Smoke

and out the windshield, as though it were Fredric Urban Noon he could see out there, and not the rump of a parked purple Lexus across the way. 'At first, this guy,' Barney said, 'he had to worry, maybe he was gonna die, maybe he was gonna stop being invisible, maybe something was gonna happen. But nothing did. We know that, because we know he pulled two quick heists here in the city within a week of getting invisible. And we know he was still a no-see-um, the son of a bitch, a week after that, when he waltzed out of his Bay Ridge place right under our nose and then knee-capped me upstate.'

'He would appear,' Mordon said, 'to be in a stable condition, so far as being invisible is concerned.'

'That's right,' Barney said. 'So now he's not so worried anymore that somethin bad is gonna happen. Now what he is, he's startin to get worried that nothin is gonna happen.'

'I don't follow you,' Mordon admitted.

'Face it,' Barney said, 'is this guy gonna wanna stay invisible the rest of his life? Would you? Would I? No.'

'It's useful to him, though,' Mordon suggested, 'in his line of work.'

'Sure. That's why he's hittin big and hard and often. Two major heists in a week. He's probably done more by now, but if he's working outside the city it's gonna be harder for me to keep track. If I was him — and this is the only way you can be a cop, you know, a detective, which in fact is what I am, and fuck the shooflys — if I was him, and I'm looking through his eyes, and I'm thinking with his head, what I'm thinking is, pull a lot of jobs quick, stockpile a whole lotta cash, then get visible again and retire.'

'How? Get visible again how?'

Barney waggled a finger unpleasantly near Mordon's nose. 'This brings me to my subject,' he said, 'the reason I'm here today. The doctors.'

'The doctors.'

'The doctors. Sooner or later, our friend Freddie is gonna make contact with the doctors.'

Mordon hadn't thought about that, but now he did and slowly he nodded. 'I see what you mean. Make a deal with them, finish the experiment for them if they promise to put him back the way he was. The status quo ante.'

'You said it. He is gonna call the doctors.' Barney nodded, satisfied with his own deductions. 'Or,' he said, 'maybe he already did. You think about that at all?'

'You mean if he contacted them, they might not tell me about it?'

'Not without being asked.'

Again Mordon thought it over, and again he had to concede that Barney was right. 'The relationship between the doctors and myself,' he allowed, 'in fact, between the doctors and NAABOR generally, is not perhaps as good as it might be.'

'I bet it isn't.'

'Well,' Mordon said, 'as a matter of fact, I'd meant to call the doctors today anyway, make an appointment with them, to discuss some proposals that were made over the weekend. I can include this as a second topic.'

'Yes, you can,' Barney agreed. 'And you can include me as a second participant.'

'You want to come along?' Mordon asked, surprised. 'Meet the doctors? Have them meet you?'

'Right.'

'Why?'

'Well, first,' Barney said, 'you'll discuss the situation with the doctors, and why they should cooperate, and the legalities and their responsibilities and all that. And then I'll come on,' Barney finished, and smiled, 'and scare them.'

The black receptionist, Shanana, recognized Mordon this time, seeing him through the oriel beside her desk, and started to smile, but then she saw Barney. Her expression clouded, and she looked at Mordon with fresh doubt; still, she released the door lock and let them in.

'An equal opportunity employer,' Barney commented, as the buzzer sounded.

'I wouldn't underestimate that girl,' Mordon told him, pushing the door open, holding it for Barney.

Shanana had come to her office door. 'Good morning, Mr. Leethe,' she said. Mordon saw that she was prepared to pretend that Barney didn't exist, as though he were an embarrassment she wanted to spare Mordon having to acknowledge.

More than willing to go along with that concept, Mordon smiled his nearest-to-human smile and said, 'Good morning, Shanana. The doctors are expecting me.'

'Yes, I know. I'll tell them you're here.' She gestured with a slender graceful dark hand. 'You remember where the conference room is?'

Mordon looked mournful. 'Not the pleasant room upstairs, eh?'

She was amused, sympathetic. 'Afraid not,' she said, and retired into her office.

Mordon led the way toward the conference room, and Barney followed, saying, 'You get along pretty good with that one.'

'I get along with everyone, Barney,' Mordon said.

Barney stared at him. 'Do you really believe that?'

Mordon didn't bother answering. They entered the fluorescent-flooded conference room, and Barney looked around and said, 'Okay, I confess. Where do I sign?'

'It does lack an amenity or two,' Mordon agreed.

Barney spread his hands. 'Here we are in the Asteroid Belt,' he said, and the doctors entered.

Barney and the doctors were meeting for the first time, of course, and it was interesting to Mordon to see how immediate and instinctive the loathing was on both sides. The body language alone was enough to set off seismographs in the neighborhood, if there were any. Mordon was watching two herbivores meet a carnivore on the herbivores' own ground, and the rolling of eyes and curling of lips and stamping of hooves was thunderous.

Mordon, as though nothing at all were wrong, made the introductions. 'Dr. Peter Heimhocker, Dr. David Loomis, I'd like you to meet Detective Barney Beuler of the New York City Police.'

'Harya,' Barney snarled.

Loomis remained wide-eyed and mute, but Heimhocker looked Barney up and down, raised an eyebrow at Mordon, and said, in a you-rogue-you manner, 'Oh, really.'

'Barney,' Mordon explained, 'has been helping us in the search for Fredric Noon. We thought it would be a good idea if we all got together.'

'Did you,' Heimhocker said.

Mordon gestured at the bare conference table. 'Shall we sit down?'

'Yes, of course,' Heimhocker said, remembering his manners.

Loomis, also remembering his manners, said, 'Did Shanana offer you soft drinks? Coffee? Anything?'

'Not necessary,' Mordon assured him. 'Thank you just the same.'

They sat at the long table like labor-management negotiators, two on each side, facing one another, hands clasped, elbows on the table, mistrustful eyes shaded from the fluorescents by furrowed brows. Breaking a little silence, then, Loomis said to Mordon, 'To be honest, when you called this morning, we thought it was about Merrill Fullerton and his ideas.'

'I do want to get into that,' Mordon agreed. 'Perhaps we should cover it first.' Glancing at Barney's unpleasant profile, he said, 'Barney, if you wouldn't mind?'

'Be my guest.'

Mordon turned back to the doctors. 'About his project, whatever it was called.'

'The Human Genome Project,' Loomis said, and Heimhocker said, 'It does exist.' He didn't sound as though he entirely approved.

'And it's what Merrill said it was?'

'In a way,' Heimhocker said, and Loomis said, 'That man is crazy, you know. Talk about megalomania.'

' 'Think big,' I think, is the business phrase,' Mordon said. 'You've looked into this Jerome project?'

'Genome,' Heimhocker said. 'From the word gene. The Human Genome Project is the most expensive United States government scientific enterprise since the Manhattan Project.'

'Is it really.'

'I'm amazed,' Loomis said, 'at how little it's known.'

'Well, of course,' Mordon pointed out, 'the Manhattan Project, inventing the atomic bomb, wasn't very well