Why Do Birds

CHAPTER 15

The taller of the two FBI agents touched the sensor beside the hotel-room door, and waited. The corridor smelled like teddy bears. After a while the agent rang again. Eventually a young man wearing nothing but a pair of flimsy white shorts opened the door. "Sorry to keep you waiting," he said. "I was taking a shower."

"Mr. Stone?"

"Right."

Delgado showed him his badge. "I'm Special Agent Delgado and this is Special Agent Smith."

"Glad to know you." They shook hands. "Hey, come in and sit down, you guys. Can I get you something? Coffee?"

"No, thank you, sir, we're on duty. This is a very nice place you have here." Delgado and Smith took one of the butterscotch-colored sofas; Stone sat in a royal blue easy chair opposite.

"Yeah, it's pretty ritzy," he said. "That gadget in the comer, I can get anything on it. Old movies, any kind of information you can think of. You know there's two wine faucets in the kitchenette? Red and white. The white comes out chilled."

"Very nice. What does a suite like this cost, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Six thousand a day. Isn't that unbelievable? I have to divide everything by a hundred, and I still can't believe it. And that's just for this place-I've got another one across town."

"You have another hotel suite?"

"Yeah, because so many people were coming to see me over there, I couldn't get any time by myself. Senator Givens told you to come here, right?"

"Well, he didn't tell us directly, but the office probably got it from his office. Now, Mr. Stone, or can I call you Ed?"

"Sure you can. What's your name?"

"Ramon, but my friends call me Ray. And this is Tinker, they call him Tink, or sometimes Tinsmith." Smiling, they shook hands all around again.

"Now, Ed," said Delgado, "you know, this is just a routine interview. Anybody that has to do with the federal government at a high level, the FBI has to run a security check on them."

"Sure, I understand. Go ahead, shoot."

"Okay, where were you born and when?"

"Altoona, March fifteenth, nineteen ought one."

"That would be Altoona, Pennsylvania?"

"Right. My old man was a beer salesman there. He moved to Harrisburg when I was five."

"And his name was-?"

"Charles M. Stone. My mother's maiden name was Fanny Weingard."

Delgado made a note. "Have you ever been arrested or charged with a felony?"

"Yeah, when I first came back, they arrested me because I was in a hotel room where I didn't belong, and I had this old money on me. They thought I must of stolen it."

"Where and when was that?"

"Trenton, November ninth. This year."

"When you say old money-"

"Gold certificates, you don't use them anymore."

"I see. And how did that tum out?"

"They dismissed the charges and gave me the money back."

"Okay. Now do you have any identification to prove who you are? Sorry to ask this, but-"

"That's okay. Just my driver's license from nineteen thirty-one."

"Could we see that, please?"

"Sure." Stone got up and went into the bedroom, came back with a wallet. He pulled out the card and handed it to Delgado.

"Expires nineteen thirty-two," Delgado read. "Mind if I take a copy of this?"

"Go ahead." Stone watched with interest as Delgado produced a scanner from his pocket and ran it over the license. "How the hell does that thing work, anyway?"

"It digitizes the information, and then it can be reproduced in a computer and printed out."

"I've got to get me one of those. How much do they cost?"

Delgado turned to Smith. "What would you say, Tink?"

"You can get one in any drugstore for about four hundred bucks. Net order, you might get one for three fifty or sixty."

"That's amazing," Stone said. "In the thirties, that would be about four bucks. You couldn't even buy a radio for that."

"By the way, Ed," said Delgado, "I notice you appear to be a man of about thirty years of age. But you say here you were born in nineteen oh one?"

"That's because the aliens kidnapped me from nineteen thirty-one and brought me here. I think I was either in suspended animation, or else I died and they brought me back to life."

"I see," Delgado said. "That must have been an interesting experience."

"Oh, yeah."

"Well, let's see. Next thing, have you ever been a member of an organization declared subversive by the attorney general?"

"Not that I know of. What would that include?"

"Communists, anarchists, that kind of thing."

"Oh, no."

"It's a dead letter now, anyway. Do you know we've got a communist senator from Connecticut? Things have sure changed."

"No, I didn't know that. I'm still trying to catch up with a lot of stuff."

Delgado cleared his throat. "Now, Ed, have you ever been confined to a mental institution?"

"Yeah, the New Jersey State Mental Health Care Facility, that time when I was arrested. They let me go."

"Why were you confined in that institution, do you know?"

"Well, the judge thought I was crazy, because I told him about the aliens."

"Sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut," said Smith. They all smiled.

"All right," said Delgado, "now I don't suppose you've got any living relatives that we could talk to? Or neighbors, employers, that kind of thing?"

"Not anymore. You could talk to the head doctor in the nuthouse. His name is Dr. Wellafield."

Delgado wrote it down. "Well, that's it then." The two special agents stood up. "Thanks for your cooperation, Ed, and for being such a great guy."