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"She's pretty nice."

"Nice, hell, she's gorgeous. But how do you know she's not shacked with Fred Keller?"

"I don't think so," said Jeff, but at the same time he suspected this might be true. In a city where most of the women seemed as gray and sexless as sheets of mimeograph paper, it wasn't likely Susan Pickett would be unattached.

He called her apartment at six that evening, and she said of course she remembered him, and wondered why he'd asked for her telephone number if he didn't intend using it. He asked whether she'd like to go out that night, and told her of the letter from the Department. She said that was very exciting, and she would like to go out, and should she wear a long dress. He said not to bother, and he'd be around at eight.

The apartment was a Washington two-and-a-half, a bedroom, living room with alcove, and compact kitchen. She poked her head out of the bedroom, and said she'd be a minute, and he prowled around outside. It didn't look like a woman's apartment. There were too many bookcases, and they were not lined with women's books. There were too many utilitarian ash trays. The bar in the alcove was solid masculine teak. There was a man's photograph on an end table. It was not Fred Keller, but a Marine Corps colonel in his forties, or older.