Page 53 - Three Adventures

Deflator Mouse

grabbed the phone. His heart thumped more loudly than his
exertions alone could explain.
“Let me speak to Miss Johnson,” he said hoarsely. Got to calm
down, calm down, calm down; he repeated the syllables until Cindy
answered.
“Hello?”
“Cindy. This is Ken. The paper—the article—did you tell Bob
about—?”
“Yes, yes I did, Ken. I had to. He would have lost his job if he
couldn’t get a story none of the others had. Did I do the wrong
thing?”
Ken looked down at the first page of the Spectator trembling in his
hand. “SABOTEUR HITS LITMUS INDUSTRIES: SECRET
PROJECT ON ROCKS”, ran the headline. “Accused Engineer’s
Story”, it continued; “Exclusive to the Spectator, by Bob Johnson,
Staff Writer.”
“I’m afraid so,” he slowly said. “Now I don’t have a job. Why
didn’t you ask me if you could tell him?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I thought you wouldn’t like it. But it
was so important for Bob. He went right out and found that poor
man they had mistreated, what was his name? Wolfe?”
“Found him in a bar on Crenshaw and gave him a few more drinks
until he spilled his guts!” said Ken hotly.
Her response strained the high frequency response of the
telephone’s tiny speaker. “What! Are you implying Bob did
something dishonest? If it was so important, why did you tell me
about it in the first place?”
“I—I trusted you.”
“And now you don’t, is that it? And you certainly don’‘t trust my
brother, either! Goodbye!”
Ken stared at the buzzing handset until it changed its tune to off-
the-hook nagging. He hung up and sat down. If only the papers
hadn’t gotten wind of this, he moaned. Following the disastrous
demonstration, it was only a matter of time before official displeasure
was manifest in an investigation of Litmus security and cancellation
of its participation in Salamander. Then other projects could have
begun, and he, Ken Oshima, would have achieved his goal. But
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