Smart Moves Read Free Page A

and others look through microscopes and telescopes to see if there is anything to see that will prove or disprove what I imagine. But the proof is in the elimination of alternatives. If a thing must be, then it is. If there is order in the universe, then its actions can be discovered, though the meaning may never be.”
    “I wouldn’t know,” I said, looking around. “I’ve been a detective most of my life.”
    “So have I,” he said with a horselaugh. “You’d like some orange juice? Some coffee? I can have one cup of real coffee each morning. I have waited for you.”
    “Coffee is fine. No orange juice. I already had some.”
    He nodded again and clopped out of the room. There was one big window covering most of the back wall. Outside I could see a good-sized garden and some big trees. The room itself was cluttered. The side walls had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The books looked as if most of them were in German or French. I was standing in front of a big, solid dark wood table covered with pencils, pads, notes, letters, pipes, and books. A desk by the window looked a little neater, but not much.
    On the open wall behind me where the door was, I saw some photographs and went over to take a look. I recognized Gandhi but the other two greying guys in suits were a mystery. Einstein solved the mystery while I was trying to read a framed diploma next to one of the pictures.
    “That,” he said, handing me a white porcelain mug of coffee, “is my honorary membership in Berner Naturforschenden Gesellschaft.”
    “Right,” I said. “And these guys?”
    “The one with the collar is James Maxwell, a Scottish mathematician and physicist. And next to him,” Einstein said, pausing for a sip of coffee, “is Michael Faraday. You know, of course, who he is.”
    “No,” I admitted. “But I know who you are.”
    “Maybe,” he said, motioning me to a chair and taking a seat himself in a wooden chair with arms. We faced each other, politely drinking coffee.
    “Did Dr. Walker explain to you anything?”
    “Someone says you’re passing scientific secrets to the Russians,” I said, finishing my coffee and putting down the mug.
    “Small pleasures,” sighed Einstein, looking into his now empty cup. “We are tied to our fragile bodies. A simple cold takes away the sense of taste, the pleasure in a cup of coffee, a single morning cigar and with that pleasure gone one becomes irritable, thought is interrupted. I have a housekeeper every morning for an hour. My wife died six, seven years ago. Little things, needed things, are a sign of time. Food, which I enjoy, cleaning clothes, but that you understand. You are almost as indifferent to clothing as I am.”
    I nodded and said nothing. The great man was stalling. He looked up from his cup and smiled.
    “Yes,” he said. “You are right. We must get to the point. You were recommended to me by a friend who said you were reliable, determined, and discreet. This friend had a problem with a missing animal. You understand?”
    I understood. About a year earlier I had done a small job for Eleanor Roosevelt when the president’s dog looked like it might be dognapped.
    “There are things I can tell you,” he said softly. “Things I cannot tell. I am involved with a secret project for the United States Navy, that I can tell you. There are other things, things which have to do with winning this war, things perhaps too terrible to consider. I can see by your face that you do not understand.
    “I don’t have to understand,” I said. “I’m here. You know my fee.”
    “The Federal Bureau of Investigation is, I understand, conducting this investigation of …” He raised his arms, groping for the English word.
    “Allegations, charges,” I supplied.
    “Yes. I cannot supply the Federal Bureau of Investigation with complete information. My citizenship might be affected by things in my past and present, my connection to the cause of Zionism is not always popular and my German