"Mmm. Good question, Claire. Leave them in an envelope at the mail desk of the Conrad-Palmer Hotel ... under my name."
Hell, I thought. If she's going to betray me, the name won't make any difference. Otherwise, I'll need my own name for identification, in order to pick up the envelope.
They had not gotten around to examining my personal files. The drawers were still locked, and my slim, antique missile-gun was still filed under "W" (for weapon). I slipped it into my pocket and began rifling through my papers. I had never, to be truthful, expected to be in a situation as bad as this. But Top Competitors have to be prepared for some rough tactics.
Under "I" was a set of false identity papers. Under "S" was a sleep bomb—strenuously outlawed in private hands. Under "B" were various blackmail letters, including one I secretly held over Spacker. I looked hopefully under "M" for money, but there my foresight had failed me. It had never occurred to me that a man with a quarter of a million in the bank, and three times as much in securities, would some day need money.
I did find something under "M" that made me pause. Mendelsohn. It was a yellowed old folder, certainly the oldest in the entire file. My thoughts suddenly swirled back to college days. This was a project we had worked up together, when Solly was still hot on soil chemistry, and I hadn't settled on anything definite except somehow making a fortune. This was a technique for creating tillable topsoil out of solid rock in ten short years. About a million times faster than nature could do it, but who wanted to wait ten years?
Not I, at least. And when I, who was to do the selling, cooled off on the idea, Solly lost interest too.
Intriguing, though. Maybe Solly would like it back. Maybe the poor shlub could use it on Primus Gladus. I began stuffing things in my briefcase.
Charlie Spacker returned. I could hear him enter the adjoining office. I gave him time to settle down at his desk, then made my appearance.
"Bart!" He was genuinely startled. Charlie was a heavy-set, muscular man with deep resonant voice, short-cut wiry hair, and ruggedly sculptured Roman features. He was a good bargainer by instinct, a rough competitor within established ground rules, but weak on the frontiers, slow to assimilate new ideas, fearful of decisions.