"I'll be around," Lou said. "I will be going back to New York of course; after all, Ken, I do have a living to make, such as it is, and Sir Lewis is expecting me."
"I don't know," Malone said, "but it still sounds funny. A girl like you working for ... well, for the Psychical Research people. Ghosts and ectoplasm and all that."
Suddenly Lou wasn't in his arms any more. "Now, wait a minute," she said. "You seemed to need their information, all right."
"But that was ... oh, well," Malone said. "Never mind. Maybe I'm silly. It really doesn't matter."
"I guess it doesn't, now," Lou said in a softer tone. "Except that it does mean I'll be going back to New York pretty soon."
"Oh," Malone said. "But ... look, Lou, maybe we could work something out. I could tell Sir Lewis I needed you here for something, and then he'd--"
"My, my," she said. "What it must be like to have all that influence."
Lou grinned, almost invisibly. "Nothing," she said. "Nothing. But, my fine feathered Fed, I don't want to be pulled around on somebody else's string."
Malone shrugged. "Suppose we table it for now, then," he said, "and get around to it later. At dinner, say ... around nine?"
"And just where," Luba said, "will you be before nine? Making improper advances to the local contingent of chorines?"
"I will make improper advances," Malone vowed, "only to you, Lou."
Lou's eyes sparkled. "Goody," she said. "I've always wanted to be a Fallen Woman."
"But I have got some things to do before nine," Malone said. "I've got to work, too."
"Well, then," Lou said in a suspiciously sweet voice, "suppose I talk to Sir Lewis Carter, and tell him to keep you in New York? Then--"
Somebody somewhere was wishing all the world "a plague on both your houses," and making it stick. Confusion is fun in a comedy--but in the pilot of a plane or an executive of a nation....
Back in his room, Malone put on a fresh shirt, checked the .44 Magnum in his shoulder holster, changed jackets, adjusted his hat to the proper angle, and vanished.
He had, he'd realized, exactly one definite lead. And now he was going to follow up on it. The Government was apparently falling to pieces; so was business and so was the Mafia. Nobody Malone had heard of had gained anything. Except Mike Sand and his truckers. They'd beaten the Mafia, at least.