“One day I saw him on the street, and he had a boy and a little girl with him. He looked so different I wasn’t sure it was really him. I followed them a couple of blocks trying to make up my mind, and they went into the Art Museum. I went in too after a while, and he was explaining the pictures to them. Not just what a windmill was and so on, but who the artists had been and where they’d lived, and why they said they painted the way they did.”
Fanny nodded encouragingly.
“Finally I just walked up to him and said, ‘Mr. Kolecke?’ You know the way you do. He looked surprised, then he called me by my first name. We shook hands, and he introduced me to the kids. It seemed funny I hadn’t recognized him right away. But after I thought for a while I saw he hadn’t recognized me either until I said something. I hadn’t felt different just because I was out of the store, wearing different clothes. But I’d looked different to Mr. Kolecke —so different he hadn’t known me until he heard my voice, and I think maybe that’s the way Lara is for me.”
Fanny asked, “Does your hand hurt?” He looked surprised, and she added, “You’ve been holding your wrist with your other hand.”
“Yes, a little bit. Dr. Applewood bandaged it for me this morning. I burned it in the fire last night.”
Fanny leaned forward to look. “Your bandage is wet. You probably got snow on it, and it melted in the car. You’ve cut your finger too. Let me see those, and I’ll give you some dry gauze and some iodine.”
He extended his hands. “What are Visitors? You said you’d tell me about them, but you haven’t told me anything yet.”
“This may hurt a little.”
She tore the old tape away, and it did. With the bandage off, he could trace the angry outline of the burn through its smear of yellowish cream.
“Visitors are people who seem just to appear.” Fanny went to the wooden cabinet over the little sink in the corner and got out a blue cardboard box of surgical gauze. “There’s a place—or anyway, this is how it looks—that’s a lot like our world, but not quite the same. Or maybe there are several places like that. Anyway, sometimes people leak through. Do you like to go to the zoo?”
He said, “Not in weather like this.”
“I do, and in some sections they’ve got rows of cages side-by-side, just separated by wire. You know, I’m getting pretty far from what the manual says about this. Wait a minute, I’ll read it to you.”
She pulled a booklet bound in scuffed orange paper from a shelf over the table and thumbed through its pages.
He said, “I’m not. I was only putting you on.”
“That’s what I thought. Do you still want to see Klamm?”
“I don’t know. You know more than I do about all this. What do you think?”
“I don’t know either,” Fanny admitted; she shut the orange booklet and replaced it on the shelf. “Whatever else he may be—and some people hate him—Klamm’s no fool. He could probably help you if he wanted to. I’d like to sleep on it.”
He nodded. “All right.”
“Just like that? Wouldn’t you like me to drive you to the station?”
It was said lightly, but he felt there would be trouble if he agreed. He shook his head instead. “I’m tired and there’s a lot more I should know—things you can tell me if you will.”
“Not about visitors, I hope, since you’re not one.”
“No, not about visitors—although I’m still interested in that, particularly in where they come from. About Klamm. Is this where he lives? This city?”
“Sure, this is the capital. He has to be here for meetings with the President. Naturally he travels a lot, because of his position.”
“He has a house or an apartment here?”
“A house, I think,” Fanny said. “At least he used to. I saw a picture of him in the paper one time, taken out on his lawn. He grows roses, that’s his hobby. I suppose that’s why he kept the house when he and his wife split.”
“Do you know where this house is?”
She studied him. “If you’re thinking about seeing Klamm at his house, forget it. He’s the President’s security advisor, which means that a dozen different groups are gunning for him, including North’s. He’s guarded around the clock.”
“But he might talk to me, if I rang his doorbell. I don’t want to kill him, I just want to ask him a couple of questions.”
“Well, I don’t know where he lives. And I’m sure you can skip looking in the phone book.”
“You must have some idea.”
Fanny shrugged. “There’s a couple toney suburbs down south. A big place like that would just about have to be in one or the other, but I don’t know.”
“Where is his office?”
“In the Justice Building. I’ve never been there—I mean, I’ve been in the Justice Building, but I’ve never been
