TINKER'S
DAM
By JOSEPH TINKER
There is something very fundamental indeed about the ancient showman's trick—divert their attention from the thing you're really doing ...
Illustrated by Schoenherr
he call on the TV-phone came right in the middle of my shaving. They have orders not to call me before breakfast for anything less than a national calamity. I pressed "Accept," too startled to take the lather from my face.
"Hi, Gyp," George Kelly said to me from the screen. "Hurry it up, boy." He made no reference to my appearance on his screen. "Quit draggin' your feet!"
This I take from George Kelly. First of all, he's Director of the F.B.I. Even more important, he's my boss. "Hey, George," I protested, knowing he would not have called on a routine matter. "I got up before breakfast as it is. What's up?" I hardly needed to ask. When they call me, it's always the same sickening kind of trouble.
"Fred Plaice and his gang got their hands on a telepath in the District last night," George told me. "It's been on the newscast already. There'll be a damned ugly mob at the office—a lynch mob. Listen, Gyp, I want you to go through the main entrance this morning."
I nodded my willingness to fight my way through the crowd that would be gathering at the office. Usually I have my taxi drop me on the roof of the building. Call it a petty vanity if you want. It's one of the perquisites of being Washington brass.