“Okay.” By the way Grace said it, she didn’t think it was. She let them go on to baggage claim anyhow. That was all Jerry cared about.

  Steve’s bag came out right away. He and Beth said their good-byes and headed off to wherever she’d parked her car. Jerry and Anna stood there and waited. Time seemed to crawl on its stomach. “Just when you thought things couldn’t get any better,” Jerry said.

  “I was gonna be death warmed over today. Now I’ll just be death,” Anna replied.

  More and more passengers grabbed their suitcases and left. Jerry was starting to wonder whether he’d have to beard the Hawaiian Airlines baggage people in their den (and where their den was) when his suitcase came forth at last. He gratefully grabbed it, stuck the Heinlein inside, and straightened up again. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Anna led him to her car. It was a yellow Toyota, small enough to make his Rambler seem like a Lincoln alongside it. He stashed the suitcase and the hydrophone inside the trunk, slammed it shut, and kissed her again.

  She kissed him back … for about ten seconds. Then she pulled away. “Jerry, I love you, but I’m punch-drunk. And I have to get up at six fifteen, which feels like ten minutes from now. Save it for later, okay?”

  This is a test. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you flunk. “Okay,” Jerry said, and managed not to sound too grumpy. That he was out on his feet himself didn’t hurt. He’d also seen Anna play the same kind of game before. Recognizing it helped him handle it.

  When he got into the car, he pushed the passenger seat all the way back. That gave him enough legroom. Even though the Toyota didn’t seem much bigger than a tennis shoe, it had more headroom than some standard-sized American machines.

  The parking attendant was dozing in his booth, but woke up when Anna’s headlights hit him. She paid him. The bar swung up. She drove out and headed east on Century.

  Not much traffic at the airport: two in the morning was ebb tide. There was even less as they moved away. Jerry approved; this wasn’t a great part of town. Hawthorne, where he and Anna had their apartments, was better, but not a whole lot.

  She drove him to his place. She did have his keys with her, too. She used the one that opened the gate to the parking under the building. After she pulled into his space, she gave it to him, along with the apartment key and the one that opened his mailbox in the front lobby.

  He took his impedimenta out of the trunk. She’d got out with him, so he kissed her again. He thought about trying to steer her upstairs, then thought better of it. Instead, he said, “I’ll see you. We both need to crash.”

  “Jesus, do we ever!” The way Anna said that made him realize he’d passed another test.

  She slid into the car, backed out of the space, and made for the exit on the far side of the building. He followed; the stairs up to the ground level started from the driveway. He slowly climbed them, and the ones that led up to his apartment.

  When he opened the door, the place smelled musty. Nobody’d been in and out much lately: just Anna fetching the mail every couple of days. He turned on a light. What she’d brought in lay on the coffee table. A manila envelope meant he’d had a story rejected. He’d get mad about that later.

  Now … Now he opened the suitcase and took out Have Space Suit—Will Travel. They’d flipped through the pages before he left the Glomar Explorer. They hadn’t thought to take off the dust jacket, though. To make sure they didn’t, he’d helpfully held the book while they went through it. He took the jacket off now. He’d taped a photo of Humpty Dumpty inside the front panel, and one of a centaurowl inside the back panel.

  They were here. They were safe. He’d made sure. He could relax, as much as he’d ever be able to relax now. He yawned. Relaxed or not, he was exhausted. Everything could wait till the sun came up. He shed his shoes, belt, and the stuff he had in his pockets, collapsed on the bed, and fell asleep.

  XI

  Jerry woke at half past ten. He still felt beat up and jet-lagged. Anna, of course, had been awake for hours, and was making money at her job. Jerry tried to decide whether he needed breakfast or a shower more. The shower won. It felt great. So did putting on clothes that weren’t the ones he’d been wearing over and over since June.

  Breakfast … Breakfast was more complicated. The cupboard and fridge were bare. He didn’t have his car yet. The closest place where he could get food was Pizza Plus, a couple of blocks south and one west from his place. They were good, but in the morning when he didn’t have the munchies?

  Pizza or go hungry? Pizza won. He walked over, and walked in while they were still opening up. The guy behind the counter gave him the stink eye when he ordered a large with the works, but twenty minutes later he had it. He took it back to the apartment, wolfed down three slices, and stowed the rest in the refrigerator for dinner.

  He also made coffee, of a sort: he had Folger’s instant, sugar, and Cremora. It tasted like hot mud, but it was hot, caffeinated mud. That was what he needed.

  Once fed and energized, he went through the mail Anna’d brought in. He threw a lot of it in the trash—junk was junk, and junk two months old even junkier. There was a letter from the phone company saying they’d cut off service if he didn’t pay his bill. Like any other human institution, the CIA failed to think of everything. Tomorrow, he told himself. After I get my wheels back.

  The rejected story had come back from Analog. It was a near miss; the letter with it offered encouragement and suggested a couple of tweaks that didn’t seem too horrible. Ben Bova didn’t promise he’d look at it again if Jerry made the tweaks, but he wouldn’t have written that kind of letter if he didn’t want to … would he?

  Bank statements showed he had money in his savings account, more than he was used to. It came from the Summa Corporation. Jerry needed a moment to remember that was the Hughes subsidiary fronting the Glomar Explorer.

  After that? After that it was Friday afternoon. Everybody he knew was still working. Even if someone by chance had got time off, whoever it was would have to come here. Without a car, Jerry couldn’t go anywhere much. They called Los Angeles’ buses the Retarded Transit District for a reason.

  What did you do when nothing was going on? Jerry took a nap. Peewee from Have Space Suit would have approved. Peewee was a genius, too. Jerry wished he were. He was plenty smart enough, but knew too well that that wasn’t the same thing. He also knew he was running on fumes. So he slept some more.

  He woke up around five. He might have slept longer yet if he hadn’t rolled back into a fresh drool spot on the pillow. He finally felt caught up on sleep, at the price of being out of phase with the rest of the West Coast. That would eventually straighten out. In the meantime …

  In the meantime, he turned on the oven so he could heat up the rest of his pizza. Anna had made noises about buying a microwave oven to do that kind of thing in seconds. She hadn’t done it yet; they cost close to five hundred dollars, more than twice what Jerry’d paid for his electric typewriter. One of these days.

  After he ate, he washed the few dishes he’d made. He did that every day. His father was kind of a slob at home. He’d promised himself he’d do better when he had his own place. So far, he hadn’t made himself too big a liar. The major exception was the blizzard of papers on the dinette table. Even that was organized chaos. He kept telling himself it was, anyhow.

  He looked at that blizzard differently now, though. Whale songs were still interesting, sure. But they didn’t seem so totally fascinating anymore, not next to centaurowls and spaceships. The only problem with that was, he didn’t have anything to do with centaurowls and spaceships at the moment. And that was nobody’s fault but his own.

  At a quarter past six, he called Tim Ishihara’s apartment. A woman’s voice answered: “Hello?”

  “Hi, Cheryl. It’s Jerry. Is the man home yet?”

  “Jerry!” Tim’s wife exclaimed. “When did you get back in town?”

  “This morning, hideously early. My carcass has no idea what time it’s supposed to be.”

  “I’ve done that,” Cheryl Ishihara said. She raised her voice: “Tim! Jerry’s on the phone!”

  After a moment, Jerry’s buddy came on the line. “Hey, man,” he said. “So they finally had enough of you, did they?”

  Like a lot of friends, they insulted each other as naturally as they breathed. That crack, though, cut closer to the bone than Tim could know. Jerry needed a moment before he could say, “Damn right they did,” without sounding as if he meant it—which he did.

  “Were you just along for protective coloration and money, or did you get something worthwhile done?” Tim asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Jerry said—one more truth spoken in jest. “Listen, any chance you can drive me down to Long Beach tomorrow so I can get my car back? Without it, I might as well be in jail.”

  “Yeah, I can do that,” his friend said at once—Tim was a friend indeed. “What time you want me to get you?”

  “Whatever’s easy for you. You’re doing me the favor.”

  “Ten o’clock okay?”

  “That’ll work. I owe you one, man.”

  “No sweat. See you then. Listen, I gotta go. Cheryl’s waving lamb chops under my nose,” Tim said. Jerry thanked him again and hung up.

  Then he called Anna. The first thing he said when she picked up the phone was, “How you doing, honey?”

  “I’m dead,” she answered. “I made it through the day. I had enough coffee to keep me pissing like a racehorse, and I probably won’t sleep tonight the way I ought to. But I got through it. How about you?”

  “I don’t know what time it’s supposed to be,” he answered, realizing not mentioning how hard he’d crashed had to be the smart play. “Tim’s gonna take me down to Long Beach tomorrow morning, so I’ll have my wheels back. See you tomorrow night?”

  “Sure,” she said, and then, “Good for you. If you’d wanted me to come over there tonight, I would’ve hit you with something as soon as I walked in. A brick, probably.”

  “I kinda figured that.” Jerry’d had enough sleep that he remembered how long it had been since he’d lain down with Anna. After so long, he told himself, one more day wouldn’t make that much difference. A particular part of himself didn’t want to listen. Even so, he said, “We’ll both rest up tonight as much as we can. I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m back with the car.”

  “Okay. Cut that out!” she said. Jerry realized the sharp cry was probably aimed at the King of Siam, not at him. Sure enough, Anna muttered, “Stupid cat. Listen, I’m gonna go. Pretty soon I’ll collapse, that’s all.”

  “Love you, hon.”

  “Love you, too. ’Bye.”

  Left to his own devices, Jerry watched the Angels finish hammering the Milwaukee Brewers. They were still as lousy as they had been when he sailed on the Glomar Explorer. With Nolan Ryan pitching, though, they were … better, anyhow.

  After the game ended, he carefully took the two photos he’d lifted out of their hiding place. He peeled the tape off them. Would anyone who hadn’t been there believe they were what they purported to be? He hardly believed it himself, and he’d watched it happen. But they might make people ask interesting questions, anyhow.

  Or nobody might ever see them again. You just never knew.

  * * *

  Jerry was standing on the sidewalk in front of his building when Tim pulled up. He’d gone out at ten to ten; he’d known his friend would be five minutes early, and he was. Jerry slid into the car. They shook hands. Tim Ishihara was no more than five eight, and on the chunky side: he and tall, lanky Jerry made an odd pair, but they’d been tight for years and years.

  Before Tim drove off, he pointed to the taped-up manila envelope Jerry’d set on the floorboards between his feet. “What you got there?”

  “Some stuff. There were … hassles on the ship. Can you hang on to this for me, put it in the safest place you can think of? Don’t look at it or anything—believe me, you don’t want to know. Don’t tell anybody about it, either. I mean anybody. Give it back to me if I ask for it. Otherwise, just hold it.”

  Tim didn’t hesitate. “Sure, I’ll do that. Hell, I’ll stash it in the safe at work. Nobody’ll get it outa there.” He had a tech job in aerospace over in Redondo Beach. As he stepped on the gas, he said, “You all right? This sounds kinda heavy.”

  “I think everything is okay. I’m just staying on the safe side, like. If I’m wrong, well, you’ll know. Do whatever you think is best then.”

  Tim turned onto Rosecrans and headed east toward the Harbor Freeway. Jerry remembered the freeway pushing south past the elementary school where the two friends met. It seemed a million years ago, but it wasn’t. His mother had already died by then.

  Slowly, Tim said, “You mean, if anything happens to you?”

  “Nothing’s gonna happen to me.” One more time, Jerry tried not to think about termination with extreme prejudice. One more time, he didn’t have much luck. It was too much like trying not to think about a blue monkey. Even as that thought ran through his mind, he realized he’d got it from one of Manly Wade Wellman’s Silver John stories. Science fiction and fantasy had started warping his life long before Stephen Dole first showed him photos of what they weren’t yet calling Humpty Dumpty.

  Tim took one hand off the wheel to scratch an ear. He still wore his hair short. He’d grown sideburns, but that was as far as he’d gone along those lines. But for them, he still looked the way he had in high school. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said.

  “Me, too,” Jerry said: an admission, he realized too late, that he wasn’t telling everything he might have.

  The rest of the ride to the south passed mostly in silence. Only after the Long Beach Freeway divided and they went to the harbor instead of into downtown Long Beach did Jerry tell his friend how best to get to Pier E. Tim pulled into the parking lot where Jerry’s Rambler had been sitting since June. Jerry hoped like hell they’d remembered to turn the engine over every now and then.

  He and Tim walked to the security perimeter that had protected the Glomar Explorer. The ship was long gone; the perimeter remained. Tim whistled softly. “Razor wire? They weren’t kidding around, were they?” he said.

  “Not even a little bit,” Jerry said.

  A man with a pistol on his hip came out of the little guard shack as Jerry and Tim drew near. “Do something for you guys?” he asked. He would have said “Do something to you guys?” in the same tone of voice.

  “I’m Jerry Steinberg. I’m just back from the Glomar Explorer. You people have my car keys,” Jerry said.

  “Hang on.” The guard ducked back into the shack for a moment. When he reemerged, he had the keys and a clipboard. “Show me some ID, please.”

  Jerry produced the driver’s license from the apartment on Ocean Boulevard. The guard looked it over, nodded, made a checkmark on the sheet in the clipboard, and gave him the keys. “Thanks,” Jerry said.

  “No problem,” the guard replied. Since he had the proper papers, he’d earned the proper respect.

  As he and Tim went back to the lot, Tim said, “Steinberg?”

  “Yeah, well…” Jerry shrugged. “Everything they say about how security-crazy Howard Hughes is, it’s an understatement.” Which was true, if you substituted a secretive spy agency for a reclusive gazillionaire. Or, for all Jerry could prove, even if you didn’t.

  “Crazy enough to get people fake licenses?” Tim said. Jerry just shrugged again. He hoped Tim wouldn’t push it. His friend didn’t; he had the same kind of politesse as the King of Siam.

  There was the Rambler. It was dusty, but all the tires had air in them. Jerry opened the driver’s-side door. Hot air poured out. He rolled down the window. To Tim, he said, “Hang around till I make sure it starts, okay?”

  “I was going to. I’ll give you a jump if it doesn’t.” Tim sounded offended he could have imagined anything else.

  Jerry slid behind the wheel. When he turned the key, the motor fired up right away. “Ignition! Liftoff!” he said.

  “Cool. Want to go somewhere and have lunch?”

  “Did you see that Greek place a couple of blocks back? That might do it. They had ‘Breakfast’ on the sign, so they should be open.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Tim said.

  The Greek place wasn’t fancy—what harborside joint was?—but it gave a lot of food for not a whole lot of money. Tim had chicken in avgolemono sauce; Jerry got the keftedakia plate. He bought. Tim grumbled, but only for form’s sake. He’d driven Jerry here; he deserved some reward.

  “You heading back up now?” Tim asked as they walked out to their cars.

  “One more errand to run down here,” Jerry answered. “You saw my fake ID—forget you did, man. That never happened, okay? Anyway, I need to get my real one back.”

  Tim Ishihara looked at him. “You want somebody around?” He didn’t say in case they hit you over the head with a pipe, but getting it didn’t take much reading between the lines, either.

  “Everything oughta be cool.” Jerry didn’t want company. He also didn’t want to drag Tim in any deeper, although with that envelope, his friend was already in too deep.

  “Okay. I sorta have to figure you know what you’re doing. I only wish I had some evidence to go with that.”

  “My ass and your face,” Jerry said sweetly. They both laughed. As long as they were woofing on each other, things couldn’t be too bad. They could pretend things weren’t, anyhow.

  Tim drove off toward the freeway. He’d head back to his place in Lawndale, to his wife, to peace and quiet. Jerry started in the same direction, but he couldn’t go home yet. He just hoped the CIA was still renting that apartment on Ocean. Without documents that proclaimed who you were, how could even you tell?

  He found the white stucco apartment building with the blue roof, and also found a parking space. He walked in through the gateless entrance and went to apartment 127. The door opened almost as soon as he used the coded knock. The tough guy standing there wasn’t somebody Jerry’d seen before. “If you’re selling something, we don’t want any,” the fellow growled.