last year."
"That figures," Malone said. "What about the rest?"
Boyd's grandiose wave of a hand took in all the papers on the desk. "It's all the same," he said. "They all follow a pattern, Ken, the pattern. The one you were looking for."
Malone blinked. "I'll be damned," he said. "I'll be doubly damned."
"And how about the Russians?" Boyd said.
"You mean the Meeneestyerstvoh Vnootrenikh Dyehl?" Malone said.
"Now," Boyd said, "I'll be damned. And after I practiced for days."
"Ah," Malone said. "But I was there. The Russians are about as mixed up as a group of Transylvanian villagers with two vampires to track down and not enough flambeaux for all. Here, for instance, is just one example: the conflicting sets of orders that were given about me and Her Majesty and L--Miss Garbitsch."
Briefly, he outlined what had happened.
"Sounds like fun," Boyd said.
"They were so busy arguing with each other," Malone finished, "that I have a feeling we hardly needed the teleportation to escape. It would just have taken longer, that's all." He paused. "By the way, Tom, about the stakeout--"
"Luba Garbitsch is being protected as if she were Fort Knox," Boyd said. "If any Soviet agent tries to approach her with a threat of any kind, we'll have him nabbed before he can say Ivan Robinovitch."
"Or," Malone suggested, "Meeneestyerstvoh--"
"If we waited for that one," Boyd said, "we might have to wait all day." He paused. "But who's doing it?" he went on. "That's still the question. Martians? Venerians? Or is that last one Venusians?"
"Aphrodisiacs," Malone suggested diplomatically.
"Thank you, no," Boyd said politely. "I never indulge while on duty."
"Thomas," Malone said, "you are a Rover Boy First-Class."
"Good," Boyd said. "But, meanwhile, who is doing all this? Would you prefer Evil Beings from the Planet Ploor?"
"I would not," Malone said firmly.
"But I have a strange feeling," Boyd said, "that, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, you do not hold with the Interplanetary Alien Theory."
"Frankly," Malone said, "I'm not sure of anything. Not really. But I do want to know why, if it's interplanetary aliens doing this stuff, they're picking such a strange way of going about it."
"Strange?" Boyd said. "What's strange about it? You wouldn't expect Things from Ploor to come right out and tell us what they want, would you? It's against custom. It may even be against the law."
"Well, maybe," Malone said. "But it is pretty strange. The difference between what's happening in Russia and what's happening here--"
"What difference?" Boyd said. "Everybody's confused. Here, and over there. It all looks the same to me."
"Well, it isn't," Malone said. "Take a look at the paper, for instance." He tossed the Post at Boyd, who caught it with a spasmodic clutching motion and reassembled it slowly.
"Why throw things?" Boyd said. "You sore or something?"
"I guess I am," Malone said. "But not at you. It's--somebody or something. Person or persons unknown."
"Or Ploorians," Boyd said.
"Whatever," Malone said. "But take a look at the paper and see if you see what I see." He paused. "Does that mean anything?" he said.
"Probably," Boyd said. "We'll figure it out later." He leafed through the newspaper slowly, pulling thoughtfully at his beard from time to time. Malone watched him in breathless silence.
"See it?" he said at last.
Boyd looked up and, very slowly, nodded. "You're right, Ken," he said in a quiet voice. "You're absolutely right. It's as plain as the nose on your face."
"And that," Malone said, "sounds like an insult. It's much plainer than that. Suppose you tell me."
Boyd considered. "Over here," he said at last, "there are a lot of confused jerks and idiots. Right?"
"Correct," Malone said.
"And in Russia," Boyd went on, "there's a lot of confusion. Right?"
"Sure," Boyd said. "It's perfectly clear. I wonder why I didn't see it before."
"That's it!" Malone cried. "That's the difference!"
"Sure," Boyd said. "It's perfectly clear. I wonder why I didn't see it before."
"Because you weren't looking for it," Malone said. "Because nobody was. But there's one more check I want to make. There's one area I'm not sure of, simply because I don't have enough to go on."
"What area is that?" Boyd said. "It seems to me we did a pretty good job--"
"The Mafia," Malone said. "We know they're having trouble, but--"
"But we don't know what kind of trouble," Boyd finished. "Right you are."
Malone nodded. "I want to talk to Manelli," he said. "Can we set it up?"
"I don't see why not," Boyd said. "The A-in-C can give us the latest on him. You want me with you?"
"No," Malone said after some thought. "No. You go and see Mike Sand, heading up the International Truckers' Union. We know he's tied up with the Syndicate, and maybe you can get some information from him. You know what to dig for?"
"I do now," Boyd said. He reached for the intercom phone.
* * * * *
Cesare Antonio Manelli was a second-generation Prohibition mobster, whose history can most easily be described by reference to the various affairs of State which coincided with his development. Thus:
When Cesare was a small toddler of uncertain gait and chubby visage, the Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States canceled out not only the Eighteenth Amendment, but the thriving enterprises conducted by Manelli, Sr., and many of his friends.
When Cesare was a young schoolboy, poring over the multiplication tables, his father and his father's friends were busy dividing. They were dividing, to put it more fully, husbands from families as a means of requesting ransom, and money from banks as a means of getting the same cash without use of the middleman, or victim. This was the period of the Great Readjustment, and the frenzied search among gangland's higher echelons for a substitute for bootlegging.
And when Cesare was an innocent high-schooler, sporting a Paleolithic switchblade knife and black leather jacket, his father and his father's friends had reached a new plateau. They consolidated into a Syndicate, and began to concentrate on gambling and the whole, complex, profitable network of unions.
And then World War II had come along, and it was time for Cesare to do his part. Bidding a fond farewell to his father and
