Smart Moves Read Free

off.
    “I’m not holding you up for a bigger fee,” I explained, throwing the blankets back onto the bed to save the maid from one more assault. “I’m explaining behavior.”
    “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” he said, rising and reaching for the glass I handed him and pouring me orange juice. It was warm and made me a little queasy, but that passed. I threw my things into my alligator suitcase, nestling my .38 under a faded shirt, and turned to Walker.
    “Ready,” I said.
    Walker drove. He glanced over at me every three seconds to be sure I hadn’t spilled any of the juice from the bottle he had entrusted to me. It sloshed around but nothing escaped. I’d put on a semi-matching jacket and tie and looked reasonably respectable. I would have turned on the radio but Walker didn’t have one, so I looked out the window and watched the students walk down tree-lined streets. On what looked like a main street, Walker nodded his head and said, “The Institute for Advanced Study is straight down there. That’s where I work.”
    “And Einstein?”
    “Professor Einstein is a member of the Institute,” Walker said. “But he works in his home. He doesn’t need a laboratory, just paper, a blackboard, and books. His laboratory is in his head.”
    “Must get pretty crowded in there,” I tried.
    “He keeps it straight.”
    We turned off the main street onto one called Mercer. The houses were old, neat lawns, nothing fancy. We pulled up in front of 112 and parked. The two-story house was painted white, just like the other ones on the block, with a small veranda and green shutters. We got out. I looked up and down the street and followed Walker up the small walk past two big trees and five steps to the porch, holding the juice away from me just in case. Walker knocked. We waited. He knocked again and we could hear the sound of steps inside. Then the door opened and I recognized Albert Einstein. He was a little taller than I had expected, about my height. His long hair was in newspaper photographs. His mustache was dark with a few strands of grey. His shoulders were stooped slightly. He wore a limp grey sweater buttoned over a wrinkled shirt that had once been white. His pants were baggy and badly in need of pressing. He wore floppy brown leather slippers with clear cracks in the leather.
    “Professor Einstein,” Walker said, “this is Toby Peters.”
    Einstein’s droopy face smiled and he held out a hand. I put my suitcase down next to the door and reached out to shake his hand, but he grabbed the orange juice.
    “I half a colt,” Einstein said, which struck me as gibberish. I must have looked puzzled. “A colt,” he repeated. “In my head.” He pointed to his head and I figured out that he had a cold in his head. The combination of German accent and stuffed nose kept me alert through the rest of the conversation till I got used to both.
    “Come in please,” he said, clutching the juice bottle and stepping back to let me in. “Mark, you can go to the Institute. I call you there later.”
    “I don’t have to …” he began.
    Einstein touched his arm and nodded his head. “You did fine,” he said. “Fine, perfect. Mr. Peters and I must talk, and there are things I might have to say that it would be better for you if you didn’t hear and didn’t have to tell people later or lie about. You understand?”
    “Yes, of course,” said Walker, reluctant to leave and giving me a last look of suspicion. Einstein ushered him gently out the front door and closed it.
    “A good boy,” he said, “but …”
    “… no imagination,” I finished for him.
    Einstein nodded in agreement and shuffled down the small hallway, his slippers clopping as he went. We passed a broad set of stairs and turned into a room in the back of the house.
    “Theoretical science is all imagination,” Einstein said, closing the door to his study. “All in the mind, not in the laboratory. I work on pieces of paper, in my head,