When the manager had gone--along with the assistant manager, the
house detective and the ancient shrew-faced head housekeeper--Mooney
extracted a promise from Harse and left him. He carefully hung a "Do
Not Disturb" card from the doorknob, crossed his fingers and took the
elevator downstairs.
The fact seemed to be that Harse didn't care about _aboriginals_.
Mooney had arranged a system of taps on the door which, he thought,
Harse would abide by, so that Mooney could get back in. Just the same,
Mooney vowed to be extremely careful about how he opened that door.
Whatever the pale blue light was, Mooney wanted no part of it directed
at him.
The elevator operator greeted him respectfully--a part of the
management's policy of making amends, no doubt. Mooney returned the
greeting with a barely civil nod. Sure, it had worked; he'd told the
manager that he'd caught the chambermaid trying to steal something
valuable that belonged to that celebrated proprietor of valuable
secrets, Mr. Harse; the chambermaid had fled; how dared they employ a
person like that?
And he had made very sure that the manager and the house dick and all
the rest had plenty of opportunity to snoop apologetically in every
closet and under the beds, just so there would be no suspicion in
their minds that a dismembered chambermaid-torso was littering some
dark corner of the room. What could they do but accept the story? The
chambermaid wasn't there to defend herself, and though they might
wonder how she had got out of the hotel without being noticed, it was
their problem to figure it out, not Mooney's to explain it.
They had even been grateful when Mooney offered handsomely to refrain
from notifying the police.
"Lobby, sir," sang out the elevator operator, and Mooney stepped out,
nodded to the manager, stared down the house detective and walked out
into the street.
So far, so good.
Now that the animal necessities of clothes and food and a place to live
were taken care of, Mooney had a chance to operate. It was a field in
which he had always had a good deal of talent--the making of deals, the
locating of contacts, the arranging of transactions that were better
conducted in private.
And he had a good deal of business to transact. Harse had accepted
without question his statement that they would have to raise more money.
"Try heroin or Platinum?" he had suggested, and gone back to his
viewer.
"I will," Mooney assured him, and he did; he tried them both, and more
besides.
* * * * *
Not only was it good that he had such valuable commodities to vend, but
it was a useful item in his total of knowledge concerning Harse that
the man from the future seemed to have no idea of the value of money in
the 20th Century, _chez_ U.S.A.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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