Bryce counted the profit and loss of his death to the man he had helped, and smiled ruefully. Yet the request for the meeting might be genuine and important. He had to take a chance on it and meet his ex-assistant and future partner somewhere far away from witnesses, recognition—or protection.
Taking a memo pad he printed, I’ll meet you Friday; 3:PM LM, and wrote in the coordinates of a position in space not very far out from Earth, indicated the radar blink signals for its buoy and clipped the memo sheet to the envelope with its false name and return address. Ringing for his secretary, he handed it to her.
“See that that gets beamed back immediately. Friend of mine seems to be in some sort of a jam.”
That was that. He turned to his work. After an hour or so the intercom box clicked and Kesby said unexpectedly, “Visitor to see you, boss. Can I send him in?”
“Yes.” The receptionist had strict orders to keep out everyone except those scheduled for appointment, and to announce the names and businesses of dubious cases for his deciding, but Kesby must have overridden her decision. He sounded confident. Probably someone important.
Kesby opened the door with an expression half nervous, half mischievous, “Your visitor,” and closed it hastily as the person stepped in.
He didn’t belong in there. It was obvious to Bryce that whoever he was, he had gotten in through a lie.
The young man who stood inside his office watching him was no one connected with the business. He was too young for any position of importance. The slender frailty of childhood was still with him. Yet that impression soon faded under the impressiveness of his stance. It was more than just arrogance or poise, it was an unshakable confidence. As if no failure could be conceived.
He stood balanced to move either forward or back. His voice was again a surprise. Absolute total clarity, almost without inflection as if the words reached the mind without needing a voice. “If you’re going to throw me out, this is the best time to do it.” Dark brown skin of one of the dark races, jet black straight hair, a dark pair of eyes that were merry and watchful and had the impact of something dangerous. Colossal gall, Bryce characterized it to himself. He might be as good as he thinks he is. He was probably selling the Brooklyn Bridge, and he should never have gotten in, but the fact that he had somehow gotten past Kesby made him worth a few questions before being thrown out.
“What do you want?”
He came forward to the desk to answer. “I want to be your right arm.” He took out a pack of cigarettes, shaking one free and offering it with courtesy. “Have one?” Bryce shook his head and the boy put one between his own lips and put the pack away. “My name is Pierce,” he said, lighting the cigarette with the flame cupped in his hands as if he were used to smoking in the wind. He looked up with his eyes squinting against the smoke, shook the match out and dropped it in the desk ash tray. “Roy Pierce.”
He was as much at home as an invading army. Bryce felt an impulse to laugh.
He knew this kid very well, but he couldn’t place where, when, or how. “Am I supposed to know the name?”
“Do you remember Pop Yak?”
Bryce remembered Pop Yak. He gave in with a sigh, and ordered in the singsong vernacular of his childhood. “Okay. Sitselfdel, speeltalk cutchop!”
Pop Yak was a grizzled man who had watched Bryce fighting with another kid. Afterward he had taken Bryce into his store and given him ice cream and some pointers on dirty fighting. Not much had penetrated the first time but Bryce went back for advice again, learning that that was the place to be told how to do things and get what he wanted. Pop was always patient with his teaching, and always right.
He had chosen Bryce as his agent to sell minor drugs to the other kids and acted as a fence for the things he stole, and he encouraged him to study in the compulsory school and loaned him books. And Pop was the first to give him the tip on legitimate business and how to pull money on the right side of the law and make a profit they couldn’t kick about. Good old Pop. “Will-pay.” The boy sat down and leaned forward with a slight intent motion of a hand that was Pop’s favorite gesture, one Bryce had picked up from him himself.
“He told me you’re on the way up.” Roy Pierce held him with a steady dark gaze. “I want a slice of that, and I want it the easy way, hitching my wagon to your rocket. You can use me. A big man is too public. You need a new hand and a new voice, one that does what you want done, and can do it in the dark or the light, without your name—a stand-in for alibis, and a contriver of accidents so they break for you without your motion. A left arm that your enemies don’t recognize as yours.”
He was asking to be Bryce’s substitute in the things that had to be done without connection to himself, and yet had to be done by Bryce himself, because no one could be trusted with the knowledge of them.
Could he be trusted? His coming could be another trap by the unidentified enemy. It was almost too providential, almost too well timed. “References and abilities?”
Roy Pierce reached into his wallet and handed out an aptitude profile card backed by the universal test score listings in training and skills on the other side. Bryce played with the card and studied the youth. The boy was well dressed in a dark tailored suit of the kind Bryce favored. He looked able, clean, cool and ruthless. “Armed?” Bryce asked.
A thing like a very thick cigar suddenly appeared in Pierce’s hand. The end of it pointing at him was solid except for a very small hole. A needle gun, obviously, loaded with two and a half inch grooved drug carrying needles.
“Sleep or death?” Bryce asked.
“Sleep,” Pierce said, putting it away. “It’s licensed.” Bryce wondered what made him so sure he could trust this kid. He analyzed while he questioned. He did not bother to look at the card.
“Languages?”
“Basic coast pidgin, symbolic and glot.” Basic English and Poliglot, the two universals.
“Detector proofed?” Lie detectors could be a nuisance, for they were used casually and universally without needing the legal warrants and deference to constitutional immunities and medical supervision of hypno-questioning.
Pierce smiled with a flash of white teeth. “First thing I ever saved my money for.”
Though they spoke standard English, Bryce had placed his intonations almost to the block he grew up in. Almost to the half block! He was as familiar as Pop Yak, as familiar as his own face in the mirror, and as understandable. Bryce knew the inside of his mind as well as if it were a suddenly attached lobe of his own. It was like looking back through time at himself younger and less complex.
Pop Yak had turned out another on the same model, a younger simpler duplicate of himself. Pierce was doing exactly what he said, offering service to Bryce as he would offer him a sword, simply for the risk and delight of being an instrument in a power game with stakes as high as he had guessed Bryce’s game to be. There was no danger of him being a plant, and no danger of him squealing under pressure: the risk of death or arrest was part of his pay.
“Okay,” Bryce said. He gestured with his head to a corner of the room behind him. “Sit over there. You’re my cousin from Montehedo, and I’m showing you the town.” He turned to his appointment pad again and read. After Pierce had placed a chair in the indicated position, Bryce said without turning. “This week I can use a bodyguard. Someone’s hiring killers for me.”