Ahead there was a chain drugstore, and Malone headed for it. Two uniformed men wearing Special Police badges were standing near the door eyeing everyone with suspicion, but Malone managed to get past them and went on to a telephone booth. He tried dialling the Washington number of the FBI, but got only a continuous _beep-beep_, indicating a service delay. Finally he managed to get a special operator, who told him sorrowfully that calls to Washington were jamming all available trunk lines.
Malone glanced around to make sure nobody was watching. Then he teleported himself to his apartment in Washington and, on arriving, headed for the phone there. Using that one, he dialed again, got Pelham's sad face on the screen, and asked for Thomas Boyd.
Boyd didn't look any different, Malone thought, though maybe he was a little more tired. Henry VIII had obviously had a hard day trying to get his wives to stop nagging him. "Ken," he said. "I thought you were on vacation. What are you doing calling up the FBI, or do you just want to feel superior to us poor working slobs?"
Boyd uttered a short, mirthless laugh. "How to beat the tables, you mean?" he said. "How are things in good old Las Vegas?"
Malone, realizing that with direct-dial phones Boyd had no idea where he was actually calling from, kept wisely quiet. "How about Burris?" he said after a second. "Has he come up with any new theories yet?"
"Everything," Malone said. "From all I see in the papers things haven't been quieting down any. Is it still Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch putting psychodrugs in water-coolers, or has something new been added?"
"I don't know what the chief thinks," Boyd said. "Things'll straighten out in a while. We're working on it--twenty-four hours a day, or damn near, but we're working. While you take a nice, long vacation that--"
"I want you to get me something," Malone said. "Just go and get it and send it to me at Las Vegas."
"Dossiers," Malone said. "On Mike Sand and Primo Palveri."
"Palveri I can understand," Boyd said. "You want to threaten him with exposure unless he lets you beat the roulette tables. But why Sand? Ken, are you working on something psionic?"
"Me?" Malone said sweetly. "I'm on vacation."