Malone punched the redcap's buttons again, and he and Boyd followed it through the crowded station to the taxi stand. The robot piled the suitcases into the cab, and somehow Malone and Boyd found room for themselves.
"Statler-Hilton Hotel," Boyd said grandly.
The driver swung around to stare at them, blinked, and finally said: "O.K., Mac. You said it." He started with a terrific grinding of gears, drove out of the Penn Station arch and went two blocks.
"Here you are, Mac," he said, stopping the cab.
Malone stared at Boyd with a reproachful expression.
"So how was I to know?" Boyd said. "I didn't know. If I'd known it was so close, we could've walked."
"And saved half a buck," Malone said. "But don't let it bother you—this is expense account money."
"That's right," Boyd said. He beamed and tipped the driver heavily. The cab drove off and Malone hailed the doorman, who equipped them with a robot bellhop and sent them upstairs to their rooms.
Three-quarters of an hour later, Boyd and Malone were in the offices
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on East Sixty-ninth Street. There, they picked up a lot of nice, new, shiny facts. It was unfortunate, if not particularly surprising, that the facts did not seem to make any sense.