Blake Corbish, who that morning had considered the power he wielded through CURE, had already decided that he would indeed be president, but not just of IDC. He chose his words carefully and paused before speaking.
"More than anything else I can imagine," he lied.
"You know, as my father's heir, I'm the largest single stockholder."
"Yes, Miss Broon."
"I can't guarantee you anything," she said, "but between my stock holdings and my influence with the board, I think I could pick Mickey Mouse if I wanted."
Corbish nodded. No comment seemed necessary.
"I just wanted to be sure you aren't really Mickey Mouse," she said. "I don't know yet whether you are or whether you just think I am, with that ridiculous story you've been giving me about your work here."
She sipped at her vodka, waiting for a comment. The silence hung in the room for a moment as each cooly took the other's measure. Finally, Corbish said, "You must understand, Miss Broon, that I've been here less than ten days. It would really take more time than that to figure everything out and to draw the kind of conclusions T. L. must have been looking for."
They stared at each other a moment longer, neither satisfied with Blake's no-information answer, and then the telephone rang on Corbish's desk. Without taking his eyes off Holly Broon, he slowly snaked his hand toward it.
In Cleveland, Dr. Harold Smith walked into a telephone booth on a street corner, looked carefully at his newly purchased wristwatch, then dialed the operator.
He fished a stopwatch from his jacket pocket as he said, "I'd like to make a long distance call to Rye, New York." He gave the operator the area code and number.
"That will be three dollars and twenty cents," the operator said.
"I'm going to talk for three and a half minutes," Smith said. "How much will the extra minute be?"
"That will be, let's see, seventy cents extra."
"All right, operator. I'll pay for it now. Just a moment please." Smith hooked the receiver on the small shelf under the phone and began to click quarters out of the bus driver's changer he wore on his side under his jacket. He clicked out four, deposited them, did that twice more, then clicked out three more quarters, a dime and a nickel, and put them into the phone.
"Thank you," the operator said, "I'll put the call through now."
Smith heard the beeps on the line as the line transfers were made. He hoped that no one had changed the private line on his desk, which he had used only for outgoing personal calls. Then Smith heard the phone ring. Quickly, he depressed the pushbutton on the stopwatch and looked down at it. The phone was picked up on the first ring.
"Hello," came the voice, sharp, crisply efficient as Smith had remembered it, with little accent and no trace of regionalism.
Smith waited a few seconds until the voice said "hello" again.
"Corbish," Smith asked.
"Yes."
"This is Smith." Smith glanced at his watch. Twenty seconds had gone by. He heard a sudden sip of air at the other end of the phone and then a quick recovery.
"Well, hello, doctor, where are you?"
"That's really rather immaterial," said Smith drily. "You've installed yourself at Folcroft, I take it?"
"Why not? Someone has to keep things running."
"I've called, Corbish, to appeal to you." By now, Smith figured, Corbish should have recovered from the shock of Smith's voice and should be reaching for the switch that would activate CURE's elaborate phone-tracing system.
"What kind of appeal?" came Corbish's voice. Right, Smith thought. Ask questions. Keep the old fool talking.
"I wanted to appeal to you to give up this mad enterprise you're conducting."
"I don't know why you should consider it mad, doctor. It's very sensible, that is, from a corporate point of view. Don't you agree."
"No, I don't agree," Smith said. "But if I can't talk to you from that standpoint, perhaps as an American. Can't you see you're tampering with the very structure of our society? That there could be dangerous ramifications of what you are doing?"
"There is no gain without pain," Corbish said. "Personally, I think the gain will be worth the effort. Can you imagine the power I will have?"
They talked on. Smith asked questions, Corbish countered and asked his own questions.
When his stopwatch hit the three-minute mark, Smith said, "Never mind then, Corbish. I just wanted to warn you of something."
"Oh. What's that?"
"I'm going to kill you."
Corbish laughed. "I'm afraid you've got it wrong, Doctor Smith. You're not going to kill me."
The stopwatch's second hand passed twenty.
"Well, we'll just have to see about that," Smith said. "By the way, have you met Remo?"
"Yes."
"Don't think he'll do a job on me for you," Smith said. "He's too loyal to me for that."
Corbish laughed again. "Loyal?" he said. "He doesn't even remember your name."
He started to say more but was unable to. The sweep secondhand of the stopwatch was nearing the minute and Smith hung up the telephone.
He stepped out of the telephone booth and looked around. His face caught the eyes of an old man inside a tailor shop on the street next to the booth. Smith locked eyes with the man a moment, then stepped down the stairway leading to the city's subway system. He stopped at the change booth and bought one token, careful to pay with loose coins from his outside jacket pocket
"When is the next train uptown?" he asked.
The bored token seller said, "Every five minutes, Mister."
"What track?" Smith said.
"Over there," said the token seller, looking up in annoyance, which was what Smith wanted him to do.
"Thank you," Smith said.
He took the token and used it to get through the turnstile leading to the uptown train platform. He walked casually along the platform, trying not to draw attention to himself. At the far end of the platform, he moved through an exit turnstile, headed for the flight of stairs that he knew was nearby and went back up to street level.