Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

satisfaction of extending favours to friends,« he said.
    »Which friends?« I asked. »I call. Show your hand.«
    Frye extracted a folder from his leather lunchbox. With pudgy digits he worked a few black and white glossies loose and flipped them my way. Giving them the eye, I saw myself; also saw Chlojo dragging me down the street, Eulie taking the lead. Didn’t please me to know I was being followed but I can’t say I was surprised.
    »I sized you up as quite the Lothario, Walter,« Hamilton said, putting through a lecher to lecher call. »Very striking, these women.«
    »Picked ’em up at Max’s,« I said, thinking it best to be as nonchalant as possible. »Jersey girls come into town to see the big city. Didn’t get to first base, though. Pity.«
    »Modern woman,« Hammy sighed. »Even flappers never wore such dresses.« He studied the glossies as if reading the bill. »The big one is female? Our observer wasn’t absolutely sure.«
    »I have a question, however,« Sartorius said, pushing one of the photos in front of me and stabbing at the girls’ heads with his finger. »Shape of the skulls, you see. And earlobes. Possible mongrelization, it seems to me. What was specified on their identifications?«
    »Sorry, but I don’t check teeth.«
    He blinked a bit faster than was necessary, but otherwise didn’t give the game away. »This was of no concern to you?«
    »Frankly, mein bruder, this isn’t DC. When it comes to wretched refuse we wrote the book here in New York. Everybody you didn’t catch before they got out of Europe. Shame all of you had to wind up here.« I fixed him in my sights; no way, no reason I should put up with Nazis. They were bad as Georgians. »We even let Jews in.«
    »These women appear to be more negroid than Jewish,« he said. »Did you ask about their parents?«
    »What do you do on a date, Herr Jones? Take blood tests?« No reaction: the Big Nazi Book of Laughs was a slim volume with wide margins. »Strikes me I haven’t seen your identification.«
    Martin’s eyes widened and I felt his shoe kicking mine, under the table. Hamilton’s smile curled into more of a leer, as if he was really enjoying the way I didn’t make friends.
    Sartorius took out his wallet, flipping it open so I could see his driver’s licence and be impressed by his American Express card. Then he put it away, and returned his attentions to the photos of me and my visitors.
    »These women were strangers to you?«
    »Pickups, like I said.«
    »Even so, according to your Justice Department’s edicts, those of questionable background are to be at least investigated –«
    »Take Walter’s word for it,« Martin said, interrupting at a timely moment. Hamilton shot my man a glare that could set fires. Frye slid the glossies back into his folder. I imagined they’d go back into the big drawer with the other pieces of string.
    »Yes, Hermann, rest assured. We know everything about Walter that we need to know.«
    The look the old codger gave me wasn’t a pleasant one, no matter how big the grin underneath. There was no way they’d have anything on me; Dad wasn’t even one thirty-second, and he’d burned the family records before he set foot in Washington state. As far as the official world could find out I was Caucasian, that is to say the official world outside of Martin; he knew about me only because I knew about him. Even so, my nerves were starting to feel more than a little on the supercharged side.
    »Better get to it,« I said, standing. »Could use some subway fare, I think.«
    Martin passed me two Jacksons and a sawbuck. I added them to the single in my wallet.
    »Subway fare is twenty-five cents,« Sartorius pointed out.
    »True,« I said. »Better give me one more for the road.« Martin handed over a fifty.
    »The coin in the coffer rings,« Frye said, wiping the corners of his mouth as if he’d just finished running his choppers over an ear of corn, or his wife’s honeybin – the last seemed awfully unlikely. »The soul into purgatory springs.« Hmmf hmmf.
    Coasting away slow I eased past the sots lined up along the bar, deciding not to check my hair in the mirror. Bad, bad, bad; the Boche might make themselves useful at NASA or in the Agriculture Department, but let them stick a monocle in anywhere else and the next thing you knew they were using their break time to draw up furnace blueprints, just in case a less lax administration gets into office. Last thing I needed was some blonde beast