Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [49]
"How about duh One-Eyed Man on duh West Post Road?"
"Sure—just the place I had in mind. Wear a red carnation and pretend you don't know me until I sneeze nine times and then blow my nose on a purple bandanna. Got it?"
"Dat's duh way to talk, bo! Nuttin' I like better'n a slick plan, all worked out wit' snazzy details an' all. Uh . . . by duh way, where do I get duh carnation, at dis time o' year?"
O'Leary closed his eyes, concentrated briefly. "Just around the next turn," he said. "On top of the first garbage bin on the left."
The Red Bull nodded, eyeing Lafayette a trifle warily.
"Sometimes when youse ain't in such a hurry, pal, I want youse should clue me how yuh work some of dese angles."
"Sure," O'Leary said. "Hurry along now, before someone steals your flower." The Red Bull hustled away along the street; O'Leary turned into a side alley to put distance between himself and his volunteer partner. He'd like to know himself how he worked the angles, he reflected. He was beginning to take all this as seriously as though it were really happening. It was becoming increasingly difficult to remember which was the illusion, Artesia or Colby Corners.
In a small café consisting of a faded striped awning over a patch of cracked sidewalk, Lafayette sipped a thick mug of strong coffee. He had to have the location of the rebel HQ—but any question on the subject would immediately point the finger at him. As a matter of fact, the girl behind the charcoal stove where the water boiled was giving him sidelong glances right now. Maybe it was just sex appeal, but he couldn't afford to take the chance. He rose abruptly and moved on. His best bet was to keep moving and hope to overhear something.
It was a long day. O'Leary spent it wandering idly through open-air markets, browsing in tiny crack-in-the-wall bookshops, watching the skillful gnarled hands of silversmiths and goldsmiths and leather and wood workers as they plied their crafts in stalls no bigger than the average hot-dog stand back home in Colby Corners. He ate a modest lunch of salami and ale at an inn where low-sagging foot-square beams black with soot crossed above an uneven packed-earth floor. An hour before sunset he was near the East Gate, pretending to eye the display in a tattoo artist's window, while keeping an eye on a lounging sentry who gave him no more than a casual glance. It would be no trick at all to slip through, if he just knew where to go from there . . .
A large man standing a few yards away was looking at him carefully from the corner of a red-rimmed eye. O'Leary whistled a few bars of Mairzey Doats with suddenly dry lips. He eased around the corner into a dark alleylike passage. He stepped along briskly and when he looked back he saw only looming shadows. He went on, following twists and turns. The last of the light was rapidly fading from the sky.
The alley abruptly ended in a garbage-strewn court. He cast about, found another narrow way leading off into blackness, ducked into it and turned to see a dark figure, then another, step into dim view. He whirled silently and started off at a trot. He had gone twenty feet when he tripped over a tub of refuse and sent it clattering. At once, there was a rasp of feet breaking into a run. By instinct, O'Leary ducked, threw himself aside as a dark cloaked figure slammed past, tripped and fell with a clangor of steel and a choked-off curse. Lafayette crouched, squinting into the dark and saw the man rise to hands and knees, groping for a dropped weapon.
It was no time for niceties. He took a quick step and planted a solid kick in the side of the jaw. The man skidded to his face and lay still. O'Leary moved off up the alley, scanning the way for other members of the reception committee. There had been at least two of them—maybe more. This would be an excellent place to get away from—fast. But there was no point in running into the waiting arms of an assassin.
A shadow moved against deeper shadow ahead. One of the party, it seemed, had circled