"Hello, Prof!"
"Phil! Phil, listen, what in the name of God goes on here? I'm locked in! You said you reserved a suite for me, and this room—"
"We aren't going to worry," Phil said. Kane heard laughter in the background and the high-pitched choral voices from the jukebox. "We'll be all right. We figured there would be a little trouble here and there, at first."
"I don't give a damn about a little trouble there! Phil, I'm talking about me, here! I'm locked in. And my luggage. Where is it? And—"
Kane's stomach jumped. A kind of terror hit him like a cold breath. "Phil! My briefcase. Where's my briefcase?"
"We have it somewhere—" Phil was saying. "Just don't let us worry."
Kane heard a clicking sound somewhere and he yelled into the phone but nothing came back. He released the phone and it was sucked back into the wall.
He sank down on the bed and fumbled absently at his coat and then at his necktie. The walls had a blurred quality and he felt on the edge of passing out. He kept thinking of the briefcase, with years of work in it, the equations, more than could be preserved entirely in a man's head.
It was too sickening to think about, the possibility of them losing his briefcase. Phil didn't seem concerned. No one was concerned with his briefcase, that was obvious. The only thing they were concerned about was that he didn't get along with the Gang.
The hell with the Gang, every last one of the Gang. If he never heard of the Gang or saw the Gang again, he would consider himself extremely fortunate.