“Why sure... sure. Come on in. Always glad to help out.” He ushered me in, closed the door and waved me into a spacious living room lined on two sides with fully packed bookshelves. “Make you a drink?”
“Fine. Whatever you’re having.”
“I’m for a beer.”
“Good enough.”
He popped open two cans, held one out to me and sat down in a wicker rocking chair opposite me. “Now,” he said, “what’s your problem?”
“You knew Louis Agrounsky, didn’t you?”
“Lou? Why, certainly. Is he the one you’re looking for?”
I took a pull of the beer and put the can on the floor beside me. “Uh-huh.”
His grin took on a puzzled twist. “Now that’s very funny.”
“What is?”
“Poor Lou... having everybody looking for him and all the while he was right here he was a lonely guy who never knew a soul. Never saw anybody so much alone. Even after his accident when he couldn’t work any more, nobody but Claude Boster or me ever saw him.”
“He wasn’t the type who made friends easily, Mr. Small. His work required so much secrecy the habit rubbed off on him.”
Small nodded agreement, his mouth pursed in thought. “You’re right there. Never could get him into conversation about his job. Never really tried,” he added. “You understand that, of course. With Claude he always talked about his hobby — those miniature electronics he played with. Whenever we were together it was always philosophy.”
“That your hobby?” I asked.
“Goodness no,” he laughed. “That’s my profession. Teach it over at Bromwell University. Lou and I both graduated from there. I was two years ahead of him, but we became good friends when we roomed in the same dorm. Lou never studied philosophy... majored in mathematics and all that, but after he had his breakdown he became interested in the subject and researched it as much as I did. It seemed to relieve him.”
“I didn’t think that breakdown was that serious,” I said.
Small shrugged and sipped his drink. “It wasn’t, really. Overwork, I think. Lou really crammed harder than most. He was capable of absorbing it all, but the late hours finally caught up with him. No sleep, hours of study, a part time job... that’s a little too much for anybody.”
“He really change after that?”
“He learned not to push too hard,” Small told me. “He changed jobs and kept more reasonable hours.” He frowned in thought a moment, then added, “He became more introspective, I’d say. Social behavior seemed to concern him... the state of the world... that sort of thing. We spent many an hour discussing it from a philosophical viewpoint.”
“What was his?”
“Now that,” Vincent Small said, “I was hoping you could tell me. Lou never did arrive at a conclusion. He would ponder the subject endlessly, but never found an answer.”
“What philosopher ever did?”
He glanced at me, surprised at the tone of my voice. “Ah, Mr. Mann, I take it that you’re a realist.”
“All the way.”
“And philosophy...?”
“Doesn’t fit the facts,” I answered him.
His eyes brightened with humor, sparkling at the possibility of argument, seeing me take a fall. “Offer an example.”
“Where do you go when you die?” I said. Before he could answer I grinned and put in, “And prove it.”
Then, like all the others who strive so hard to make the simple difficult, he threw it back to me again because he didn’t know. “Maybe you’d like to offer your version.”
“Sure,” I said, and finished the beer. “Six feet down.”
“Ah, Mr. Mann... that’s so...”
“Practical?”
“But...”
“Ever go to a funeral?”
“Yes, but then...”
“And where did the body go?”
“Realists are impossible to talk to,” he smiled.
“Ever kill a man, Small?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, I have. Quite a few. That’s fact, not philosophical nonsense. It’s real and complete. It makes you think about more things than all the trivia Plato or Aristotle ever dealt out.”
Small threw me a peculiar glance and put his empty can on the table beside him. “Mr. Mann... you’re a strange sort of person for Lou to have known. May I ask how you came to meet him?”
“I haven’t yet,” I said. “I hope to before somebody else does, though.”
“That sounds rather mysterious.”
“It isn’t. It’s something that can’t be explained because it involves his work, but it’s damned serious and I want to find him.”
“Yes.” He nodded, suddenly concerned. “I can believe that.”
“You mentioned other people interested in locating Louis Agrounsky...”
“Several.”
“They identify themselves as the police or a government agency?”
“It wasn’t me they approached.”
“Oh?”
“Claude Boster mentioned it. He was queried twice by persons saying they were Lou’s friends and when he ran into one of Lou’s former associates at the project, that one had been approached too. However, neither could supply any information. Lou seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.”
“No communication at all?”
“None whatsoever. Now, may I ask you a question?”
“My pleasure.”
“What is your interest in this?”
“Money, Mr. Small,” I said. “My employer wants to purchase one of Agrounsky’s inventions very badly, and if I can locate him before the competition, I’m in, so to speak.”
“Then you’re a... a...”
“Call it investigator.”
“And you’ve killed people,” he stated.
“Only when it was necessary.”
“Do you think it will be necessary in this case?”
“There’s a distinct possibility. We’re at war, Mr. Small. Right now a cold war, but war nevertheless.”
His nod was solemn. “I see. And the competition isn’t the local commercial variety.”
I didn’t answer him. I didn’t have to.
Finally he said, “Can you identify yourself, sir?”
“Curious?”
“All philosophers are.”
“Then call the New York office of I.A.T.S. and ask for Charles Corbinet. He’ll be glad to supply my ID.”
“Perhaps I will,” he told me. “You interest me strangely. This whole affair is very peculiar. It will make for some curious speculation.”
“Don’t philosophize on it, Small. If you can think of any place Agrounsky might be, keep it to yourself. I’ll contact you off and on while I’m around. That is... if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Lou’s disappearance disturbs me deeply. I’m quite concerned for him.”
I got up, stuck my hat on and held out my hand to Vincent Small. “Thanks for the talk.”
“No bother at all.”
“Know where I might locate Claude Boster right now?”
“Without a doubt. He’ll be in his shop behind his house, brains deep in hairlike wiring, circuits he’s trying to reduce to pea size, and a headache as big as a house from squinting into microscopes.”
And he was right. Twenty minutes after I left Vincent Small I was watching Claude Boster through the casement window of his small machine shop, back hunched over a small lathe he operated under an enlarging glass, stopping occasionally to rub his head over one ear and make a grimace of disgust.
When I knocked he shut off his power and shuffled to the door, opened it to peer out at me, and said, “Yes?”
“Claude Boster?”
He nodded. “That’s right.”
“Mann is my name. I just came from Vincent Small who suggested I see you about a matter.”
Small’s name wiped the puzzled frown from his face. “Oh. Yes, please come in.”