He lifted Hundeshausen a few inches off the floor and then let him slip, apparently accidentally.
The results were gratifying. Hundeshausen wailed like a perishing Siegfried and then, with a drunk's sudden change of tune, screwed up his eyes and bawled like a baby. A great roar of laughter, amplified by the tiles of floor and walls and ceiling, drowned out the weeping. Everyone was looking at Dugan and Hundeshausen, but Dugan was pleasantly hopeful that nobody saw Dugan; he'd have been spotted already if this dormitory were the habitat of long-time intimates. There must be room for strangers, he thought.
With the whole room watching and laughing, Dugan led Hundeshausen across the floor. Hundeshausen waved at the shower stalls and yelled:
"Bye-bye, big belly, bye-bye, big belly—"
It wasn't very funny. But the atmosphere of the whole place was such that the men found it hilarious. One or two of them bent over in a wild parody of mirth. The others stood around like a capricious Grecian frieze — half-shaved, half-washed, half-naked, and laughing. Dugan felt sorry for them all.
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the big Cossack. The tall man was still watching the two of them with tranquil and deadly speculation, as though he knew who Dugan was but did not care to expose him just then.
Dugan did not like that look.
Here was no posturing "Captain Stearns" advertising his secrecy to the world; here was no counterintelligence officer all puffed up with his own power: this was the real stuff. Dugan had the exceedingly uncomfortable feeling that the tall man knew things were wrong but preferred to see what Dugan was up to, before striking. He hoped that the tall man would have enough self-confidence to leave telephones alone. If they came in force — well, he did not even have the cyanide. He wondered if he could perform the old Chinese trick of strangling himself by swallowing his own tongue. He had had the thing explained to him, but it was not quite the kind of parlor trick which you could practice up on.
As he guided Hundeshausen through the door somebody yelled, "Ai, comrade, that's my towel you're running off with!"
The world teetered for Dugan as he expected several of them to wonder who he was. But before the challenger could start thinking around for a name, Dugan quipped back: