Now let the people who’d confronted him try to track him! They’d find that as far as every hotel and restaurant was concerned, Eric Abbott had disappeared. Maybe he was being a little overcautious, but he had no desire to meet the two men who’d challenged him outside Polikartos’s office a second time. Adrenaline could not stop a pingun or tranquilizer dart.
He had no trouble at the airport and relaxed completely once the hypersonic transport was in the air. A window seat gave him the chance to study new green squares and circles from a hundred thousand feet up.
His first glimpse of Nueva York turned out to be something of an anticlimax. That was the trouble with the opto. It brought such sights into everyone’s home. There was no mystery to the reality.
The airport itself, however, was something of a shock. Jersey Flats Terminal made Sky Harbor in Phoenix look very provincial.
There were no lurking, hulking figures waiting to jump him when he emerged from the offloading ramp, overnight bag in hand. No one bothered him as he flowed with the crowd toward the transportation depot. In dramatic parlance, it appeared that he’d managed a clean getaway.
Why, he might be able to walk right up to Lisa Tambor and ask her out to lunch without anyone’s interfering! Poor
Polikartos hadn’t been careful enough, that was all. In fact, he still had no proof Polikartos’s death had anything to do with Lisa Tambor and the two men in the hallway.
His first thought was to go straight to the modeling agency whose address he’d found in the investigator’s file. But there seemed no reason to move so precipitously. Better to familiarize himself first with the strange city.
The tube shot him rapidly downtown. The agency was located on North 133rd street, Harlem Tower Complex Eight. He chose a modest hotel well away from his eventual destination, in upper midtown near Central Park. The prices were appalling.
The room had a clean bed, the omnipresent opto, a nice bathroom, and no view whatsoever. That didn’t bother him. He wasn’t on a vacation. The rest of the day he spent cruising the streets in a cab, letting the smooth synthesized voice fill him in on locales and sights, even gliding past Harlem Eight without stopping.
He had an excellent dinner, soft pretzels in Central Park, spent half the next day at the Museum of Natural History. Three comfortable, relaxed days slipped by. Then he had his suit cleaned and prepared himself.
This time he let the cab deposit him outside Harlem Eight. The eighty-story-tall hexagon was part of a complex of eight identical towers situated on parklike grounds. It was an expensive, prestigious commercial address.
The Magdalena Agency occupied all of the seventieth floor. Even the lobby whispered money. The tiles were goldstone, there was lavish use of beveled and etched glass, and the doors leading off the lobby were etched with reproductions of works by Mucha and Erte.
Eric felt out of place. The offices at Selvern were comfortable but stark by comparison, designed to give a different impression. He was accustomed to efficient, businesslike surroundings, not ostentatiousness for its own sake.
The girl in the reception area displayed a complexion the same color as her walnut desk. She was slim and beautiful but not, Eric surmised, quite slim or beautiful enough. Certainly she didn’t begin to compare to the magic image he’d seen in the retreating Cadota that was now enshrined in his memory.
“May I help you, sir?” She eyed Eric’s best suit speculatively. Or maybe it was Eric she was evaluating. He didn’t fit the types she dealt with daily; not handsome enough to be seeking representation, not outlandish enough to be an agent. Any moment now, he thought, she was going to ask if he had a delivery to make.
This won’t do, he told himself angrily. Act like you know what you’re doing even if you don’t.
“I’m here to inquire about the availability of one of your models. For a series of opto commercials.” He gave her his best smile.
Her estimate of him rose several notches. “I see.” He wasn’t sure if she believed him, but he was sure she wasn’t going to take the chance of being wrong.
“May I ask who’s calling and what company you represent?”
“John Frazier," he told her without hesitation. “I’m with Selvern.” Up another notch.
“Just a moment, please, Mr. Frazier.” She gestured toward a gold, late-nineteenth-century couch. Eric accepted the proffered seat and began thumbing through the magazines on the table nearby. They were slick and full of photographs instead of words. Photographs by full sun, photographs by candlelight, photographs by starlight. It was astonishing how many angles the human body possessed and how each could be frozen in time through the symbiosis of eye and machine.
He was enjoying himself when the woman came out to greet him. Her hair was silver shot through with streaks of blond and he couldn’t tell which was natural and which dye. The same went for her expression. She was very pretty, very petite, an elf forged of stainless steel. He was immediately on guard as she shook his hand.
“Mr. Frazier? I’m Joan Candlewaif. Come with me, please.” He put aside the magazines and followed her.
Her office looked out on the parkland below and Harlem Three Tower. She settled easily into her desk. Literally into, as the entrance to the circular work station closed up behind her, sealing her inside a flat-topped plastic doughnut.
“Something to drink, Mr. Frazier? Fruit juice, coffee, tea, chicory, mineral water, soft drink, wine?”
“Nothing, thanks.”
“Helaine said you represent Selvern.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Terkel and Brighton are their Nueva York people.”
“I’m from the coast. From in-house.” He made himself sound conspiratorial. He could thank his relationship with Charlie for his knowledge of advertising, and he’d thought out his speech during his idyllic jaunt around Manhattan.
“We’re looking for someone with a particular look, a special look, to pose in a series of multichannel promos for a new line of consumer electronics products. Preliminary product discussion is already underway, both in Phoenix and Hong Kong. We need someone with an ethereal, distant beauty, very futuristic.” He went on to detail a long list of other imaginary requirements for the imaginary opening while Candlewaif listened intently.
Mentioning Selvern was a risk, but he had to represent something. What better than his own company? He knew Selvern and, thanks to Charlie, something of its in-house agency work. If she thought to check further she would discover that John Frazier did indeed work for Selvern Phoenix. Frazier was Charlie’s supervisor. So long as she didn’t request a picture he should be able to carry the deception off, for the necessary few days at least.
His well-rehearsed speech obviously impressed her. Here was a man who knew what he and his company wanted.
“Everyone’s looking for that special someone with a particular ‘look,’ Mr. Frazier. I don’t have to tell you that. Finding those faces is what makes this business exciting. We have a number of ladies who might meet your description.” She touched hidden switches. A video screen unrolled on the far wall and a compact projector emerged from her desk. She started sorting through boxes of holograms.
“That may not be necessary,” Eric told her. He had no intention of spending the rest of the day trapped in the office, looking at pictures of beautiful women who meant nothing to him, could mean nothing to him. “We’ve done a considerable amount of research on our own and settled on a hopeful already. I know she’s represented by Magdalena. I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have mentioned that earlier.”
“Not necessary.” Candlewaif was good at covering her surprise. “It makes my job much simpler, doesn’t it? I’m glad you’ve selected a Magdalena model. Of course, until we discuss the details of her employment I can’t guarantee her availability. Who was it you had in mind? Veronika? Senta Cross?”
“Lisa Tambor.” Eric made a show of consulting his notepad.
The woman frowned. “Tambor? I don’t … oh, yes, yes, of course I remember her. She did work for us, but very briefly. I’m sorry to say. She was very much in demand, but I always had the feeling her heart wasn’t in her work, that she regarded her employment here almost as a lark, a vacation of sorts. A strange girl. Pity. She could have been one of the best.”
“She doesn’t work for you anymore?”
