"If it's not - " He gives an easy shrug. "Then there will be some dishonest researchers with much to answer for."
He stands, then. Walks over to the record player. Lifts it up and turns it over. It's likely this meeting will conclude soon enough, but even so - good to have music playing, in the case of surveillance.
"My level of honesty, good Ralston, perhaps exceeds yours."
His face is doing something. He can feel it, but can't parse exactly what it is—just some prickle across the top of his scalp and a hum in the ears that threatens to overpower the scratch of the reset needle and the opening notes of the next piece of music.
(What it looks like is the face of a corpse with a slit throat, bloodless and staring.)
He folds the papers over along opposite as the ones they'd originally been packed in. It's not real. He is certain. Even if the researchers think otherwise. Even if they're sending papers to East Germany on their behalf. It must be. Otherwise—
"I wouldn't be here if it were."
Only maybe he would. After all, what does anyone know about the work Michael Ralston once did when he was still a magician? Fine work, maybe, but clearly nothing important enough to escape censure. It has been secret before< and likely had remained so after. For what use would there have been in explaining the particulars to anyone after? It would have been like explaining having been a champion runner and having both feet cut off in the present tense. Pointless.
If it were? What, if Byerly were honest? Or if it were true? An odd thing to say. Why wouldn't he be?
He sets the thought away. What's more important is that Byerly knows that he's found the right bait. The hook may not yet be fully set, but the fish is fascinated.
"I suppose there's only one way to find out," Rutyer replies easily. And he holds out his hand for the papers back.
For a split second—so narrow a filament of time, it might not even exist (and yet does; it is as concrete a reality as this room is, or the series of rooms in the neighboring apartment, or the ones which are arranged in some similar fashion in the building across this street, or apartments elsewhere in the world with sitting rooms and faintly dusty smelling upholstery and a record player sawing on)—it seems as if Ralston might not return the papers. And then his hand jerks out, shoving the packet abruptly back at Rutyer.
What good would holding on to them do? What an absurd impulse.
"Smith or the Americans?" Should bite more than it does. "You still haven't told me."
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no subject
He stands, then. Walks over to the record player. Lifts it up and turns it over. It's likely this meeting will conclude soon enough, but even so - good to have music playing, in the case of surveillance.
"My level of honesty, good Ralston, perhaps exceeds yours."
no subject
(What it looks like is the face of a corpse with a slit throat, bloodless and staring.)
He folds the papers over along opposite as the ones they'd originally been packed in. It's not real. He is certain. Even if the researchers think otherwise. Even if they're sending papers to East Germany on their behalf. It must be. Otherwise—
"I wouldn't be here if it were."
Only maybe he would. After all, what does anyone know about the work Michael Ralston once did when he was still a magician? Fine work, maybe, but clearly nothing important enough to escape censure. It has been secret before< and likely had remained so after. For what use would there have been in explaining the particulars to anyone after? It would have been like explaining having been a champion runner and having both feet cut off in the present tense. Pointless.
no subject
He sets the thought away. What's more important is that Byerly knows that he's found the right bait. The hook may not yet be fully set, but the fish is fascinated.
"I suppose there's only one way to find out," Rutyer replies easily. And he holds out his hand for the papers back.
no subject
What good would holding on to them do? What an absurd impulse.
"Smith or the Americans?" Should bite more than it does. "You still haven't told me."