Patty had a new expression on her face. Hurt look. "At least give me some idea," she pleaded.
Heck stared at her blankly. There was nothing he could say. She would never believe his story about Mr. Baldid. Who in his right mind would? "I—I saved up!" he said, blurting the words.
"Saved up? If you'd been saving half your paycheck since I met you you couldn't have put a down payment on just the furniture in this one room. Heck! Heck, you're lying to me!"
He didn't deny it. He stared at Patty and shrugged his shoulders and adjusted his tie and teleported. The last thing he saw was Patty's very angry face....
Heck re-materialized in the Procurement Office, or rather in the waiting room of the procurement office. He looked around. He shuddered. He wanted to run.
The faces. You didn't have to study the WANTED posters in the post offices to recognize them. They were all of a type—and the type belonged on wanted posters. They were hard faces, brutal faces, cynical faces. They went with big, powerful bodies and heavily-padded, loud-styled clothing. They went with suspicious jacket-bulges and unreadable expressions. They went with organized crime.
The secretary, a very small brunette in a low-cut dress, did not seem to mind. In fact, she seemed a shade disappointed when Heck's comparatively small form pushed its way through to her desk. "There's something?" she said, then gave Heck a closer scrutiny. "Mr. Finch! I'm sorry, sir. I didn't recognize you."
"Is Miss Laara in?"
"Yes, sir. Of course. Interviewing, sir."