Mack Reynolds: Planetary Agent X

His voice was as level and cold as his eyes. “You seem to know a lot about guns, lady.”

She shrugged, wearily. “I read a lot and watch the Tri-D shows a lot. A single woman my age has got lots of time to watch the shows. I woke earlier than you and watched this morning for awhile. The drawing they show of you isn’t very good, but good enough, Billy Antrim.”

He looked at her, poker-faced, but his mind was racing.

She shook her head. “If you had to be worried about me telling them, I could have done it hours ago. All I had to do was pick up the phone while you were still asleep, after I had checked your clothes and found the gun. I suppose I should have…”

“I don’t like that kinda talk, Betty Ann.”

“… But I didn’t. I don’t know why. You’d better go now, though.”

He looked at her for a long moment. He couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t called the police, either. She certainly wasn’t in love with him; he wasn’t the type to inspire love in a woman. Besides, she hadn’t had time to fall in love with him. And be in love with a seven-time killer on the lam? Not even a woman as desperate as Betty Ann.

His best bet would be to add her to his list. She would have a better description of him than was evidently available thus far. She’d said the drawing they were showing over the air wasn’t so good. She’d be able to improve it for them.

She chose that moment to reach for the coffee pot, wearily. He had seen Ruth Antrim in that exact pose a thousand times.

A thousand times back in those days when there had been only the two of them. And when all the world had been only the two of them. When no one else had counted. Tired she might have been, exhausted from twice the number of shows a performer should have been expected to give—but never so tired that she couldn’t discuss the dream with him.

The dream of their settling down somewhere and of Ruth finding some other manner of supporting them—it had never been quite clear what that might be, since she had known nothing else but show business. And he would go to school, and soon, very soon, such would be his efforts, he would be able to find a grand position of his own, and then Ruth Antrim would need work no longer. And then, indeed, the goal would have been reached. A home of their own, with Ruth to keep it and with Billy faring forth each morning to his labors, and she there to greet him at day’s end.

He more or less knew it now for a boy’s dream and that of a tired woman in her early middle years. Deep within, he knew it had lacked reality. That at best there had been no room in it for his own marriage and eventual children. There had been no room in it for anything or anyone except Ruth and Billy Antrim. But still it was a dream that came back to him.

Billy Antrim didn’t have many dreams.

He shook his head and came to his feet.

“Goodbye, Billy,” Betty Ann said after him.

Ronny Bronston was saying into his portable communicator, “It was him, all right. The description tallied. He’s evidently got Gutenberg’s credit card, but is too smart to use it unless it’s an emergency. He went into a Sauna-Turkish Bath in Norfolk and spent nearly four hours there. Sleeping, of course. Then he told the attendant he’d forgotten his credit card and left a star sapphire ring as a pledge.”

Sid Jakes interrupted him quickly: “You think he’ll go back to redeem it?”

Ronny snorted. “Of course not. I think he’s cunning enough never to go back to where he’s been before. Besides, he’d be in the same position as before. The moment he used the credit card, to redeem his ring, we’d be onto him. At any rate, the Sauna-Turkish Bath attendant had second thoughts about the ring, wondering if it was stolen. It seemed too valuable to have been left in lieu of such a minor amount. He reported it, and the police relayed the story to me. They relay anything that involves somebody getting or trying to get something, or some service, without having a credit card.”

“You don’t seem to be making much progress,” Jakes chuckled, as though that was amusing. “Ross is beginning to have second thoughts about assigning you to the job.”

Ronny grunted. “At least I know I was right, before. He’s in the Norfolk area. And now, with his face all over town, he’ll be doubly hard put to hide himself. He’ll show. Within twenty-four hours I wager he’ll show. His luck can’t hold forever.”

However, it was holding thus far.

Billy Antrim had to stay out of the light, and that was exactly what he was doing. In the cheapest part of the Norfolk section of Greater Washington, he was sitting, half sprawling, at a table in the darkest bar cum nightclub he could locate, the Pleasure Palace .

Had he dared, he would have put his face in his arms, as though in drunken sleep, but he was afraid that the one caustic faced usher who supervised the automated alleged amusement center would have ordered him from the premises. As it was, he leaned his face on a cupped hand, so that the fingers could cover his prominent teeth, his chin and part of the nose, and pretended to watch the fairly spicy canned Tri-D show.

He had to do something, and fast. As it was, the only thing he was accomplishing was to keep a few jumps ahead of the authorities. He knew it was only a few jumps by the inordinate number of police floaters on the streets. It had been nip and tuck a few times. They obviously knew he was in the Norfolk area. He had to do better than this, or it was just a matter of time before he slipped and they would have him.

At the thought of it, he loosened the gun. He would at least go out with a bang. He twisted his mouth at the thought. He undoubtedly would, but what would be accomplished? What percentage was there in his being able to take two or three more of the fuzz-yokes with him—or even a hundred more?

The usher was eyeing him.

Billy had sat down at a table where there were a couple of glasses, one of them with an inch of dregs still in the bottom. He had pretended this glass was his own, but even had the usher been fooled on that—his eyes hadn’t been on Billy when he’d entered—he had evidently gotten around to noticing that his new customer wasn’t doing much in the way of drinking up and dialing anew.

He had to do something, or leave. If the usher got around to coming to the table, he might recognize the Antrim features, even in this light.

Billy got to his feet and stepped over to the next table, which was occupied by a single customer, obviously deep in his cups. He couldn’t have been much more than in his early twenties himself, surly faced, soft in spite of his age, a trickle of drink-induced saliva at the side of his mouth. He was sloppy drunk.

“Ay,” Billy said, grinning, “ain’t you Steve Osterman, met at a party last week?”

The other glowered up at him. “No, I ain’t no Steve whatever. And we never met at no party.”

Billy shook his head in wonder and slid into a chair at the other’s table. “Well, we sure as hell met somewheres. I never forget a face.”

The other grunted. “Name’s Barry. Horace Barrymore. Ev’body calls me Barry.”

Billy snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Barry. Now I remember. It was a great party.”

The other scowled at him. “You from Detroit too?”

“Sure? Of course. That’s where the party was. What you doing in Greater Washington, Barry?”

The other squinted at him slyly. “Gotcha that time. I never been in Detroit. I’m from Miami-Havana, see? And I got you figured out, Buster.”

Billy’s hand dropped into his lap. “Oh, you have, eh?”

“Yeah. I know you, Buster.” The other chuckled to himself and picked up his glass. It was empty.