"Fine," Burris said, and hesitated. Then he added: "Malone, do you wear the tops or the bottoms?"
"The what?"
"Of your pyjamas," Burris explained hurriedly. "The top part or the bottom part?"
"Oh," Malone said. "As a matter of fact, I wear both."
"Good," Burris said with satisfaction. "I wouldn't want an agent of mine arrested for indecent exposure." He rang off.
Malone blinked at the intercom for a minute, shut it off and then, ignoring the trip-hammers in his skull and the Eagle Scouts on his nerves, began to get dressed. Somehow, in spite of Burris' feelings of crisis, he couldn't see himself trying to flag a taxi on the streets of Washington in his pyjamas. Anyhow, not while he was awake. I dreamed I was an FBI agent, he thought sadly, in my drafty BVDs.
Besides, it was probably nothing important. These things, he told himself severely, have a way of evaporating as soon as a clear, cold intelligence got hold of them.
Then he began wondering where in hell he was going to find a clear, cold intelligence. Or even, for that matter, what one was.
1
"They could be anywhere," Burris said, with an expression which bordered on exasperated horror. "They could be all around us. Heaven only knows."