The Golden Globe

"I have no doubt I could write a best-seller. Rueful shrug. But to write about them I would have to violate the privacy of the people whose lives I observe."

"Why couldn't you just change the names, and... okay. Wait a minute. We can talk all this over later, if we have time. Believe me, I want to get out of here as badly as you want me to leave. What's this about my old buddy Izzy Comfort?"

"Yes. That might be rather urgent. He's been asking around about you. I'm afraid he may be up to no good. Is it true, as I suspect, that he is a member of the Charonese Mafia?"

"He never actually showed me a membership card. But I thought it was a safe assumption." I was up, had my suitcase out, and was tossing items into it as fast as I could. I had used reasonable caution when I came to the Othello and rented this suite, and reasonable caution for me was measures that would look slightly paranoid to a normal person, a person who had not been on the run for most of his life. But reasonable caution was not good enough for our boy Izzy. Not nearly good enough. He would find this room; the only question was when. And the answer to that had to be, anytime after I've checked out.

Nothing I needed in the bathroom. Nothing in the closet. Nothing I could see out here.

"To what do I owe this kindness?" I asked, headed for the bedroom.

"A small loophole in the privacy laws. When I see a situation developing that I feel probably will lead to murder, I can take certain small, very restricted steps to prevent it."

"How close is he, do you know?"

"That's one of the restrictions. I can't tell you where he is, other than that he is on the wheel."

"Is he alone? Is he armed?"

"That's another, and another."

I've learned not to spend time crying about the things you can't have. If he couldn't tell me, he couldn't tell me. I was grateful for the information he'd given me, though I wasn't about to tell him that.

Sitting on a low table in the living room was an inflatable B.J. the Snark, winking his red laser eye at me. I decided to leave it for Poly. Something to remember me by. I glanced into the bedroom. She was still sleeping soundly. I saw no need to wake her.

"Well..." I wondered what to say to the OPC. Nothing he had said or done was really personal. He would have done it for anyone, or to anyone, in my position. But he had said he liked my work, which always gives me at least a small warm feeling.

"Don't let the door hit you in the butt on your way out," the OPC said.

"Yeah. Thanks."

I entered the hall cautiously; it was empty. Waiting for the elevator to arrive was a very bad time. I had visions of the door popping open and being face-to-face with the little redheaded son of a bitch. But the car was empty. The Othello is shaped like a palm tree when seen from the side. That is, each story is set slaunchwise on the one below until about the fifteenth, then they start leaning back in the other direction. It produces that lovely curve some palm trees have, in pictures from Polynesia. Big green flags at the top look like leaves, and round, brown elevator cars move up and down the trunk like coconuts. Seen from the front, it looks like an incredible breaking wave of glass and metal. Go out the front door, look up, and you'll see floors thirty-five through forty-five hanging over you, way way up there.

The building was currently headed forward, in no great hurry, so I did the same, looking out for anyone who might be tailing me. You tell directions in Oberon from a baseline that will run all around the circle when it's done, midway from each edge. It's called Main Street, logically enough, though it's not really a street, it's more of an architectural promenade, an endless procession of behemoth nightmares. Facing with the spin, forward is in front of you, backward is behind you. Distances are measured in hours, minutes, and seconds, based on a twelve-hour clock. One hour was 261 miles long. That makes one second equal to 383 feet, or 117 meters, what they called the Oberon City Block.

I had walked about ten of these OCBs when I gradually slowed, slowed still further, and came to a halt. Something was wrong with this picture. What was it?

There was a small park to my left. I found a bench and sat on it, and watched the Othello Hotel gradually catching up with me.

Had I left anything? I patted my pockets, found everything I ought to have found. I looked at my suitcase. Two segments of the Pantechnicon are detachable, and look like regular suitcases. This small one, not much more than a change of clothes and clean underwear; the overnighter. The other was more suitable for stays of up to a week. Wonderful and handy as my super-trunk is, it is unwieldy to keep it always at your side. I had left it safe at the freight office at the Noon Elevator Up Terminal, the one down here on the rim. I could put my hand on it in ten minutes, if the need arose.

So it had to be Poly. God damn it! It would have been so simple just to wake her up, hustle her into her clothes, and get her out of there. Why hadn't I done it?

The only possible answer to that was that I really and truly had not thought she was in any danger. Why? Because it would have been so easy to get her out of there. I'd have done it. Now I was faced with something I most sincerely did not want to do, which was go back to the room and get her out.

Now wait, let's not be hasty. Let's examine that decision, shall we? Fifteen minutes ago it didn't occur to you to get her out. What's so damn urgent all of a sudden? What's different now?

What's different is my mind has had fifteen more minutes to think it through. I was hurried back in the room. I was thinking mostly of myself. Who wouldn't? Poly didn't figure in the Izzy and Sparky story; she was a civilian, a spear carrier. Why would Comfort hurt her?

But you know what happens to spear carriers in violent melodrama. Each week you got four people: the Hero, the Second Lead, the Girl, and Number Four, Mr. Dead Meat, the one with the black cloud over his head.

That alone wouldn't have brought me back to the hotel. But what if Izzy didn't know Poly was a spear carrier? What if he thought she was a compatriot, an ally, a member of that vast conspiracy of actors and actresses whose mission in life was to purloin valuable netsuke from families under the awful aegis of La Mafia Charonese?

That didn't bear thinking about. So I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin manfully, and marched back into the lobby of the Othello.

The elevator deposited me without incident on the right floor. I walked out slowly, pretending preoccupation as every sense reached out for the smell of danger.

It looked all right so far. There was a woman walking in my direction, tugging a wheeled suitcase on a strap. She smiled at me as we passed. Her hair was red. Actually, more of a reddish brown. Get a grip on yourself, Sparky! Three or four percent of the population is redheaded. Maybe five. Reddish hair doesn't make her Comfort's henchwoman.

But I continued on past my door. This was in the category of "normal" precaution. It was good policy never to let anyone see what room you're in; it's one of those habits that is a waste of time for a thousand times, and then saves your life on the thousand-and-first. I stopped, frowning down at the room card as if it were written in Sanskrit. I scratched my head, and glanced at the woman out of the corner of my eye. She was just going out of sight around a corner.

Suddenly the numbers made sense. I smiled, shook my head ruefully at my own stupidity, and stuck the card into the slot on the door. It opened, and I eased in. Shut it behind me. Set my suitcase beside the door for a quick getaway. Hurried to the bedroom. Reached down to shake her shoulder.

Check that last. Sometimes I get so into the scenarios I write for myself I almost believe I've done them. But two steps into the bedroom I registered several things at once, in no particular order. Someone was in the bathroom ru