entrance before she gets there.'
There wasn't any signature, but there didn't need to be: the message had been addressed to him as 'Danno.'
He made it by two-thirty, but with only moments to spare; but it didn't seem he had needed to hurry. The sidewalk outside the building was as crowded as always, but there was no sign of his cousin. Not at two-thirty, not at two-forty, not at almost three.
Dannerman leaned against the side of the building between two storefronts to keep his back covered; he had no doubt there were pickpockets among the horde of pedestrians. There was a policeman moving methodically down the block, making the sidewalk vendors pack up their wares and move on. He gave Dannerman a searching look, as he did the four or five other idlers who were standing around, doing their best to look as though they were waiting for someone. Some probably were. One at least wasn't, because as soon as the cop was ten meters away the man strolled over to Dannerman. Out of the side of his mouth, not looking at him, he muttered, 'Smoke? Get high? Want to have a good time?'
'Get lost,' Dannerman said. He looked at his watch. He had stretched his lunch hour a good deal longer than Cousin Pat would approve; if it happened she had come back a little earlier than expected, and was up in her office wondering where he was-She wasn't. He saw a taxi roll up before the building entrance, and Pat Adcock and her bodyguard got out.
Dannerman wondered just what he was supposed to do, but not for long. Two of the idlers had moved quickly toward the curb. As the cab was pulling away one of them jumped Mick Jarvas from behind, the two of them falling to the ground; Dannerman heard a sickening crunch that sounded like a bone breaking. The other grabbed his cousin, snatched her necklace, knocked her down too and began to run-straight at Dan Dannerman.
Dannerman's reflexes were fast. 'Hai!' he shouted, and stopped the man with a full body block. The mugger squawked, and then lost his voice as Dannerman spun him around and got an arm around his throat. The other mugger got up from where he had left Jarvas writhing on the sidewalk and started over to him; then, as Dannerman turned to face him, releasing the man he had captured, the two turned and ran, disappearing into the crowd.
As Dannerman helped his cousin to her feet and handed back her necklace she looked at him with shaky wonder. 'Well, thanks, Dan,' she gasped. 'You're pretty handy in a street fight, aren't you? And you even got my beads back.'
'Just glad I was here, Pat,' he said modestly.
'So am I.' She turned to the policeman who was trotting toward them at last, sweaty in his body armor and looking annoyed. It was only when she had finished reprimanding the officer for not being present when needed and ordering him to call in for an ambulance for groaning Mick Jarvas that Cousin Pat finally remembered to revert to type. 'One thing, though, Dan. I'm glad you happened to be here, of course. But you do know, don't you, that you're supposed to be back from lunch no later than two. And it's a pity you let those muggers get away.'
He didn't answer that. He especially didn't tell her the reason, because he didn't want to mention that while he had the 'mugger' in a choke hold the man had gasped aggrievedly, 'Come on, Danno! Don't be so fucking rough!'
CHAPTER SIX
Dan
On the way home that night, Dannerman stopped to do what he should have done days earlier-put in his once-a-month hour's practice on the firing range at the YMCA. As long as he was there he put in another hour on the exercise machines to keep his muscle tone up. When he got home he was hot and sweaty, but the guns had to be cleaned.
His practiced fingers knew how to do that without much direction from his brain, so he put something on the screen to watch while he cleaned the weapons. He hesitated over the choice. One of his store of Elmer Rice plays, for the fun of it? Some of the briefing tapes Hilda had downloaded for him, for the sake of duty? He compromised on looping the two messages from space again; maybe they had something to do with his assignment, as the colonel had hinted, but anyway she'd stirred his curiosity.
He did the easiest weapon first, the registered twenty-shot, his eyes on the screen. Even slowed down to catch details, the first space message gave no more information than it had the first time he saw it, in the Neuereich. The universe expanded and collapsed; and that was that.
He paused before running the second message, because the stink of his bomb-bugger was getting to him. Once the chemicals in a bomb-bugger mixed they produced not only thrust for the bullets but a god-awful smell; he rinsed the whole weapon, tiring chamber and all, in water with neutralizer added, then carefully added enough of each chemical to top them off from the canisters hidden under his bed. Then he turned on the second message and began to clean his ankle gun.
He didn't get far. There were angry voices just outside his door. One was his landlady, Rita, in a bad mood; the other, whining and apologetic, belonged to one of the upstairs lodgers, Bert Germaine. When he opened the door, Rita diverted her attention from the lodger to Dannerman. 'I didn't see you in the kitchen,' she said accusingly. Then, wrinkling her nose, 'What's that smell?'
'I guess it's the low-power loads they make you use on the YMCA range. Sorry about that.'
She shrugged, turning back to look for the other lodger. But that conversation with the other lodger was over, because Germaine had taken advantage of her distraction to sneak away. 'Little bastard,' she said morosely. 'I ought to kick his ass right out of my condo. Can't pay the rent, oh, no, but he always has a couple dollars for lottery tickets every day.'
Dannerman took the hint. 'Let me settle up.'
'Oh, honey,' she sighed, 'I wasn't talking about you. You're the best goddam tenant I have, you know that. Only how can I make ends meet when I have to put up with deadbeats like Germaine?'
'Look at the bright side, Rita. Maybe he'll win his hundred million dollars, then he'll pay everything he owes all at once.'
'Maybe pigs will fly. Dan,' she said, looking him over, 'when was the last time you got a haircut?' He shrugged. 'You really ought to take more pride in your appearance, a good-looking young fellow like you. Which reminds me,' she added. 'There was a girl here looking for you.'
'Oh?' he said, wondering: Colonel Hilda? Somebody from the office?
'Said her name was Anita. Said to tell you they missed you at the theater. Is she the one I used to see here sometimes, like a month or two ago? Not that I'm complaining about your having guests,' she added hastily. 'You pay your rent on time. I'm not going to worry if you have somebody visit you now and then, and one thing I will say for you, Dan, the ones I've seen have always looked pretty respectable. Not like the hookers that little bastard Germaine tries to sneak in. He's always got the money to pay them, you bet; and still he says he can't pay his rent!'
When he was safely locked in his room again Dannerman didn't start the tape again. He was thinking about Anita Berman.
That was not an enjoyable subject-not meaning Anita herself, who was about as enjoyable a female as he had ever dated, but the fact that he would soon have to do something about her. The troubling question was, do what? He didn't really want to break off their relationship. But she was beginning to sound serious, and that was something he couldn't afford.
Then Hilda's call came in on the coded line and he put Anita Berman out of his mind for the moment. He started in right away with the colonel. 'Thanks a lot for setting me up this afternoon. You could've told me about it first.'
'What for? I knew you could handle it. Now Jarvas is out of the way for a while, right?'
'I guess so. They were still at the hospital when 1 left.'
'He's out,' she said positively. 'His arm's broken. So tomorrow morning you go in to your cousin and see if you
