“And Wickie?” Now he was down on the wide-planked floor, doing abdominal crunches.
“I already told you almost all of it. He’s got an eighthgrade education, has worked a few dozen places. Got thrown into jail a few years ago for drunk and disorderly, but they didn’t press charges. Clean record otherwise. Ziggy can’t find much on him. He doesn’t go anywhere or do anything with his life, as far as we can see. Never gets married. Dies of exposure in one of the big snowstorms of 1994.”
“Well,” Sam muttered, beginning to pant, “we’ve had less to go on.”
“Aren’t there splinters down there?” Al said, distracted from the handlink by the sight of Wickie—Sam—curling and uncurling his body in precise rhythm. Sam Beckett had kept himself fit with a variety of martial arts exercises. Wickie might not do sabbatt or mu tai or karate, but he was in good shape nonetheless.
“Haven’t found any yet,” Sam grunted. Sweat was beginning to trickle down the midline of his chest.
“I always used a cold shower, myself,” Al said to nobody in particular. “Different strokes, I guess.”
“Am I going to have to put up with this for this whole Leap?” Sam demanded, staring up from the floor. His fingers were still laced behind his head, his arms flat on the floor. His chest rose and fell as he panted from the exertion.
“Put up with what?”
“I thought you had a backup girlfriend for when Tina was on vacation.”
“Me?” Al was the picture of injured innocence. “I wouldn’t cheat on Tina. Not since that time she caught me with Nancy—or maybe Terri—no, it was Carlotta, and—”
“Who’s Carlotta? I thought it was Desiree. Monica? Maria? Annie?—Never mind, I don’t want to know.” The number and variety of Al’s backup girlfriends was legendary.
“You’ll never know how much you’re missing.” Al grinned reminiscently.
“I hope not.”
“Not if you’re going to insist on being so damn pure all the time.”
“Yeah, but think of all the things I don’t have to worry about. STDs, AIDS, unplanned pregnancies ...”
“You don’t have to worry about those things anyway if you look at it as an exercise in logistics. I’ve never had a single problem.” He paused. “Or a married one either.”
“AZ.” Now Sam’s arms were over his eyes. “Al, please, go away, go make up with Tina, go find Carlotta, Terri, Nancy, all of them! I don’t care. But don’t come back until you’re rational again.”
“Well, if you’re going to be that way about it. I could probably find somebody if I really wanted to.” Al punched in the code, stepped backward, and the Door slid down.
And Al was gone. The room was blessedly silent, except for the sound of Sam’s own ragged breathing. He had a stitch in his side, and he waited for it to fade out before he sat up and continued the movement to end standing again.
He needed a shower. The logical place for the shower was on the other side of the door Rita had been on, and he stuck his head around the frame carefully, feeling a little foolish but wanting to make sure the room really was empty, first. It was a good thing the room was empty. What would the occupant have thought, hearing only Sam’s half of the recent conversation? It was enough to boggle the mind. Usually he was more careful than that.
Wickie wasn’t the neatest housekeeper in the world, but he wasn’t a complete slob either, Sam was relieved to find. The bed was more or less made, and the sheets looked as ii they’d been changed recently. A pair of jeans draped over the back of a chair, and the top right-hand drawer of the dresser stood a couple of inches open. More jeans hung in the closet; the bottom dresser drawer held a supply of T-shirts.
If he ever got home again, he had a great career in front of himself as a burglar, he thought. After too many years of practice, he could go through someone’s possessions in twenty minutes flat and tell whether he or she was married, had kids, where the occupant went to school, and what their favorite flavor of Jell-0 was. Wickie wasn’t married, didn’t have kids, and didn’t eat Jell-O. As for going to school, Sam found an elementary algebra book on the counter in the kitchen, with pencil marks in the margins. Two other books, both westerns, and six magazines constituted the remainder of the reading material in the cabin. Four of the magazines, hidden under the sofa, featured hyperdeveloped
mammary glands. Sam was glad his Observer wasn’t around to critique them. At least Wickie had the excuse of being only twenty-two.
The bathroom showed signs that Rimae had made herself at home; he was fairly sure the still-wet, delicately scented lilac soap, the slender pink razor, and the loofah sponge weren’t Wickie’s. Besides, there was a second razor available, and another bar of soap, which he made grateful use of.
Twenty minutes later he was feeling much better, much more self-possessed. But the clock on the dresser said it was two-thirty in the morning, and there was nothing left to do but go to bed.
CHAPTER FOUR
Time at the Project didn’t always match Sam’s. It might be noon wherever Sam was and midnight at the Project. In this case, Al had returned to the Imaging Chamber and decided he had time to go to his office and work for a few hours. Now he was wishing he’d found some other way to put things off. The administration offices were empty. The only sounds were from the environmental controls and that annoying hum from the light bulb down the hall that was almost burned out.
Another maintenance request to sign off on.
Al Calavicci had read one too many maintenance reports, recalculated one too many salary increase budgets, offered one too many testimonies before committees which would never see the light of the Congressional Record. He
