very soon he would know the price.
V
Someone jabbed him in the ribs, and he awoke with a jerk, blinking in
the gloom. His mouth tasted like sweaty leather; he knew he had been
sleeping. "What's the matter?"
"Wake up!" The girl was standing over him, her voice a harsh whisper.