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limestone, from when they cut this place out of the side of the hill.' He tossed them away
and dusted his hands. 'I'm a rockhound. At least... I was a rockhound. In my old life. I'd
like to be one again, on a limited scale.'
'Sunday expeditions in the exercise yard?' I asked, standing up. It was a silly idea, and yet
... seeing that little piece of quartz had given my heart a funny tweak. I don't know
exactly why; just an association with the outside world, I suppose. You didn't think of
such things in terms of the yard. Quartz was something you picked out of a small, quick-
running stream.
'Better to have Sunday expeditions here than no Sunday expeditions at all,' he said.
'You could plant an item like that rock-hammer in somebody's skull,' I remarked.
'I have no enemies here,' he said quietly.
'No?' I smiled. 'Wait awhile.'
'If there's trouble, I can handle it without using a rock-hammer.'
'Maybe you want to try an escape? Going under the wall? Because if you do -'
He laughed politely. When I saw the rock-hammer three weeks later, I understood why.
"You know,' I said, *if anyone sees you with it, they'll take it may. If tbey saw you with a
spoon, they'd take it away. i: you going to do, just sit down here in the yard and 3' away?'
"Oh, I believe I can do a lot better than that.'
I nodded. That part of it really wasn't my business, anyway. A man engages my services
to get him something. Whether he can keep it or not after I get it is his business.
'How much would an item like that go for?' I asked. I was Beginning to enjoy his quiet,
low-key style. When you've spent ten years in stir, as I had then, you can get awfully
tired of the bellowers and the braggarts and the loud-mouths. Yes, I dink it would be fair
to say I liked Andy from the first.
'Eight dollars in any rock-and-gem shop,' he said, 'but I realize that in a business like
yours you work on a cost-plus basis-'
'Cost plus ten per cent is my going rate, but I have to go up some on a dangerous item.
For something like the gadget you're talking about, it takes a little more goose-grease to
get the wheels turning. Let's say ten dollars.'
'Ten it is'
I looked at him, smiling a little. 'Have you got ten dollars?'
'I do,' he said quietly.
A long time after, I discovered that he had better than five hundred. He had brought it in
with him. When they check you in at this hotel, one of the bellhops is obliged to bend you
over and take a look up your works - but there are a lot of works, and, not to put too fine
a point on it, a man who is really determined can get a fairly large item quite a ways up
them - far enough to be out of sight, unless the bellhop you happen to draw is in the mood
to pull on a rubber glove and go prospecting.
That's fine,' I said. 'You ought to know what I expect if you get caught with what I get
you.'
'I suppose I should,' he said, and I could tell by the slight change in his grey eyes that he
knew exactly what I was going to say. It was a slight lightening, a gleam of his special
ironic humour.