“You know what a nondisclosure agreement is, Jane? This outfit serves the same purpose. What do you suppose would happen if you told the hospital staff about our conversation?”
“They’d cut off my drugs.”
“You got it,” he said, and winked. A few moments later a nurse came in and gave me a shot; I fell asleep, and when I woke up again, my visitor was gone. But the coin was still there, safe under my pillow.
The next evening, I made sure I was awake. At quarter to seven I hauled myself out of bed, and wheeled my IV stand to the elevator. I went up to the fourteenth floor and found Examination One, and at 7:01, I knocked.
“Come in,” a voice said.
Inside, the room was a lot like this one. Spare, I mean, with just a table and a couple of chairs. Robert True was standing when I came in. He was wearing a gray flannel suit that might have been stylish back when Ozzie and Harriet was a hit TV show; he was short, and heavy, and didn’t have much hair.
“Welcome, Jane,” he greeted me. “I’m Bob True.”
“Hi,” I said. “Omnes mundum facimus.”
“That’s all right. I don’t need the magic phrase. But as long as we’re on the subject, have you worked it out yet?”
I had, finally. “It’s a comeback,” I told him. “To that thing people say when they don’t want to be blamed for a bad situation: ‘I didn’t make the world, I only live in it.’”
“Very good.”
“So that’s what you’re about, your organization? Making the world a better place?”
“By fighting evil in all its forms,” True said, nodding.
“Are you the government?”
He seemed surprised by the question. “Does the government fight evil?”
I thought about it. For some reason, the first thing that came to mind wasn’t the FBI or the justice system, but my last trip to the DMV. “Well,” I said, “it can.”
“Lots of things can fight evil,” True replied. “Cinderblocks, for example—if a cinderblock had fallen in Josef Stalin’s crib, the twentieth century might have been a bit more pleasant. Even if one had, though, I doubt most people would say that the purpose of cinderblocks is to fight evil.”
“So you’re not the government. What are you, then? Vigilantes? You hunt bad guys, right?”
“The organization pursues its goal through diverse means, most of them constructive. We employ Good Samaritans, Random Acts of Kindness, Second and Third Chances…” He went on, ticking off more than a dozen of what I eventually understood were division names, actual organization departments that fought evil in positive, life-affirming ways. My eyes must have glazed over, because suddenly he stopped and said, “Am I boring you?”
“A little,” I admitted. “So which are you, a Good Samaritan or a Random Actor?”
“I work for what’s known as the Cost-Benefits division.”
“You handle the money.”
“I help allocate the organization’s resources. Which are substantial, but still finite.”
“‘Resources’ includes people?”
“Of course.”
“Well then, if you know anything about people, you know I’m not a good Samaritan.”
“No,” True said, “I don’t suppose you are…” He placed a green NC gun in the center of the table. “You’ll recognize this.”
“The one I had last time was orange.”
“The one you had in Siesta Corta was standard issue. This is a special model.”
“What’s special about it?”
“We’ll get to that. First I have a hypothetical question for you. A test question.”
“OK.”