Donald Westlake - Smoke

"Anytime. Well, I'll let you get back to your book."

They walked together over to the door in the pool-area wall, Call Me Tom smiling at the scene, then frowning slightly. Had some corner of his brain noticed that there hadn't been a beach towel lying there in that position the last time he'd looked?

"I'll call Freddie tonight," Peg said, talking fast to distract him. "Tell him about this. He'll know what to do."

"Or his lawyer. Well, enjoy your summer," Call Me Tom said, and waved, and went away.

Peg stood inside the wall, door closed, and watched through the lattice as Call Me Tom returned to his car and backed it down the driveway. When, in the middle of that, a wet hand touched her arm, she didn't look around — what was the point in looking around? — but merely said, "I'm not speaking to you."

"He wasn't going to look away from those big eyes of yours, Peg. I get cold in the water after a while."

"It's a heated pool."

"Still. I seem colder, now I'm invisible. Anyway, it turned out our friend Barney set some skip-trace outfit loose on us, huh?"

Peg looked at the folded piece of paper in her hand, opened it, and read the names aloud: ""Stephen Garmainster, Equity Research and Retrieval Corporation.' We aren't going to phone this guy."

"Barney's got some money behind him, to do this," Freddie said.

Call Me Tom was gone; pocketing the piece of paper, Peg walked back over to her chair and her table and her book. Freddie, from the sound of his voice, followed, saying, "This checking-account business you're gonna do. Better use the apartment in the city for the address."

"I'm glad Call Me Tom told us about it, anyway," Peg said, settling into her chair, resting a hand on her book, wishing she were back in nineteenth-century London.

"Yeah, well." The chair across the way recoiled from the table, then sagged.

Peg gave it a jaundiced look. "What do you think, he's after my body, that's the only reason he told me?"

"That's one possibility," Freddie agreed, from somewhere in the air. This was exactly the sort of thing Peg hated, she reminded herself, as he went on, "Another possibility is, he had a guilty conscience."

She frowned. "What kind of guilty conscience?"

"What if he did tell the guy something? Then afterward he thought it over, he thought, maybe you should at least get a warning."

"Oh, gee, Freddie, do you think so? Is that what it was all about?"

"I don't know. He's tough to read."

" You're one to talk."

"Yeah, but Call Me Tom's such a friendly guy, you can see him and you still can't see him."

"I don't think he'd lie about it," Peg said.

"I hope not." Freddie's voice floated in the air. "But, maybe, just to be on the safe side," he said, "we ought to each pack one little bag, leave it in the van. Just in case."

Peg sat there, alone but not alone. There were no more words from Freddie. Her hand rested on the book, but she didn't pick it up. The sun didn't seem as bright anymore.

33

"Not possible," Peter said, and David said, "What do you think we are?"

"Scientists," the lawyer Leethe said, which of course couldn't properly be refuted.

Still. "You come here unannounced," Peter began.

"Of course," Leethe said, shrugging his shoulders, playing the piano. "Had I called, you would have refused to see me."

"Absolutely," said David.

"Or insisted on your friend Cummingford being present."

"Our attorney Cummingford," Peter said.

They were standing together, all three, in the front hall, under the amused gaze of Shanana. When she'd buzzed up to them in the lab to say that Mordon Leethe had made an unexpected entry — rather like bubonic plague making an unexpected entry, that — they'd decided at once to come down here, meet the man as close to the front door as possible, and repel this invader before the pestilence could spread.

And now, when he'd told them the reason for his presence! He and his masters wanted Peter and David to make them another invisible man! Out of the question!

Peter said, "Don't you think enough trouble has been—"

"Excuse me," Leethe interrupted, stopping traffic with one raised palm. "I don't believe you're thinking this through as clearly as you might. We are talking here about volunteers, about the very experiment you were already undertaking, about—" He broke off and looked around. Almost plaintively, he said, "Couldn't we sit comfortably somewhere? In that nice lounge room upstairs?"

"We don't want you here at all," David said, but Peter had been listening more closely to Leethe's words, and so he asked, "What do you mean, volunteers?"

"I mean," Leethe said, "you needn't hold anyone at gunpoint."

Oh, dear, Shanana hadn't known about that. Her eyes were widening, weren't they? Yes, and her ears, too, no doubt. Peter said, "We can spare you five minutes. Come to the conference room."

"Oh, well," Leethe said, looking sad. "Mayn't I be permitted to sit in the nice lounge? Mr. Cummingford isn't present."

They both blinked at him. Peter said, "Did you say "mayn't I'?"

Apparently surprised, touching his chin with a fingertip as though to identify himself for the onlookers, Leethe said, "So I did. Doesn't that mean I deserve the nice lounge?"

"Oh, very well," Peter said, rolling his eyes in David's direction. "Come along."

They went upstairs, and sat on the sofas the same way they had two weeks ago when Leethe had shown them Freddie Noon's police pictures. This time, no one offered the man refreshments; instead, Peter said, "Maybe you'd better explain this proposal."

"Certainly. You have two experimental medicines—"

"Formulae," Peter interrupted. "Not medicines, because untried."

"Very well, formulae. You had hoped that one or the other would help in the struggle against melanoma, but now you know that the two in combination create invisibility. You have in your possession an invisibility formula."

David said, "Peter, that's right! I never even thought about that." His mind had been too full of the other ramifications of the problem.

Peter was less thrilled. He said, "Go on, Mr. Leethe."

"NAABOR, for its own purposes, would like to employ the services of an invisible person," Leethe went on. "You, for your purposes, would like volunteers upon which to test your med — formulae. NAABOR is prepared to present you with two volunteers at this time, to be made invisible. As an inducement, NAABOR will undertake, in the near future, to provide you as many volunteers as you require for more normal study."

David, all agog, said, "Peter, do you think — ?" But Peter was saying to Leethe, "What's the catch?"

"Catch?" Leethe smacked his right fist into a catcher's mitt, then tossed the ball into the dugout. "What catch can there possibly be? NAABOR will supply the volunteers, both now and for later, with all releases signed. You can observe your new guinea pigs, if you can be said to observe an invisible—"

"For how long?" Peter asked.

Leethe showed how long the fish was he'd almost caught. "How long do you want?"

"A week."

"Oh, come," Leethe said, reducing the fish to a minnow. "You were only hoping for twenty-four hours with the first one."

"The circumstances were different."

"We have a time consideration, on our side," Leethe admitted. "We could agree to forty-eight hours."

Peter considered that, then nodded. "Acceptable," he said, then added, "We'll want a contract," and David looked stern and said, "That's right!"

"Of course," Leethe said.

"Prepared by Bradley Cummingford."

"Less work for me," Leethe said. "Why not phone him right now? The sooner we get the paperwork out of the way, the sooner we can get started, and the sooner we'll see some results." He smiled at himself. "Or not," he appended. "As the case may be."