Cox spread open the gas station map on his desk next to the ordinance maps. With his Bic he circled Houston. "Now if Hikaru's guess was reasonably accurate...."485Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrt0Ke6LjmD
The phone on his desk rang.
Cox kept on studying his maps, and the phone kept right on ringing.
Finally he broke down and answered it. "Cox."
"Step the hell into my office," ordered a raspy voice.
"Now?" asked Cox, eyes still on his jumble of maps.
"No, I mean one hour ago!"
"Okay, okay." He pronged the phone, gave a last glance at the maps, and worked his way across the newsroom to knock on a door marked Assignment Editor.
"Well, what are you waiting for? An invitation?!"
Cox went in to Ace Schweinsteiger's office. "I'm here in answer to your urgent summons, Ace, but I really should...."
"Shut up and let me look at you." Schweinsteiger was a pudgy man in his early fifties. Until recently he'd smoke several cigars a day, and his lips still had a slight quirk at one side. "I'd almost forgotten what you look like, Ronnie."
"Ace, can we spare the ironic asides?" Cox approached the gray metal desk. "Look, I'm into something and...."
"You're ass is going to be into a sling," his boss assured him.
"You're from the movie-nurtured generation, Ace." He slouched down into a chair. "That's why you try to be Pat O'Brien or Spencer Tracy. Tough city editor on a big-city metro sheet."
"Let's change the subject," said Schweinsteiger. "Where the hell have you been?"
Cox held up his hands and spread them wide apart. "Look, let's be calm and mature about this, 'kay? I'd better talk to you, because I think I'm onto something. Really."
"What? Another of your trademark scoops?"
"Something's wrong, Ace, something big," said Cox. "Big enough so they're trying to kill me."
Schweinsteiger blinked. "Who's trying to kill you? Is it some group I can make a contribution to?"
"Ace, I'm not trying to con you, for God's sake. I mean, they are trying to knock me off."
"Who are 'they'?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Try me."
"All right, a friend of mine, a young guy who works for NASA, he gave me a kind of a tip," explained Cox. "Then he disappeared."
"Disappeared? In a puff of smoke?"
"He disappeared, Ace, as though he'd never existed. There's a girl living in his apartment now, the furniture's different, and she says she's been living there for years. She's even got magazines, months old, with her address on them."
"So does my dentist. So?"
"I checked with the building rental office," said Cox. "They've got receipts from this broad for more than a year. Not only that, they say Hikaru Sulu never lived in any of their apartments. Even if I'd made a mistake on the apartment number, which I didn't, they claim they've never heard of him. And on top of that, NASA says my friend never worked for them. They maintain nobody there has ever heard of him. Even the phone company tells me he's never had a phone."
"Aren't you a little old for imaginary friends, Robbie?"
Cox gestured at the boss's desk. "Look him up in the phone book." He leaned back and waited.
Scowling, Schweinsteiger did that. "Here he is, right here. Hikaru Sulu, 2395 Brazoria."
"Sure, because you can whisk Hikaru away, and you can bribe a few people to change their records," said Cox, grinning. "But you can't print a few million fake Houston phone books and have your spies switch them."
Schweinsteiger settled back in his chair. "Who's got him?"
"I don't know. Maybe the same people who're trying to knock me off."
"You're trying to tell me that when you decided to go swimming in your car, that wasn't an accident?"
"Okay, I know the cops said there wasn't anything wrong with the car," said Cox. "But I promise you that the gas pedal and the brakes, and God knows what else, had been monkeyed with."
"Hard to prove at this date."
"And then somebody tried to shoot me."
"When?"
"Yesterday."
"Fortunately, I have an alibi."
"I'm not scamming you, Ace."
"You could be a damn good newsman, Cox," said his boss. "If you weren't so hung up on booze and broads. Even as it is, you're not bad. But most of the time you just don't pay your dues. Quimby and Hertzog, the superstars of our field, they work at it. You goof off as much as you dig. For instance, like the time you told me you know where Jimmy Hoffa was."485Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡASxNyExZHv
"I knew where he'd been, not where he was. If you'd backed me up, Ace, we could have started from there and followed the trail to...."485Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkVzT6PsAaf
"All right, maybe." He drummed his plump fingertips on the desk top. "A short while ago a trainload of propane gas derailed near Galveston. There's a chance the town might blow up. I've been sincerely hoping you'd join the film crew, which is, even as we speak, waiting at the airport for you."485Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡviP1LhGWU8
"Ace, I can't go to Galveston."485Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXAFgAbuNYh
"I knew you were going to say that."485Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQguqmxFQQ0
"When a reporter tells his editor he's working on a big story, the editor's supposed to tell him he's got 48 hours to bring back the yarn, or he's through."485Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE0JGjfv1TQ
Schweinsteiger drummed his fingers a few more times. "Yeah, I saw that movie, too. And what the editor gave him was 24 hours. And that's all I'm gonna give you."485Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKIs9k3AHKg
Cox popped to his feet. "Thanks, boss."485Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ04SwIroPXa
"One more thing," called Schweinsteiger as Cox headed for the door. "I still don't much like you. So if you fuck this up, I will can you."485Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN5sU4a2oSK
"I don't doubt that," answered Cox, and left.485Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4wazZsjkTH
