She said quickly, “Mr. Wills! I didn’t expect you.”
I said, “You phoned me. I came as soon as I could.”
She hesitated. “I did,” she admitted. “It was—I’m sorry, Mr. Wills. It was an impulse. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“What was it, Rena?”
She shook her head. “I am sorry. It doesn’t matter. But I am a bad hostess; won’t you come in?”
The room behind the door was long and narrow, with worn furniture and a door that led, perhaps, to another room behind. It seemed dusty and, hating myself as a snooping fool, I took careful note that there was a faint aroma of tobacco. I had been quite sure that she didn’t smoke, that evening we had met.
She gestured at a chair—there only were two, both pulled up to a crude wooden table, on which were two poured cups of coffee. “Please sit down,” she invited. I reminded myself that it was, after all, none of my business if she chose to entertain friends—even friends who smoked particularly rancid tobacco. And if they preferred not to be around when I came to the door, why, that was their business, not mine. I said cautiously, “I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“Interrupt me?” She saw my eyes on the cups. “Oh—oh, no, Mr. Wills. That other cup is for you, you see. I poured it when Luisa told me you were at the gate. It isn’t very good, I’m afraid,” she said apologetically.
I made an effort to sip the coffee; it was terrible. I set it down. “Rena, I just found out about your policies. Believe me, I’m sorry. I hadn’t known about it, when we had dinner together; I would have— Well, I don’t know what I would have done. There isn’t much I can do, truthfully; I don’t want you thinking I have any great power. But I wish I had known—I might not have made you cry, at any rate.”
She smiled an odd sort of smile. “That wasn’t the reason, Mr. Wills.”
“Please call me Tom. Well, then, why did you cry?”
“It is of no importance. Please.”
I coughed and tried a different tack. “You understand that I do have some authority. And I would like to help you if I can—if you’ll let me.”
“Let you? How could I prevent it?”
Her eyes were deep and dark. I shook myself and pulled the notes I’d made on her policies from my pocket. In the most official voice I could manage, I said, “You see, there may be some leeway in interpreting the facts. As it stands, frankly, there isn’t much hope. But if you’ll give me some information—”
“Certainly.”
“All right. Now, your father—Benedetto dell’Angela. He was a casualty of the war with Sicily; he got a dose of radiation, and he is at present in a low-metabolism state in the clinic at Anzio, waiting for the radiogens to clear out of his system. Is that correct?”
“It is what the Company’s report said,” she answered.
Her tone was odd. Surely she wasn’t doubting a Company report!
“As his dependent, Rena, you applied for subsistence benefits on his Blue Blanket policies, as well as war-risk benefits under the Blue Bolt. Both applications were refused; the Blue Blanket because your father is technically not hospitalized; the Blue Bolt, as well as all your other personal policies, was cancelled, because of—” I stuttered over it—“of activities against the best interest of the Company. Specifically, giving aid and comfort to a known troublemaker whose name is given here as Slovetski.” I showed her the cancellation sheet I had stolen from the files.
She shrugged. “This much I know, Tom,” she said.
“Why?” I demanded. “This man is believed to have been instrumental in inciting the war with Sicily!”
She flared, “Tom, that’s a lie! Slovetski is an old friend of my father’s—they studied together in Berlin, many years ago. He is utterly, completely against war—any war!”
I hesitated. “Well, let’s put that aside. But you realize that, in view of this, the Company can maintain—quite properly in a technical sense—that you contributed to the war, and therefore you can’t collect Blue Bolt compensation for a war you helped bring about. You were warned, you see. You can’t even say that you didn’t know what you were doing.”
“Tom,” Rena’s voice was infinitely patient and sad. “I knew what I was doing.”
“In that case, Rena, you have to admit that it seems fair enough. Still, perhaps we can get something for you—even if only a refund of your premiums. The Company doesn’t always follow the letter of the law, there are always exceptions, so—”
Her expression stopped me. She was smiling, but it was the tortured smile of Prometheus contemplating the cosmic jest that was ripping out his vitals.
I asked uncertainly, “Don’t you believe me?”
“Believe you, Tom? Indeed I do.” She laughed out loud that time. “After what happened to my father, I assure you, Tom, I am certain that the Company doesn’t always follow the law.”
I shook my head quickly. “No, you don’t understand. I—”
“I understand quite well.” She studied me for a moment, then patted my hand. “Let us talk of something else.”
“Won’t you tell me why your policy was cancelled?”
She said evenly, “It’s in the file. Because I was a bad girl.”
“But why? Why—”
“Because, Tom. Please, no more. I know you are trying to be just as helpful as you can, but there is no help you can give.”
“You don’t make it easy, Rena.”
“It can’t be easy! You see, I admit everything. I was warned. I helped an old friend whom the Company wanted to—shall we say—treat for radiation sickness? So there is no question that my policy can be cancelled. All legal. It is not the only one of its kind, you know. So why discuss it?”
“Why shouldn’t we?”
Her expression softened. “Because—because we do not agree. And never shall.” I stared at her blankly. She was being very difficult. Really, I shouldn’t be bothering with her, someone I barely knew, someone I hadn’t even heard of until—
That reminded me. I said, “Rena, how did you know my name?”
Her eyes went opaque. “Know your name, Tom? Why, Mr. Gogarty introduced us.”
“No. You knew of me before that. Come clean, Rena. Please.”
She said flatly, “I don’t know what you mean.” She was beginning to act agitated.
I had seen her covertly glancing at her watch several times; now she held it up openly—ostentatiously, in fact. “I am sorry, but you’d better go,” she said with a hint of anxiety in her voice. “Please excuse me.”
Well, there seemed no good reason to stay. So I went—not happily; not with any sense of accomplishment; and fully conscious of the figure I cut to the unseen watcher in the other room, the man whose coffee I had usurped.
Because there was no longer a conjecture about whether there had been such a person or not. I had heard him sneeze three times.
*
Back at my hotel, a red light was flashing on the phone as I let myself in. I unlocked the playback with my room key and got a recorded message that Gogarty wanted me to phone him at once.
He answered the phone on the first ring, looking like the wrath of God. It took me a moment to recognize the symptoms; then it struck home.
The lined gray face, the jittery twitching of the head, the slow, tortured movements; here was a man with a classic textbook case of his ailment. The