I didn’t even know what made me so sure.
So I asked, “What about Louise?”
“She spent most of her time waiting on tables, as I remember. She won’t know much. We’ll pay her a thousand a day for a couple of days. Anyway, for today, whether she knows anything or not.”
“Okay,” I said, and tried to settle back.
“You’re the valuable one, Frazer. You’ve been fantastically lucky. That Monk language pill is going to give us a terrific advantage whenever we deal with Monks. They’ll have to learn about us. We’ll know about them already. Frazer, what does a Monk look like under the cowl and robe?”
“Not human,” I said. “They only stand upright to make us feel at ease. And there’s a swelling along one side that looks like equipment under the robe, but it isn’t. It’s part of the digestive system. And the head is as big as a basketball, but it’s half hollow.”
“They’re natural quadrupeds?”
“Yah. Four-footed, but climbers. The animal they evolved from lives in forests of like giant dandelions. They can throw rocks with any foot. They’re still around on Center; that’s the home planet. You’re not writing this down.”
“There’s a tape recorder going.”
“Really?” I’d been kidding.
“You’d better believe it. We can use anything you happen to remember. We still don’t even know how your Monk got out here to California.”
My Monk, forsooth.
“They briefed me pretty quickly yesterday. Did I tell you? I was visiting my parents in Carmel when my supervisor called me yesterday morning. Ten hours later I knew just about everything anyone knows about Monks. Except you, Frazer.
“Up until yesterday we thought that every Monk on Earth was either in the United Nations Building or aboard the Monk ground-to-orbit ship.
“We’ve been in that ship, Frazer. Several men have been through it, all trained astronauts wearing lunar exploration suits. Six Monks landed on Earth—unless more were hiding somewhere aboard. Can you think of any reason why they should do that?”
“No.”
“Neither can anyone else. And there are six Monks accounted for this morning. All in New York. Your Monk went home last night.”
That jarred me. “How?”
“We don’t know. We’re checking plane flights, silly as that sounds. Wouldn’t you think a stewardess would notice a Monk on her flight? Wouldn’t you think she’d go to the newspapers?”
“Sure.”
“We’re also checking flying saucer sightings.”
I laughed. But by now that sounded logical.
“If that doesn’t pan out, we’ll be seriously considering teleportation. Would you…”
“That’s it,” I said without surprise. It had come the way a memory comes, from the back of my mind, as if it had always been there. “He gave me a teleportation pill. That’s why I’ve got absolute direction. To teleport I’ve got to know where in the universe I am.”
Morris got bug-eyed. “You can teleport?”
“Not from a speeding car,” I said with reflexive fear. “That’s death. I’d keep the velocity.”
“Oh.” He was edging away as if I had sprouted horns.
More memory floated up, and I said, “Humans can’t teleport anyway. That pill was for another market.”
Morris relaxed. “You might have said that right away.”
“I only just remembered.”
“Why did you take it, if it’s for aliens?”
“Probably for the location talent. I don’t remember. I used to get lost pretty easily. I never will again. Morris, I’d be safer on a high wire than you’d be crossing a street with the Walk sign.”
“Could that have been your ‘something unusual’?”
“Maybe,” I said. At the same time I was somehow sure that it wasn’t.
Louise was in the dirt parking lot next to the Long Spoon. She was getting out of her Mustang when we pulled up. She waved an arm like a semaphore and walked briskly toward us, already talking. “Alien creatures in the Long Spoon, forsooth!” I’d taught her that word. “Ed, I keep telling you the customers aren’t human. Hello, are you Mr. Morris? I remember you. You were in last night. You had four drinks. All night.”
Morris smiled. “Yes, but I tipped big. Call me Bill, okay?”
Louise Schu was a cheerful blonde, by choice, not birth. She’d been working in the Long Spoon for five years now. A few of my regulars knew my name; but they all knew hers.
Louise’s deadliest enemy was the extra twenty pounds she carried as padding. She had been dieting for some decades. Two years back she had gotten serious about it and stopped cheating. She was mean for the next several months. But, clawing and scratching and half starved every second, she had worked her way down to one hundred and twenty-five pounds. She threw a terrific celebration that night and—to hear her tell it afterward—ate her way back to one-forty-five in a single night.
Padding or not, she’d have made someone a wonderful wife. I’d thought of marrying her myself. But my marriage had been too little fun, and was too recent, and the divorce had hurt too much. And the alimony. The alimony was why I was living in a cracker box, and I couldn’t afford to get married again.
While Louise was opening up, Morris bought a paper from the coin rack.
The Long Spoon was a mess. Louise and I cleaned off the tables and collected the dirty glasses and emptied the ashtrays into waste bins. But the collected glasses were still dirty and the waste bins were still full.
Morris began spreading newspaper over an area of floor.
And I stopped with my hand in my pocket.
Littleton came out from behind the bar, hefting both of the waste bins. He spilled one out onto the newspaper, then the other. He and Morris began spreading the trash apart.
My fingertips were brushing a scrap of Monk cellophane.
I’d worn these pants last night, under the apron.
Some impulse kept me from yelling out. I brought my hand out of my pocket, empty. Louise had gone to help the others sift the trash with their fingers. I joined them.
Presently Morris said, “Four. I hope that’s all. We’ll search the bar too.”
And I thought: Five.