stiffen.
He put the receiver back and turned to his-companions. For a moment only the wind outside gave utterance. Then he said, “First I’ll make sure nobody overhears” and went out. The household staff didn’t eavesdrop, nor interrupt unless necessary, but English was the sole common tongue today.
Returning, he stood arms akimbo before the chairs they swung around and stated into their stares: “That was Corinne Macandal—finally, and not with glad tidings. I wish now I had the New York Times delivered here.” Harshly, he told them about the disaster of night before last.
“Oh, terrible.” Svoboda got up, reaching for him. He didn’t notiee. Wanderer stayed where he was, lynx- alert.
“I’ve worse yet,” Hanno said. “Macandal has friends in certain government departments, especially police.” He recognized the unspoken question on the woman’s lips and threw her a wintry grin. “No, you can’t call them moles. They give her information or early warning, at her request, which is seldom. Nothing for bad purposes, merely so she won’t be caught off base. The sort of precaution an immortal would naturally take. I used to myself, till I got into a position where it was better to steer as clear of government as possible.
“Well, after I’d seen her, she wanted to know about me before committing herself to any course of action, or inaction—know more than I might be willing to reveal. So she inquired of those contacts and discovered that I’ve been under detective surveillance since shortly before our meeting. It’s at the behest of Edmund J. Moriarty. Yes, Neddy, the senator, my Mte noire. Apparently I’ve become his.”
He sighed. “I should have left him alone. I thought I was doing a public service, badgering him; that I owed the United States this slight help, because I honestly doubt it could survive his Presidency. My mistake. I should have concentrated on our own survival. Too late.”
Svoboda had whitened. “The secret police?” she whispered.
“No, no.” Hanno patted her shoulder. “You should know better, after your years in the West, or have you been listening to European leftists? The Republic hasn’t decayed that far yet. I daresay Moriarty has been fishing, in hopes he’ll find something to discredit or incriminate Kenneth Tan-nahill. Macandal doesn’t see it that way. I gather she admires him, because he’s supposedly done things for the poor. She’s been too busy to learn much history. The revelation that he was after me caused her to hang back from further contact. Might I actually be evil? She does have a hell of a lot to lose, not money but a whole life-work.”
“Never mind,” Wanderer said. “Plain to see, in this crisis she felt she had to tip you off regardless.”
“It’s more than that,” Hanno replied. “We talked very circumspectly. A lot of what I tell you, I deduce logically from her indirect words, on the basis of what I knew before. But she checked again with her Washington sources and found she’s now under the eye too. After that gunfight, Moriarty may very well succeed in getting the FBI on the case. That’s the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Svoboda, a sort of national police. The drug connection, if nothing else. Even though Unity’s fought the narcotics traffic more effectively than any branch of government— well, could Tannahill be in it, could he have masterminded that assault? Also, the unfortunate fact is that the member who was killed had a pistol and used it. In New York that’s more illegal than mugging a grandmother. Since the Goetz case, the liberals have been out for blood. Macandal should be able to prove her innocence, but she’ll have a devil of a time first, and ... anything might come out in the course of the investigation.”
“Not to mention that other woman, Aliyat, being in the hospital.”
“Yeah. She hasn’t been interrogated, in her condition, but when they do go to work on her, the fat could be in the fire. During her whorehouse days she was repeatedly arrested. You know the drill, spasm of public morality, hustle the girls off to show your zeal for law enforcement, then let them right back out. She was fingerprinted, over and over, through the years. And the FBI has accumulated the world’s largest collection of fingerprints.”
Wanderer grunted as if hit in the belly. Svoboda caught ; her lip between her teeth.
“Well, Macandal had already decided she should stop hesitating, get in touch with me, try to find out for herself what kind of a guy I am,” Hannfo continued. “Aliyat was to come this weekend as her representative and, hm, scout. An acid test, considering what last happened between us two. : “First they had in mind an express message to set up the meeting, me to reply the same way. But the shooting cut that off. Now she saw she’d better put her suspicions aside and confer in earnest. An exchange of written communications would obviously be too slow and cumbersome. A personal visit would give away too much, and we can’t manage a clandestine one in a hurry. Our phones are quite likely tapped—under the new circumstances, a word from Moriarty would persuade a judge of the proper political faith to allow that—but still seemed the only way. As soon as the police and the press withdrew, she left her house and called me from a member’s place. Chances are, nobody listening in knows French. It should take a little time to get a recording translated, and we used every possible circumlocution. I don’t think we let slip any hard-and-fast evidence that she was the person on the line. Still, she has undoubtedly compromised herself to a greater or lesser degree. It was a brave thing to do.”
“But also necessary,” Svoboda said. “Our secret is in the worst danger it ever has been, no?”
“Mainly she wanted to give me and any other immortals I know an opportunity to get out from under, make ourselves invisible, if we want to.” Hanno lifted a clenched fist. “By God, she has a free heart! I wish I could be as sure about her head. At the moment, she’s for ending the masquerade, making a clean breast of everything.”
“Does she trust the government that much?” Svoboda wondered.
“It wouldn’t be dangerous for her, I should think,” Wanderer said thoughtfully. “Not at first, anyhow. Hard on us, maybe. Especially you, Hanno.”
The Phoenician laughed. “I’d go hoarse, listing my crimes aloud. Just for openers, all those false identities of mine, complete with Social Security dog tags and annual tax returns, not to mention assorted licenses, birth and death certificates, passports—oh, I’ve been a desperate character, I have.”
“You might be let off easy, even pardoned,” Wanderer said. “And the rest of us, for our petty offenses. We’d be such a sensation.” He grimaced. “At worst, some years in jail wouldn’t matter too greatly to us.” His tone belied the words. It recalled roofless heavens and boundless horizons.
“No, it would be hellishly dangerous,” Hanno declared. “It might well become lethal, for us and a lot of bystanders. I couldn’t explain why over the phone, what with the haste and the probable listeners and her poor French, but I did convince Macandal we must consider the possible consequences before we let our cat out of the bag—that a snap judgment would be completely irresponsible.”
Wanderer’s voice went dry. “From what you’ve told me about her, that was an argument she found hard to resist.”
“She knows from Aliyat I’ve been around a long time. Tentatively, she’ll credit me with more knowledge of the world than she has. She’ll disappear and lie low till we can better assess the situation.”
“How’s she going to pull that off?”
“Oh, it is easy, rf she has an organization loyal to her,” Svoboda said. “I can imagine any number of ruses. For ex- ample, let a woman who resembles her come to the house. Inside, they exchange clothes, and Macandal walks out. After dark that should work. Her people will hide her until she can reach a refuge she surely prepared beforehand.”
“Hm, bow shall we and she get in touch later, if we don’t know each other’s locations or aliases?” Wanderer asked.
“She must have told her comrade Aliyat what the possibilities are.”
“How can Aliyat tell us? In fact, why are we wasting air on this chatter, when she’s a prisoner and the cops will shortly have the clues to her nature? Didn’t Macandal point that out to you, Hanno?”
“No,” the other man said. “It hadn’t occurred to her. She was shocked, bewildered, harassed, grieved, exhausted. I’m amazed she could think straight at all. Since I wanted her to make her exit, I refrained from bringing the question up. Besides, the Aliyat matter is not entirely hopeless.”
“Chto?” Svoboda cried. “What do you mean?”
“The truth won’t come out overnight,” Hanno reminded them. “Possibly it never would. I’m not certain that copies of prints from those obscure police files of decades ago ever got to Washington. If they did, or if the investigators get the idea of making a search, that’ll take time. And then, if an identity is found—well, Thomas Jefferson, who was as en-tightened a man as ever lived, once said he could more readily believe that some Yankee professors had lied than that stones fell from the sky. It would be scientifically more respectable to assume there’d been a mixup in the records than that a human being could stay young for fifty or a hundred years.”
Svoboda scowled. “Possession of her would not allow that assumption, I think. And she might decide that
