20 Must-Read Thriller Novels

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

The telephone rang.

Malone rolled over on the couch and muttered four words under

his breath. Was it absolutely necessary for someone to call him at

seven in the morning?

He grabbed at the receiver with one hand, and picked up his

cigar from the ashtray with the other. It was bad enough to be

awakened from a sound sleep—but when a man hadn't been sleeping at

all, it was even worse.

He'd been sitting up since before five that morning, worrying

about the telepathic spy, and at the moment he wanted sleep more

than he wanted phone calls.

"Gur?" he said, sleepily and angrily, thankful that he'd never

had a visiphone installed in his apartment. A taste for blondes was

apparently hereditary. At any rate, Malone felt he had inherited it

from his father, and he didn't want any visible strangers calling

him at odd hours to interfere with his process of collection and

research.

He blinked at the audio circuit, and a feminine voice said: "Mr.

Kenneth J. Malone?"

"Who's this?" Malone said peevishly, beginning to discover

himself capable of semirational English speech.

"Long distance from San Francisco," the voice said.

"It certainly is," Malone said. "Who's calling?"

"San Francisco is calling," the voice said primly.

Malone repressed a desire to tell the voice that he didn't want

to talk to St. Francis, not even in Spanish, and said instead:

"Who in San Francisco?"

There was a momentary hiatus, and then the voice said: "Mr.

Thomas Boyd is calling, sir. He says this is a scramble call."

Malone took a drag from his cigar and closed his eyes. Obviously

the call was a scramble. If it had been clear, the man would have

dialed direct, instead of going through what Malone now recognized

as an operator.

"Mr. Boyd says he is the Agent-in-Charge of the San Francisco

office of the FBI," the voice offered.

"And quite right, too," Malone told her. "All right. Put him

on."

"One moment," There was a pause, a click, another pause and then

another click. At last the operator said: "Your party is ready,

sir."

Then there was still another pause.

Malone stared at the audio receiver. He began to whistle

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.

… And the sound of Irish laughter… . "Hello?

Malone?"

"I'm here, Tom," Malone said guiltily. "This is me. What's the

trouble?"

"Trouble?" Boyd said. "There isn't any trouble. Well, not

really. Or maybe it is. I don't know."

Malone scowled at the audio receiver, and for the first time

wished he had gone ahead and had a video circuit put in, so that

Boyd could see the horrendous expression on his face.

"Look," he said. "It's seven here and that's too early. Out

there, it's four, and that's practically ridiculous. What's so

important?"

He knew perfectly well that Boyd wasn't calling him just for the

fun of it. The man was a damned good agent. But why a call at this

hour?

Malone muttered under his breath. Then, self-consciously, he

squashed out his cigar and lit a cigarette while Boyd was saying:

"Ken, I think we may have found what you've been looking for."

It wasn't safe to say too much, even over a scrambled circuit.

But Malone got the message without difficulty.

"Yeah?" he said, sitting up on the edge of the couch. "You

sure?"

"Well," Boyd said, "no. Not absolutely sure. Not absolutely. But

it is worth your taking a personal look, I think."

"Ah," Malone said cautiously. "An imbecile?"

"No," Boyd said flatly. "Not an imbecile. Definitely not an

imbecile. As a matter of fact, a hell of a fat long way from an

imbecile."

Malone glanced at his watch and skimmed over the airline

timetables in his mind. "I'll be there nine o'clock, your time," he

said. "Have a car waiting for me at the field."

As usual, Malone managed to sleep better on the plane than he'd

been able to do at home. He slept so well, in fact, that he was

still groggy when he stepped into the waiting car.

"Good to see you, Ken," Boyd said briskly, as he shook Malone's

hand.

"You, too, Tom," Malone said sleepily. "Now what's all this

about?" He looked around apprehensively. "No bugs in this car, I

hope?" he said.

Boyd gunned the motor and headed toward the San Francisco

Freeway. "Better not be," he said, "or I'll fire me a technician or

two."

"Well, then," Malone said, relaxing against the upholstery,

"where is this guy, and who is he? And how did you find him?"

Boyd looked uncomfortable. It was, somehow, both an

awe-inspiring and a slightly risible sight. Six feet one and

one-half inches tall in his flat feet, Boyd posted around over two

hundred and twenty pounds of bone, flesh and muscle. He swung a

pot-belly of startling proportions under the silk shirting he wore,

and his face, with its wide nose, small eyes and high forehead, was

half highly mature, half startlingly childlike. In an apparent

effort to erase those childlike qualities, Boyd sported a fringe of

beard and a moustache which reminded Malone of somebody he couldn't

quite place.

But whoever the somebody was, his hair hadn't been black, as

Boyd's was…

He decided it didn't make any difference. Anyhow, Boyd was

speaking.

"In the first place," he said, "it isn't a guy. In the second,

I'm not exactly sure who it is. And in the third, Ken, I didn't

find it."

There was a little silence.

"Don't tell me," Malone said. "It's a telepathic horse, isn't

it? Tom, I just don't think I could stand a telepathic horse…

."

"No," Boyd said hastily. "No. Not at all. No horse. It's a dame.

I mean a lady." He looked away from the road and flashed a glance

at Malone. His eyes seemed to be pleading for

something—understanding, possibly, Malone thought. "Frankly," Boyd

said, "I'd rather not tell you anything about her just yet. I'd

rather you met her first. Then you could make up your own mind. All

right?"

"All right," Malone said wearily. "Do it your own way. How far

do we have to go?"

"Just about an hour's drive," Boyd said. "That's all."

Malone slumped back in the seat and pushed his hat over his

eyes. "Fine," he said. "Suppose you wake me up when we get

there."

But, groggy as he was, he couldn't sleep. He wished he'd had

some coffee on the plane. Maybe it would have made him feel

better.

Then again, coffee was only coffee. True, he had never acquired

his father's taste for gin (and imagined, therefore, that it wasn't

hereditary, like a taste for blondes), but there was always

bourbon.

He thought about bourbon for a few minutes. It was a nice

thought. It warmed him and made him feel a lot better. After a

while, he even felt awake enough to do some talking.

He pushed his hat back and struggled to a reasonable sitting

position. "I don't suppose you have a drink hidden away in the car

somewhere?" he said tentatively. "Or would the technicians have

found that, too?"

"Better not have," Boyd said in the same tone as before, "or

I'll fire a couple of technicians." He grinned without turning.

"It's in the door compartment, next to the forty-five cartridges

and the Tommy- gun."

Malone opened the compartment in the thick door of the car and

extracted a bottle. It was Christian Brothers Brandy instead of the

bourbon he had been thinking about, but he discovered that he

didn't mind at all. It went down as smoothly as milk.

Boyd glanced at it momentarily as Malone screwed the top back

on.

"No," Malone said in answer to the unspoken question. "You're

driving." Then he settled back again and tipped his hat

forward.

He didn't sleep a wink. He was perfectly sure of that. But it

wasn't over two seconds later that Boyd said: "We're here, Ken.

Wake up."

"Whadyamean, wakeup," Malone said. "I wasn't asleep." He thumbed

his hat back and sat up rapidly. "Where's 'here?'"

"Bayview Neuropsychiatric Hospital," Boyd said. "This is where

Dr. Harman works, you know."

"No," Malone said. "As a matter of fact, I don't know. You

didn't tell me—remember? And who is Dr. Harman, anyhow?"

The car was moving up a long, curving driveway toward a large,

lawn- surrounded building. Boyd spoke without looking away from the

road.

"Well," he said, "this Dr. Wilson Harman is the man who phoned

us yesterday. One of my field agents was out here asking around

about imbeciles and so on. Found nothing, by the way. And then this

Dr. Harman called, later. Said he had someone here I might be

interested in. So I came on out myself for a look, yesterday

afternoon—after all, we had instructions to follow up every

possible lead."

"I know," Malone said. "I wrote them."

"Oh," Boyd said. "Sure. Well, anyhow, I talked to this dame.

Lady."

"And?"

"And I talked to her," Boyd said. "I'm not entirely sure of

anything myself. But—well, hell. You take a look at her."

He pulled the car up to a parking space, slid nonchalantly into

a slot marked Reserved—Executive Director Sutton,

and slid out from under the wheel while Malone got out the other

side.

They marched up the broad steps, through the doorway and into

the glass-fronted office of the receptionist.

Boyd showed her his little golden badge, and got an appropriate

gasp. "FBI," he said. "Dr. Harman's expecting us."

The wait wasn't over fifteen seconds. Boyd and Malone marched

down the hall and around a couple of corners, and came to the

doctor's office. The door was opaqued glass with nothing but a room

number stenciled on it. Without ceremony, Boyd pushed the door

open. Malone followed him inside.

The office was small but sunny. Dr. Wilson Harman sat behind a

blond- wood desk, a little man with crew-cut blond hair and rimless

eyeglasses, who looked about thirty-two and couldn't possibly,

Malone thought, have been anywhere near that young. On a second

look, Malone noticed a better age indication in the eyes and

forehead, and revised his first guess upward between ten and

fifteen years.

"Come in, gentlemen," Dr. Harman called. His voice was that

rarity, a really loud high tenor.

"Dr. Harman," Boyd said, "this is my superior, Mr. Malone. We'd

like to have a talk with Miss Thompson, if we might."

"I anticipated that, sir," Dr. Harman said. "Miss Thompson is in

the next room. Have you explained to Mr. Malone that—"

"I haven't explained a thing," Boyd said quickly, and added in

what was obviously intended to be a casual tone: "Mr. Malone wants

to get a picture of Miss Thompson directly—without any

preconceptions."

"I see," Dr. Harman said. "Very well, gentlemen. Through this

door."

He opened the door in the right-hand wall of the room, and

Malone took one look. It was a long, long look. Standing framed in

the doorway, dressed in the starched white of a nurse's uniform,

was the most beautiful blonde he had ever seen.

She had curves. She definitely had curves. As a matter of fact,

Malone didn't really think he had ever seen curves before. These

were something new and different and truly three-dimensional. But

it wasn't the curves, or the long straight lines of her legs, or

the quiet beauty of her face, that made her so special. After all,

Malone had seen legs and bodies and faces before.

At least, he thought he had. Offhand, he couldn't remember

where. Looking at the girl, Malone was ready to write brand-new

definitions for every anatomical term. Even a term like "hands."

Malone had never seen anything especially arousing in the human

hand before—anyway, not when the hand was just lying around, so to

speak, attached to its wrist but not doing anything in particular.

But these hands, long, slender and tapering, white and

cool-looking… .

And yet, it wasn't just the sheer physical beauty of the girl.

She had something else, something more and something different.

(Something borrowed, Malone thought in a semidelirious

haze, and something blue.) Personality? Character?

Soul?

Whatever it was, Malone decided, this girl had it. She had

enough of it to supply the entire human race, and any others that

might exist in the Universe. Malone smiled at the girl and she

smiled back.