Malone tried to stop himself from beaming, but he couldn't. "Well, chief," he began, "I--"
"Vanishing boys," Burris muttered. "What are you going to do with them, Malone?"
"I was hoping you might have some kind of suggestion," Malone said.
"Well," Malone said, "I suppose I'll figure it out--when I catch them. But I did want something from you, chief."
"Anything, Malone," Burris said. "Anything at all."
"I want you to get hold of Dr. O'Connor, out at Yucca Flats, if you can. He's the best psionics man Westinghouse has right now, and I might need him."
"Well," Malone said, "these kids are teleports. And maybe there's some way to stop a teleport. Give him a good, hard kick in the psi, for instance."
"Never mind," Malone said savagely. "But if I'm going to get any information on what makes teleports tick, I'm going to have to get it from Dr. O'Connor--right?"
"So get in touch with Dr. O'Connor," Malone said.
"I'll have him call you," Burris said. "Meanwhile ... well, meanwhile just carry on, Malone. I've got every confidence in you."
"If anybody can crack a case like this," Burris said, "it's you."
"I suppose it had better be," Malone said, and rang off.
Then he started to think. The notebook wasn't in his pockets. He checked every one, even the jacket pocket where he usually kept a handkerchief and nothing else. It wasn't anywhere on his person.
He thought about that for several minutes, and finally decided that he hadn't. He hadn't taken it out of his pocket, for one thing, and if it had fallen to the ground he couldn't have helped seeing it. Of course, he'd put his wallet, keys, change and other such items on the dresser, and then replaced them in his pockets when morning had come--but he could remember how they'd looked on the dresser.
The notebook hadn't been there among them.
Now that he came to think of it, when had he seen the notebook last? He'd shown it to Lieutenant Lynch during the afternoon, and then he'd put it back in his pocket, and he hadn't looked for it again.
So it had to be somewhere in one of the bars he'd visited, or at the theater where he and Dorothy had seen "The Hot Seat."
Proud of himself for this careful and complete job of deduction, he strolled out and, giving Boyd and the Agent-in-Charge one small smile each, to remember him by, he went into the sunlight trying to decide which place to check first. He settled on the theater because it was most probable: after all, people were always losing things in theaters. Besides, if he started at the theater, and found the notebook there, he could then go on to a bar to celebrate. If he found the notebook in a bar, he didn't much relish the idea of going on to an empty theater in the middle of the afternoon to celebrate getting the book back.