'I never knew you to hesitate about a bit of overtime.'
'Well, I just got out of bed. I was cooking spaghetti when Headquarters
called me about this. Never got a chance to eat any of it. I'm
starving.'
Enderby shook his head. 'As long as I've known you, I don't believe
I've ever seen you eat a square meal. You're always grabbing sandwiches
so you don't have to stop working to eat. And at home you're cooking
spaghetti. You need a wife, Ira.'
'A wife?'
'Other men have them.'
'But me? Are you kidding?'
'Be good for you.'
'Andy, look at me.'
'I'm looking.'
'Look closer.'
'So?'
'You must be blind.'
'What should I see?'
'What woman in her right mind would marry me?'
'Don't give me your usual crap, Ira,' Enderby said with a smile.
'I know that under all of that selfdeprecating chatter, you've got a
healthy and proper respect for yourself.'
'You're the psychiatrist.'
'That's right. I'm not a suspect or a witness; you can't charm me with
that blather.'
Preduski grinned.
'I'll bet there have been more than a few women who've fallen for that
calculated little-boy look of yours.'
'A few,' Preduski admitted uncomfortably. 'But never the right woman.'
'Who said anything about the right one? Most men are happy to settle
for half-right.'
'Not me.' Preduski looked at his watch again. 'I really have to be
going. I'll come back around midnight. Martin probably won't even have
finished questioning the other tenants by then. It's a big building.'
Dr. Enderby sighed as if the troubles of the world were on his
shoulders alone. 'We'll be here too. Dusting the furniture for prints,
vacuuming the carpets for hairs and threads, finding nothing, but
working hard. The same old circus.'
*Dim Graham's foot slipped off the rung.
Although he was still holding tightly with both hands, he panicked. He
struck out at the ladder with his feet, scrabbling wildly, as if the
ladder were alive, as if he had to kick it into submission before he
could regain his foothold on it.
'Graham, what's wrong?' Connie asked from her position on the ladder
above him. 'Graham?'
Her voice sohered him. He stopped kicking. He hung by his hands until
he was breathing almost normally, until the vivid memories of Everest
had faded.
'Graham?'
With his feet he probed for a rung, found one after several seconds that
