He picked a folded sheet of paper out of his desk. "Here. Zorchi is still in the hospital; no visitors allowed today. But I want you to take these credentials and go to see him tomorrow. You came to us with a high recommendation from the Home Office, Wills—" That made me look at him sharply, but his expression was innocent "You're supposed to be a man of intelligence and resourcefulness. See if you can come up with some ideas on dealing with that situation. I'd handle it myself, but I've got—" he grimaced—"certain other minor administrative difficulties to deal with. Oh, nothing important, but you might as well know that there appears to be a little, well, popular underground resentment toward the Company around here."
"Incredible!" I said.
He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. "Well," he said, "it's quitting time. See you in the morning."
I had a lonely dinner at the same cheap restaurant where I'd had my lunch. I spent an hour in my room with my Company-issued Adjuster's Handbook, looking for some precedent that had some sort of bearing on the case of a man who could grow new arms and legs. There wasn't anything, of course. I went out for a walk ... and still it wasn't nearly time for me to retire to bed.
So I did what I had been avoiding doing. I looked in the phone book for Rena dell'Angela's number. There was, it developed, a Benedetto dell'Angela at the address she'd given the cab driver; but the phone was disconnected.
So I wandered around some more, and then I went to sleep, dreaming about Benedetto dell'Angela. I saw him as a leather-faced, white-bearded and courtly old gentleman. Rena's father, surely. Possibly even her elder brother. Certainly not her husband.
It was a dull finish to the first full day of my rich, exciting new life....
The "minor administrative difficulties" got major. So I didn't get to see Zorchi the next day, after all.
A Junior Adjuster named Hammond—he was easily sixty, but the slow-moving, unenterprising type that would stay junior till the day he died—came white-faced into the office a few minutes after opening and huddled with Gogarty for a quarter of an hour.