"Where to?"
Good question. "Fly me over the islands. I have to kill some time."
We ascended. I could just about read the cabbie's mind. "These damn Competitors! So busy and so loaded they have to spend money to kill time." We wafted towards the lakefront. My own thoughts were swirling chaotically. I felt as though someone had turned off the degravity device just as I was stepping into the elevator shaft. The rug—no, the entire floor itself—had been yanked out from under me. I knew now that I was being pursued systematically. It was not yet noon, not yet two hours since the event. Already the subtle, confident, overpowering resources of the state had been brought to bear, narrowing the avenues of escape, cutting off the criminal's life-line. Yet what had made me an outlaw? Love of offspring?
"Do you want me to just keep circling?" said the cabbie.
I made a quick decision. "Board of Trade Building. I'll show you which entrance when we get there."
My office was located there. Undoubtedly it would be under close watch. Probably Charlie Spacker's was also. But I had to communicate with Charlie. Had to get some money. Had to arrange to get out of the country.
In my mind's eye I could visualize two plainclothesmen seated in the anteroom of the firm of Sponsor & Spacker, trying to appear like clients. I could see another detective or two, armed with photograph and paralyzer, keeping vigilance on the roof landing. A few more watching the ground level entrance.
It was hard for me to believe I was that important to the state, worth a platoon of human blood-hounds. And yet, if the state was doing a thorough job at all, one had to assume they were there, and at our home in Mason City, Iowa, and at my club, and at all the space and air terminals as well. But it did not seem likely to me that a detective would actually be sitting in my private office, at my desk, waiting for me to come in through the window. That was the chance I'd have to take.
We approached the massive Board of Trade Building, which resembled the glued-together pipes of an antique pipe-organ, and I pointed and said to the cabbie,