He waved that aside. “I want to ask you about her, but I don’t know what to ask.”
“She is very beautiful, always. She believes she can hide her beauty when she chooses, but she is wrong in that. It is only that sometimes it is open, this beauty—the beauty of one who knows herself to be beautiful, ja? Other times, the closed beauty of one who does not know, and then we must look. If we begin by saying, ‘Why is that woman not beautiful?’ we never see it. But if we search—you know, I think.”
“Yes, Lora Masterman. Mr. Klamm, once while I was in the hospital I tried to call my apartment, and you answered.”
Klamm nodded sleepily. “I answered, and you hung up your telephone. You wish to know how such a thing could happen?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It is so simple. She thought you might call. Sometimes one can, from here to there or the other way. So we arranged that such calls should ring at my desk. A special instrument, you understand. She told me of you, and that I was to assist you, should you ask my assistance. You did not.”
“And another time I got another man.”
“One of my agents,” Klamm explained. “I am very much at my desk, but not always. When I am gone, another must answer my calls. Sometimes we must act at once; then he acts for me, in my name.”
“He wanted to know where I was. Lara knew where I was. She sent flowers.”
“But we did not, nor did we know that Laura knew. She does not know everything, you see, though she knows so much. Nor does she tell me a tenth what she knows. Perhaps she only sends your flowers as an experiment; if the florist had said, ‘There is no one there with such a name,’ she would have known that you were elsewhere. We too often make such experiments. That United was a good guess she made, ja? Visitors are often brought there.”
It was the word Fanny had used. He asked, “Am I a dangerous Visitor or a harmless one, Mr. Klamm?”
Klamm chuckled softly. “Harmless, very much so, exactly like me. But Herr North, he is a dangerous Visitor, you see? And so we must question all Visitors somewhat. You become the responsibility of one of my subordinates. She will keep you from harm, and it might be someday Laura comes for you.”
“One more thing, sir. I told you about the other man, who answered the phone in my apartment.”
“Ja.”
“I saw him on TV one time. I just switched on the TV, and there he was, answering the phone in my apartment.”
Klamm nodded. “No one else was looking? Perhaps another would have seen what you saw, Herr Kay. But perhaps not. More often, not. She was near you then, and she brings such dreams; I cannot explain why.”
That was the end of their conversation for a time, and it seemed to him that the limousine should have pulled up in front of a hospital when Klamm said, I cannot explain why. In point of fact, it did not, but followed the black sedan for another mile at least while he considered what had been said and Klamm slumped in the corner apparently asleep. Even when they reached the hospital—St. Anchises’s, according to a sign illuminated by the headlights—the limousine did not stop in front but circled to the emergency entrance in the rear.
“Good-bye, Herr Kay,” Klamm said, once again extending his hand. “No, at such a time you haff a right to the correct name. Good-bye, Herr Green, my friend. May good fortune go with you! I only call you Herr Kay because I remember an old friend, that was myself also.”
He shook Klamm’s hand. “Good-bye, Mr. Klamm. You can call me anything you want.”
One of the bodyguards opened the door.
“You know how to reach me at my desk, ja? Or another who will act for me.”
The dome light had come on when the door was opened, and he saw with astonishment that there were tears in Klamm’s eyes. He said, “Yes, I do, sir.”
“Take care of him, Ernest. See he has a good doctor.”
The bodyguard replied, “I will, Mr. Secretary,” and he got out; as soon as the door closed, the limousine glided away.
Tina said, “What a nice old man.”
The bodyguard glanced down at her and grinned. “You got one of those? I used to have one myself.”
Tina told him, “You should get another one.”
He followed the bodyguard into a brightly lit room, where an Oriental who had been sipping from a battered china mug rose to attend to him. “Good to see you again,” the Oriental told him. “But not here. Have a seat.”
He sat down. “It’s good to see you again, too, Dr. Pille.” After a moment he added, “I thought you were at that other place.”
“I am, when they need me. It’s only a block away. You had a concussion that time, remember?”
“Sure,” he said. “Ow!”
“Your nose is broken,” Dr. Pille told him. “We’ll have to set it. I’ll give you an anesthetic, but it will still hurt a bit. You get in a fight?”
A nurse answered for him. “With an assassin, Doctor. It was all over TV.”
Still examining his nose, Dr. Pille nodded. “Really?”
The bodyguard asked, “Can you keep him overnight, Doc? Somebody will come by to get him in the morning.”
“Certainly.” Dr. Pille straightened up and began filling a hypodermic.
Decision
A nurse woke him to ask what he wanted for breakfast. “You lost a couple of teeth,” she told him. “So no toast or anything like that. Do you think you could manage a coddled egg?”
He nodded and sat up in bed. “I’m hungry. Guess I missed dinner last night.”
She grinned. “That would explain it.”
When she was gone, he looked around the room; it was bigger than the one he had occupied at United, much smaller than the open ward in which he had slept with nine other patients in the psychiatric wing of some hospital whose name he could not quite remember. Like his room at United, it held a locker, but this locker was unlocked. His jacket, his trousers, and his overcoat hung inside. His shoes were on the bottom. He recalled that he had not had his overcoat when he had been in the limousine with Klamm. Someone had brought it.
He peeked into the breast pocket of his jacket, and Tina said, “Hello-good morning,” and stretched.
“Good morning.” He held out his hand, and she climbed into it. “Back in the hospital,” he said.
“Were you in the hospital before?”
“Yes, but you were asleep. I’ve been in hospitals a lot.”
The nurse came in with his tray. “Those are against our regulations,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I didn’t know.”
“I really should take it and lock it up. But you’re going to be discharged today anyhow, so it’s really not worth all the trouble. Just don’t let anybody else see it.”
“I’ll hide,” Tina promised.
“What would you like to drink? We’ve got coffee, tea, and milk.”
He asked whether he could have both tea and milk, and she nodded and brought them in, managing to get a cup, a little hot-water pot, and the glass of milk all on his tray.
“The tea’s for you,” he told Tina when the nurse had gone. He put the teabag into the pot and sprinkled salt from an old-fashioned glass saltcellar into the cup.
“Goody!”
He held the cup for her while she drank. “You don’t need any food? Just this?”
“This is all,” Tina said. “And this was plenty. Eat your egg so you’ll grow up strong.”
With a napkin to protect his fingers, he unscrewed the top of the white porcelain dish.
“Don’t you have to go to school today?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. There was a soft roll on his tray as well. He tore it in small pieces and mixed the pieces with the egg, adding pepper and the pat of butter. “Somebody’s coming for me, but I don’t think it’s to take me to school.”
“Where are they going to take you?”