Buell did not hear her leave. He was working over the computer, creating a program and inserting data as rapidly as most people could type.
His first thought was to find out how this Remo, whoever he was, had traced him accurately in Malibu and in Carmel. Had Buell himself made it too easy?
But neither house was listed under his name. None of his neighbors in Carmel-- and they were all far distant on both sides of his home-- even knew him and as far as he knew had never even seen him. If Remo had come to Carmel and asked for Abner Buell's home, all he would have gotten was a blank stare.
How had he found it so easily?
He sat at the machine, asking the computer different questions, getting answers that did not satisfy him. He waited for the computer to solve the puzzle but it did not. And then, in one of those leaps of intuition that he felt would always separate man's mind from the machine mind, he asked the machine: "What about utility bills?"
The computer did not understand. Its screen lit up with a line of question marks.
"What home is biggest private user of electricity in Malibu?" he asked.
The computer responded: "Wait. Tapping into utility-company computer records."
Buell drummed his fingers on the side of the console while he waited. In less than a minute, the computer responded. It gave Buell's own Malibu address.
Buell smiled. Maybe, he thought. Maybe. He typed onto the monitor: "What home is largest private user of electricity in Carmel?"
The machine again begged for time, and then listed the address of Buell's Carmel home.
He snapped his fingers and whooped. He had found it. Remo had found his addresses by checking the electrical usage in both communities. It was a fair assumption that Buell, with his computers and cameras and cybernetic equipment and design studios, would have been high on that list.
It was a trail that this Remo, whoever he was, had been able to follow.
But trails led in both directions.
Buell knew that Remo was no free-lance. He was working for someone, some agency which was disturbed at Buell's activities over the last several months.
The trail that led from that agency to Buell could also lead back, if Buell could only follow it, if he could only read the signs. But how to do it?
He sat silently at the console for a long time, thinking. The computer, never bored, never impatient, waited for his instructions.
Finally Buell moved. He directed the computer to go back into the utility company and find out who, besides himself, had dug into its computers to get the addresses of large electricity users.
The computer gave a listing of all such queries for the Malibu area. A few minutes later, it gave the similar listing for Carmel.
Buell typed into the computer: "List all duplicates." The computer instantly responded that only one name had appeared on both lists. It was a small computer laboratory in Colorado.
Buell instructed the computer to slip into the Colorado lab's equipment and find out if the queries had been generated from there or had been merely passed through there.
While he waited for a response, Marcia reentered the room but he did not see her. The computer's ready light flashed and gave him the name of a printing supply house in Chicago as the originator of the queries. Buell smiled. He knew he was on the right track now. What reason could a printing-supply house in the Midwest have to want to know the electrical bills at two California coastal towns? None at all. The Chicago company was a cover.
Again he instructed the machine to tap into the Chicago computers and follow the query back.
It took two hours. The trail led from the Chicago company to an auto-parts firm in Secaucus, New Jersey. Then back to an Oriental food company in Seneca Falls, New York, and then to a restaurant on West Twenty-sixth Street in New York.
From there, the computers traced the query to a distributor of used tractor parts in Rye, New York.
And there it stopped.
"Continue trace," Buell ordered the computer.
"No further lead," the computer flashed back. "Query on electrical usage originated in Rye, New York, computer."
Buell again stared at the monitor. Unseen and forgotten by him was Marcia, who sat in a corner of the room quietly watching. She was wearing her houri outfit and while she was proud of her body, she knew it would bring no sign of interest from him. Not now. Not while he was working. And above all, she wanted him to keep working.
She heard Buell giggle and somehow knew it was a dirty trick he had planned.
"Find greatest privacy electricity consumption in Rye, New York," he said.
The computer worked silently for only fifteen seconds before reporting the name and address of a Dr. Harold W. Smith.
"Information on Smith," Buell demanded.
Short minutes later, the computer reported: "Director of Folcroft Sanitarium, Rye, New York."
"Nature of Folcroft Sanitarium?" Buell typed.
"Private nursing home for elderly mental patients," the computer responded.
"Is monthly utility bill of Folcroft Sanitarium consistent with utility bills of similar private nursing homes?" Buell asked.
It took the machine fifteen minutes to issue a reply. Finally, it printed out: "No. Electrical usage excessive."
"Consistent with heavy computer operation?" Buell asked.
"Yes," the machine responded almost instantly.
Buell turned off the computer, satisfied that he had tracked down the truth. It took a massive computer operation to track down his two homes at Malibu and Carmel, and that computer operation was centered in Rye, New York. It stood to reason that the man in charge of it would have heavy-duty terminals in his home: thus, the excessive use of electricity at the home of Dr. Harold W. Smith.
And the Folcroft Sanitarium that Smith headed. That too used too much electricity for just a simple nursing home. Again, a computer operation.
This Remo had been sent by this Smith. And this Smith whoever he was, ran something important in the United States. Something important and dangerous to Abner Buell.
It was late at night and Harold Smith was preparing to leave his darkened office at Folcroft. His secretary had gone hours before and he knew that dinner would be waiting for him when he arrived home, some kind of meat smothered in some kind of red catsuppy goo.
He had reached the door of his office when one of his private telephone lines rang. Remo. It must be Remo, he thought, and he strode quickly across the antistatic carpet to the telephone.
But the voice that answered his "hello" was not Remo's.
"Dr. Smith?" the voice said.
"Yes."
"This is Abner Buell. I think you've been looking for me?"