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really thinks he can scare me off by roughing up girls, or he’s deliberately putting out a lot of phony bluster and playing a real cagey game underneath. But if so, what is it?”
    Mac said, “It’s possible he’s being clever, of course. However, you know how those big hard men sometimes get after years of success in the business. They start thinking the rules are not for them—they don’t have to be careful like lesser agents; they can run right over any opposition. They are superhuman and practically invisible, they think. Shortly thereafter they are either killed or put away quietly to dream their Napoleonic dreams in locked and padded rooms. Mr. Kroch seems to be displaying most of the symptoms.”
    “Maybe,” I said, unconvinced. “But I never like to act on the assumption that a man is crazy until I actually see him foaming at the mouth, sir.”
    “He seems to have worked up a pretty good lather tonight,” Mac said, “judging by the Vail girl’s report. And we can be glad of it. His behavior gives us a chance of retrieving what might have been a complete disaster. Under ordinary circumstances, once he spotted you, a man in Kroch’s position would simply have disappeared and notified his superiors to send in an unknown replacement. As it is, overconfident, he apparently intends to stay right on the job covering Dr. Mariassy in spite of you. He has even served notice that if he gets the signal to act he will execute it right under your nose. As a result of this bravado, he is still available to you if you act quickly, before he has time to reconsider.”
    “Yes, sir,” I said. “That’s another reason I decided to speed up the romance time table.”
    Mac was silent for a moment. “Since Kroch already has you spotted, there would seem to be hardly any reason left for the amateur theatrics.”
    “We’ve got to be doing something plausible while we’re getting him out of town to where we can take him,” I said. “I don’t know New Orleans well enough to pull anything here; I’d probably wind up behind bars. And Kroch is acting very funny and kind of obvious, as if he were really trying to draw attention to himself. What if there’s somebody else to do the dirty work, and big, blustering, loudmouthed Kroch is just a decoy?”
    “In that case, the other agent will have been warned about you by Kroch. Your performance with Dr. Mariassy will not deceive him, either. And we are not interested in identifying every possible agent involved. All we want is one man who will talk. One man who will lead us to Taussig.”
    I said, “God knows I’m not yearning to get drunk and disorderly with our tweedy intellectual, sir, let alone marry her, even in name only. But until I know exactly what’s going on, I’d rather stick to the original plan with minor modifications. It may still fool somebody, who knows?” “Well, maybe you’re right,” Mac conceded. “On second thought, it’s never wise to drop a cover hastily, particularly when the opposition is acting in a peculiar manner. Very well, I—” He stopped. I heard a phone ringing in the upstairs office some fifteen hundred miles to the north and east of where I sat. “Just a minute. This is probably the call we’re waiting for.”
    I sat on the bed and looked at the wall and thought about a small, hurt, disheveled girl lying face down on a rumpled bed in a wrecked room. Then I thought of a burning car and a shape under a blanket and a single silver slipper. I heard Mac pick up the phone. When he spoke, his voice held a note of urgency.
    “Eric.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “We cannot reach Dr. Mariassy. She has ostensibly retired and left orders at the hotel desk to the effect that she is not to be disturbed. Without causing comment, it wasn’t possible to determine by phone whether the voice that gave the orders was male or female.”
    “Oh, Jesus!” I said. “I knew I should have gone straight to her. Well, to hell with the meet-cute act, I’m