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didn’t have any doubt. I mean, you get so you can spot them, the trained ones, the pros, the men in the same line of work. I don’t mean I recognized his face. He was new to me. We didn’t have him in the high-priority file, not yet. But he was our man, he had to be. They aren’t common. It wasn’t likely there’d be two of that species around—besides me, I mean.
    He was a big, middle-aged man with a bald head and protruding ears like the symmetrical handles of an ornamental vase, but he wasn’t ornamental, far from it. I got an impression of almost spectacular ugliness in the glimpse I allowed myself. I didn’t dare look longer. Maybe his instincts weren’t as acute as mine. If so, there was a chance that he hadn’t spotted me yet; that he was just making note of me in a routine way, as he’d have made note of anybody who made any kind of contact with his real subject, Olivia Mariassy.
    There was still a chance, if not a good one. So far she hadn’t given herself away hopelessly. A maiden lady intellectual was bound to be a little awkward, adventurously addressing a strange man in a bar. But we couldn’t expose him to any more of her phony smiles and memorized dialogue or he’d know the meeting had been planned.
    “Excuse me,” I said abruptly, and turned away just as she started to speak. “Waiter!”
    Rising, I was aware of Olivia’s face kind of crumpling. After all, she’d nerved herself to go through with the repulsive performance, and now the horrible man was kicking the script out the door. Well, it could pass for the reaction of a shy woman away from home whose tentative advances had been rudely rejected. I hoped she’d know enough to buy a drink and drink it, as any woman would to cover her confusion, before she ran out. I also hoped she’d remember, then, to go straight to her room and stay there with the door locked as she’d been instructed to do if anything went wrong.
    Walking away after paying my bill, I knew it still wasn’t good enough. He’d sat down at a corner table; he didn’t seem to be looking our way any more, but I knew he wasn’t missing a thing. He’d naturally be watching for a plant, a ringer, anything to indicate that his subject was hep and a trap was being set, that a pro was being slipped into the game against him. He wouldn’t be watching for it any harder tonight than last night, perhaps, or tomorrow night, but he’d be on his guard always to spot anything out of line. He had to be. His life and his job depended on it.
    What was needed, I thought, was a convincing red herring—but maybe a pink one would do. It was a crazy move, but that was a point in its favor, and my luck was in. The kid with the pink satin dress and the nice little rear was still in sight at the revolving bar, and the stool beside her was vacant. She had the defensive look a pretty girl gets in public, waiting for her escort to return from the john. I marched over there, stepped aboard the carousel, sat down, and tossed some money on the bar.
    “Martini,” I said to the bartender. “Veddy, veddy dry, if you please. Better make it a double.”
    I threw a wry glance over my shoulder toward Olivia. She had a drink and was sipping it grimly, staring straight ahead, as if she thought everyone in the room was watching. Well, that was still in character. Maybe we’d get by without giving the show away. How we’d make contact again, more convincingly, was a matter I’d give thought to later.
    I grinned at the girl beside me. “I have just escaped a fate worse than death,” I said. “Heaven preserve me from amorous lady schoolteachers on vacation.”
    She had black hair and slim bare shoulders and long white gloves. Her eyes were large and dark and framed by rather heavy black eyebrows. She was a nice-looking kid, but she didn’t really belong in the bar of the ritzy Montclair, I realized, seeing her at close range. She wasn’t exactly shabby, but the tight dress showed minute signs of