The Telenizer Part 4

He looked at me.

"Do you still blame me for what happened in Memphis?" I asked.

Grogan s.h.i.+fted his position and gave a sort of half-laugh. "Langston, I've never liked you, and I don't now. But I can't say that I blame you for the Memphis mess--if I ever did. Now, what's your other question?"

"Telenosis," I said.

He waited, looking straight at me. "Well? What about it?"

"According to your C.I. record," I said, "you had three months of intermittent telenosis therapy."

He shrugged. "That's right. Lots of people do. You still haven't asked your question."

"Yes, I have," I replied. "I'll leave now. Thanks for your time."

The gorilla-secretary was opening the front door for me, when Grogan spoke again. "Langston."

I turned around.

Grogan was standing in the door of the library.

"Langston," he repeated. "I don't know what your angle is. I don't know why you came here, or whether you got what you wanted. Furthermore, I don't care much. Five years ago is not today, Langston. I've changed.

Just the same, I don't believe I want to see you again. I don't like you. Okay?"

I said, "Okay," and left.

Back in my hotel room, I first turned down the volume of the defense mech, then sat down at the visiphone and put in a call to New York. The pudgy image of Carson Newell appeared.

"I'm stumped," I told him.

"What's the matter? Did you see Grogan?"

"Yeah. Just now."

"Well?"

"Nothing. I'm stumped. He's completely changed. If there was ever a case of full and complete correction, I'd say Grogan is it."

Newell tapped his fingertips together, then shrugged impatiently. "Well, h.e.l.l, I don't think we're getting anywhere on this. I'll turn it over to the C.I.D. and let them worry about it."

"So what happens now?" I asked. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Take a vacation. But hang on to that defense mech. Stay in Palm Beach and contact me p.r.o.nto if anything happens. Buzz me at least once a day, even if anything doesn't happen."

He started to put down the mike, then lifted it again. "How's the SRI?"

"Oh, that. I'll whip out a story on it in a couple of days."

"No hurry. Find out all you can about it. Give you something to do while you're waiting around."

He put down the mike and faded from the screen.

So I promptly did my d.a.m.nedest to forget all about Isaac Grogan and telenosis. I spent the rest of the day at the beach, sprawled out on the hot sand with the defense mech beside me and an army of people--humans and aliens--surrounding me. Only once, at about four o'clock, did the defense mech start going _click-click-click_. I timed it. It lasted three minutes and then quit.

When I got back to the hotel, at about five, a man fell into step with me as soon as I entered the lobby.

"Name's Maxwell," he told me. "C.I.D. I'm one of your bodyguards for a while."

"How many others do I rate?" I asked.

He was a tall, heavily built young man in his middle twenties. He carried a briefcase. We headed for the elevator.

"Only one," he replied, "but he'll stay pretty much out of sight. He'll join us in your room after a while. We have to ask you a lot of questions."

The other bodyguard, who slipped into my room without knocking twenty minutes later, was shorter, thinner and older. He was bald except for a gray fringe, and his name was Johnson.

The C.I.D. men spent a half-hour checking for hidden mikes and cameras before they said much of anything. Then they plopped down on the edge of the bed, and the young man opened his briefcase.

The older one said, "Have your dinner sent up here. We'll get started on some of these questions right away."

The questions were both exhaustive and exhausting. The older man, Johnson, fired the questions, and Maxwell wrote down the answers, occasionally inserting an inquiry of his own. They wanted to know everything--not only about my telenosis experiences and my knowledge of and contacts with Isaac Grogan, but everything I had done, said or thought during the past two weeks, everyone I had met and talked to, and everything we had talked about.

At the end of three and a half hours, I felt completely pumped out, and Maxwell had a sheaf of notes the size of a best-seller.

Johnson said, "Well, I guess that'll do for a starter. We'll have another session tomorrow."

He took the notes from Maxwell and put them in Maxwell's briefcase. He stood up. "I'll have these transcribed and maybe check around a little.

I'll meet you here at six-thirty tomorrow night."

"What about--" I started. He cut me off: "Maxwell will stay with you.

He's not to let you out of his sight. In case anyone asks, he's your brother-in-law from Sacramento."

I couldn't help laughing--but it was an admiring laugh. "You fellows are nothing if not thorough. Does my real brother-in-law, John Maxwell of Sacramento, know about this?" I was curious.

It was Maxwell who answered. "Your brother-in-law received a long-distance emergency call from you at noon today, telling him to join you immediately. Vision-reception was fuzzy, but he recognized your voice and took the first strato. I changed places with him in Denver, where I happened to be stationed, and he was smuggled back home. He's with his family, but he'll have to stay in for a few days."

I shook my head. "It's marvelous. Thoroughness personified. Say, I'll bet you fellows even thought of getting defense mechanisms ... but where are they?"

Johnson and Maxwell looked at each other, jaws hanging.

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned!" Johnson said bitterly. "Thoroughness personified! Son of a...." He slapped his hat on his bald head and dashed out the door without looking back.