Bad News

7

Guilderpost was too furious to speak. He watched his van drive away, over the bridge toward Long Island, with Joseph Redcorn aboard, and when he could no longer see those departing taillights, he turned to glare at the indefensible Irwin. There were lights on this little bridge, enough for Irwin to feel the full extent of that glare, which he at first ignored and then returned with as much force as a miserable, cowardly little sneak could muster.

It was Irwin who spoke first: “How did you screw up?”

Guilderpost restrained himself from leaping at that bony throat. “I? How did I screw up?”

“You did something that tipped them off.”

“They saw you following! You! From the beginning!”

Irwin tried to look scornful: “Those bozos?”

Beginning to calm down—that’s the trouble with speech, it drains some of the heat out of rage—Guilderpost looked toward Long Island and the disappeared Andy and John and the gone van. “I don’t think, Irwin,” he said, “those were quite the bozos we took them for.”

“They’re digging a grave! They’re not rocket scientists!”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Guilderpost agreed. “We had every reason to expect brainpower equivalent to our late assistants in Nevada. But somehow we wound up with people who were rather more than that.”

“When that son of a bitch came out of the dark,” Irwin said through clenched teeth, “to where I was standing beside the car, and stuck his fingers in my nose, I goddamn well couldn’t believe it.”

Guilderpost frowned. “Stuck his fingers in your nose?”

“It’s painful as hell, let me tell you,” Irwin said. “All of a sudden, he was there, brought his hand up, you know, palm toward himself, first two fingers right into my nose, and kept lifting.”

“Lifting.”

“I’m on tiptoe,” Irwin said, patting his nose in pained remembrance, “and he’s still lifting, and with his other hand, he’s frisking me, and found my gun.”

“And,” Guilderpost added, remembering, getting furious all over again, “your goddamn wire! Irwin, are you taping this?”

“He took the tape,” Irwin said. “But there’s nothing on it, I don’t tape myself sitting alone in a car.”

“You so mistrust me—”

Irwin looked scornful. “Fitzroy,” he said, “everybody on earth mistrusts you, and every one of them is right.”

“And you’re telling me,” Guilderpost said, “if you were to go out and be run over by a city bus, nothing to do with me, those tapes would go to the authorities?”

“If I’m dead,” Irwin pointed out, “what do I care?”

“I thought,” Guilderpost said, more in sorrow than in anger, “we had attained some level of trust between us.”

“You’re not that stupid,” Irwin said, and looked around. “Do we live here now, or are we gonna get off this bridge?”

“Where’s your car?”

“Over there,” Irwin said, waving vaguely. “And you know where the key is.”

“You don’t have a spare key in the car?”

“No.”

“But you could start it anyway, Irwin, you’re a scientist, you’ll know how to jump wires, or whatever that is.”

“The doors are locked.”

“Well, we’ll have to break into the car, then,” Guilderpost said, and firmly started to walk off the bridge, saying, “Come along.”

Irwin came along. As they walked toward the car, he said, “Can you find that guy Andy again? Not in the computer, I mean, but in the world. Can you find where he lives?”

“I don’t know. Possibly.”

“And if you can’t?”

Guilderpost glowered at the darkness all around them. He still didn’t see the Voyager. He said, “Then we’ll have to make them partners, won’t we?”

“Temporary partners, you mean.”

“Naturally.” Guilderpost stopped. “But, Irwin,” he said, “I must insist you stop taping our activities and destroy all the tapes you’ve already made.”

“Not on your life,” Irwin said, and looked back at him. “Now you want to stand there, in the middle of the road?”

Grumpy, Guilderpost started walking again. “Where did you leave the car, Irwin?”

“Out of sight.”

“Irwin, those tapes are too dangerous.”

“You’re damn right they are,” Irwin agreed.

“You won’t destroy them?”

“Not a chance. But I tell you what,” Irwin said. “Now that you know they exist, I won’t make any more. Nevada and New York are both death-penalty states, there’s enough on tape already to have them fighting over you.”

“What a nasty piece of work you are, Irwin. And I recall how little you’ve tended to say, at certain moments. Ah, there’s the car, at last.”

They had walked some distance down the road toward Jones Beach, and there was the Voyager, dimly gleaming beside the road. Guilderpost began walking around it, looking at the ground, as Irwin said, “What do we tell Little Feather?”

Guilderpost stopped. “I think, for the moment,” he said, “Little Feather needn’t know about tonight’s minor setback. No need to upset the poor girl. After all, the right body is in the grave, there’s that. And there’s still a chance I can lay my hands on Andy.” And he started walking and looking at the ground again.

Irwin said, “Do you know his last name?”

“I doubt it,” Guilderpost said. “He said it was Kelly. The other one didn’t give a last name at all.”

Irwin said, “Fitzroy, what are you looking for?”

“A rock,” Guilderpost said.

Irwin recoiled. “You wouldn’t dare!”

Guilderpost gave him an exasperated look. “To get into the car,” he said.

Irwin liked that idea almost as little. “You’re going to smash my car window? With a rock?”

“If I don’t find one soon, I’ll use your head,” Guilderpost told him. “Help me look, Irwin.”