"Oh," Burris said. "Oh, my."
"Sorry," Malone muttered. He took a breath and waited. A second passed.
"Well, Kenneth," Burris said at last, with an attempt at heartiness, "you can do anything you like. The mountains. The seashore. Hawaii. The Riviera. Just go and forget all about gangsters, spies, counter-espionage, kidnapings, mad telepaths, juvenile teleports and anything else like that."
"You forgot water coolers," Malone said.
Burris nodded. "And water coolers," he said, "by all means. Forget about FBI business. Forget about me. Just relax."
It did sound appealing, Malone told himself. But there was a case to finish, and he was sure Burris was finishing it wrong. He wanted to argue about it some more, but he was fresh out of arguments.
And besides, the idea of being able to forget all about Andrew J. Burris for a little while was almost insidious. Malone liked it more the more he thought about it. Burris went on naming vacation spots and drawing magnificent travel-agency pictures of how wonderful life could be, and after a while Malone left. There just wasn't anything else to say. Burris had given him an order for his vacation pay and another guaranteeing travel expenses. Not, he thought glumly, that he would be expected to buy return tickets. Oh, no. Once he'd been to a place he could teleport back, so there would be no point in taking a plane or a train back from wherever he went.
"And suppose I like planes and trains?" he muttered, going on down the hall. But there was nothing he could do about it. He did think of looking for some sympathy, at least, but he couldn't even get much of that. Tom Boyd had apparently already talked to Burris, and was in full agreement with him.
"After all," Boyd said, "there's the drug in the water—and it looks like pretty solid proof to me, Ken."
"It's not proof of anything," Malone said sourly.