"No use crying over spilt milk," I said.

"True," Maury murmured, chewing his lip. "And it's got a battery good for six months! We may not see it until next year. My god, we've got thousands of dollars tied up in it-- and what if Barrows is stringing us? Maybe he's got the thing locked up in a vault somewhere."

"If he had," Pris said, "he wouldn't be coming here. In fact, maybe this is all for the good; maybe Barrows wouldn't be coming here except for the Stanton, what it said and did-- he got to see it and maybe the wire wouldn't have brought him. And if it hadn't run off and ditched him maybe he would have snared it and we'd be out in the cold; right?"

"Yeah," Maury agreed morosely.

My dad said, "Mr. Barrows is reputable, isn't he? A man with so much social concern as he expresses, this letter my son showed me about that housing unit with those poor people he's protecting."

Maury nodded again, still morosely.

Patting my dad on the arm Pris said, "Yes, Jerome; he's a civic-minded fellow. You'll like him."

My dad beamed at Pris and then at me. "It looks as if everything is turning out good, _nicht wahr?_"

We all nodded, with a mixture of gloom and fear.

The door opened and Bob Bundy appeared, holding a folded piece of paper. Coming up to me he said, "Here's a note from Lincoln."

I unfolded it. It was a short note of sympathy:

Mr. Louis Rosen.

My Dear Sir:

I wish to enquire of your condition, with hope that you have

improved somewhat.

Yours Truly,

A. Lincoln

"I'll go out and thank him," I said to Maury.

"Do that," Maury said.

9

As we waited in the cold wind at the concourse entrance for the flight from Seattle to land I said to myself, How'll he differ from the other people?

The Boeing 900 landed; it taxied along the runway. The ramps were run out, the doors opened, stewardesses helped people out, and at the bottom of each ramp airline employees made sure the passengers did not take pratfalls onto the asphalt ground. Meanwhile, luggage-carrying vehicles raced around like large bugs, and off to one side a Standard Stations truck had parked with its red lights on.

Every sort of passenger started appearing, issuing forth from the plane at both doors and swarming rapidly down the ramps. Around us friends and relatives pushed forward and out as far onto the field as was allowed. Beside me Maury stirred restlessly.

"Let's get out there and greet him."

Both he and Pris started going, so I went along with them. We were halted by an airline official in a blue uniform who waved us back. However Maury and Pris ignored him; I did so, too, and we reached the bottom of the first class ramp. There we halted. The passengers, one by one, descended, some of them smiling, the businessmen with no expression on their faces. Some of them looked tired.

"There he is," Maury said.

Down the first class ramp came a slender man in a gray suit, smiling slightly, his topcoat over his arm. As he got nearer to us it seemed to me that his suit fitted more naturally than the other men's. No doubt custom-tailored, probably in England or Hong Kong. And he looked more relaxed. He wore greenish dark glasses, rimless; his hair, as in the photos, was cut extra short, almost a GI sort of crewcut. Behind him came a jolly-looking woman I knew: Colleen Nild, with a clipboard and papers under her arm.

"Three in the party," Pris observed. There was another man, very short, portly, in an ill-fitting brown suit with sleeves and trousers too long, a reddish-faced man with a Doctor Doolittle nose and long thinning lank black hair combed across his domed skull. He wore a stickpin in his tie, and the way he strode after Barrows with his short legs convinced me that here was an attorney; this was the way trial lawyers take off from their seat in court, like the manager of a baseball club striding out onto the field to protest a decision. The gesture of protest, I decided as I watched him, is the same in all professions; you get right out there, talking and waving your arms as you come.

The lawyer was beaming in an alert, active fashion, talking away at a great rate to Colleen Nild; he looked to me to be a likable sort of guy, someone with enormous bouncy energy, just the sort of attorney I would have expected Barrows to have on retainer. Colleen, as before, wore a heavy blue-black quilted cloth coat that hung like lead. This time she was dressed up: she had on gloves, a hat, new leather mailpouch type purse. She was listening to the attorney; as he talked away he gestured in all directions, like an interior decorator or the foreman of a construction crew. Something about him gave me a friendly warm feeling and I felt less tense, now. The lawyer looked, I decided, like a great kidder. I felt I understood him.

Now here came Barrows to the bottom of the ramp, his eyes invisible behind his dark glasses, his head down slightly so as to keep an eye on what his feet were doing. He was listening to the attorney. As he started out onto the field Maury stepped forward.

"Mr. Barrows!"

Turning and halting, moving out of the way so those behind him could step from the ramp, Barrows in one movement of his body lithely swiveled and held out his hand. "Mr. Rock?"

"Yes sir," Maury said, shaking hands. Colleen Nild and the attorney clustered around; so did I and Pris. "This is Pris Frauenzimmer. And this is my partner, Louis Rosen."

"Happy, Mr. Rosen," Barrows shook hands with me. "This is Mrs. Nild, my secretary. This gentleman is Mr. Blunk, my counsel." We all shook hands around. "Cold out here on the field, isn't it?" Barrows started for the entrance of the building. He moved so swiftly that we all had to gallop after him like a flock of big awkward animals. Mr. Blunk's short legs pumped away as in a speeded-up old movie; he did not seem to mind, however; he continued to radiate cheerfulness.

"Boise," he declared, gazing around him. "Boise, Idaho. What will they think of next?"

Colleen Nild, falling in beside me, greeted me. "Nice to see you again, Mr. Rosen. We found the Stanton creature quite delightful."

"A fabulous construct," Blunk boomed back at us; we were lagging behind. "We thought it was from the Bureau of Internal Revenue." He gave me a hearty personal smile.

Up front walked Barrows and Maury; Pris had dropped back because the concourse door was so narrow. Barrows and Maury passed on inside and Pris followed next, then Mr. Blunk, then Colleen Nild and I taking up the rear. By the time we had passed through the building and outside again onto the street entrance where the taxis waited, Barrows and Maury had already located the limousine; the uniformed driver was holding one of the rear doors open and Barrows and Maury were crawling inside.

"Luggage?" I said to Mrs. Nild.

"No luggage. Too time-consuming to wait for it. We're only going to be here a few hours and then we're flying back. Probably late tonight. If we should stay over we'll buy what we need."

"Um," I said, impressed.

The rest of us also crawled into the limousine; the driver hopped around, and soon we were out in traffic, on our way into Boise proper.

"I don't see how the Stanton can set up a law office in Seattle," Maury was saying to Barrows. "It's not licensed to practice law in the State of Washington."

"Yes, I think you'll be seeing it again one of these days." Barrows offered Maury, then me, a cigarette from his case.

Summing it up I decided that Barrows differed from the rest of us in that he looked as if he had grown his gray English wool suit the way an animal grows its fur; it was simply part of him, like his nails and his teeth. He was utterly unconscious of it, as well as of his tie, his shoes, his cigarette case--he was unconscious of everything about his appearance.