can throw rocks with any foot. They’re still around on Center; that’s the home planet. You’re not writing this down.”
“There’s a tape recorder going.”
“Really?” I’d been kidding.
“You’d better believe it. We can use anything you happen to remember. We still don’t even know how your Monk got out here to California.”
My Monk, forsooth.
“They briefed me pretty quickly yesterday. Did I tell you? I was visiting my parents in Carmel when my supervisor called me yesterday morning. Ten hours later I knew just about everything anyone knows about Monks. Except you, Frazer.
“Up until yesterday we thought that every Monk on Earth was either in the United Nations Building or aboard the Monk ground-to-orbit ship.
“We’ve been in that ship, Frazer. Several men have been through it, all trained astronauts wearing lunar exploration suits. Six Monks landed on Earth—unless more were hiding somewhere aboard. Can you think of any reason why they should do that?”
“No.”
“Neither can anyone else. And there are six Monks accounted for this morning. All in New York. Your Monk went home last night.”
That jarred me. “How?”
“We don’t know. We’re checking plane flights, silly as that sounds. Wouldn’t you think a stewardess would notice a Monk on her flight? Wouldn’t you think she’d go to the newspapers?”
“Sure.”
“We’re also checking flying saucer sightings.”
I laughed. But by now that sounded logical.
“If that doesn’t pan out, we’ll be seriously considering teleportation. Would you…”
“That’s it,” I said without surprise. It had come the way a memory comes, from the back of my mind, as if it had always been there. “He gave me a teleportation pill. That’s why I’ve got absolute direction. To teleport I’ve got to know where in the universe I am.”
Morris got bug-eyed. “You can teleport?”
“Not from a speeding car,” I said with reflexive fear. “That’s death. I’d keep the velocity.”
“Oh.” He was edging away as if I had sprouted horns.
More memory floated up, and I said, “Humans can’t teleport anyway. That pill was for another market.”
Morris relaxed. “You might have said that right away.”
“I only just remembered.”
“Why did you take it, if it’s for aliens?”
“Probably for the location talent. I don’t remember. I used to get lost pretty easily. I never will again. Morris, I’d be safer on a high wire than you’d be crossing a street with the Walk sign.”
“Could that have been your ‘something unusual’?”
“Maybe,” I said. At the same time I was somehow sure that it wasn’t.
Louise was in the dirt parking lot next to the Long Spoon. She was getting out of her Mustang when we pulled up. She waved an arm like a semaphore and walked briskly toward us, already talking. “Alien creatures in the Long Spoon, forsooth!” I’d taught her that word. “Ed, I keep telling you the customers aren’t human. Hello, are you Mr. Morris? I remember you. You were in last night. You had four drinks. All night.”
Morris smiled. “Yes, but I tipped big. Call me Bill, okay?”
Louise Schu was a cheerful blonde, by choice, not birth. She’d been working in the Long Spoon for five years now. A few of my regulars knew my name; but they all knew hers.
Louise’s deadliest enemy was the extra twenty pounds she carried as padding. She had been dieting for some decades. Two years back she had gotten serious about it and stopped cheating. She was
Padding or not, she’d have made someone a wonderful wife. I’d thought of marrying her myself. But my marriage had been too little fun, and was too recent, and the divorce had hurt too much. And the alimony. The alimony was why I was living in a cracker box, and I couldn’t afford to get married again.
While Louise was opening up, Morris bought a paper from the coin rack.
The Long Spoon was a mess. Louise and I cleaned off the tables and collected the dirty glasses and emptied the ashtrays into waste bins. But the collected glasses were still dirty and the waste bins were still full.
Morris began spreading newspaper over an area of floor.
And I stopped with my hand in my pocket.
Littleton came out from behind the bar, hefting both of the waste bins. He spilled one out onto the newspaper, then the other. He and Morris began spreading the trash apart.
My fingertips were brushing a scrap of Monk cellophane.
I’d worn these pants last night, under the apron.
Some impulse kept me from yelling out. I brought my hand out of my pocket, empty. Louise had gone to help the others sift the trash with their fingers. I joined them.
Presently Morris said, “Four. I hope that’s all. We’ll search the bar too.”
And I thought: Five.
And I thought: I learned five new professions last night. What were the odds that I’ll want to hide at least one of them?
If my judgment was bad enough to make me take a teleport pill intended for something with too many eyes, what else might I have swallowed last night?
I might be an advertising man, or a superbly trained thief, or a Palace Executioner skilled in the ways of torture. Or I might have asked for something really unpleasant, like the profession followed by Hitler or Alexander the Great.
“Nothing here,” Morris said from behind the bar. Louise shrugged agreement. Morris handed the four scraps to Littleton and said, “Run these out to Douglass. Call us from there.
“We’ll put them through chemical analysis,” he said to Louise and me. “One of them may be real cellophane off a piece of candy. Or we might have missed one or two. For the moment, let’s assume there were four.”
“All right,” I said.
“Does it sound right, Frazer? Should it be three, or five?”
“I don’t know.” As far as memory went, I really didn’t.
“Four, then. We’ve identified two. One was a course in teleportation for aliens. The other was a language course. Right?”
“It looks that way.”
“What else did he give you?”
I could feel the memories floating back there, but all scrambled together. I shook my head.
Morris looked frustrated.
“Excuse me,” said Louise. “Do you drink on duty?”
“Yes,” Morris said without hesitation.
And Louise and I weren’t on duty. Louise mixed us three gin-and-tonics and brought them to us at one of the padded booths.
Morris had opened a flattish briefcase that turned out to be part tape recorder. He said, “We won’t lose anything now. Louise, let’s talk about last night.”
“I hope I can help.”
“Just what happened in here after Ed took his first pill?”
“Mmm.” Louise looked at me askance. “I don’t know when he took that first pill. About one A.M. I noticed
