Montaro Caine A Novel - By Sidney Poitier Page 0,18

Borceau said directly to Colette. “I am Michen Borceau, Director of Research.” He looked from Freich to Colette. Though he was aware that Caine was waiting for him to depart, he was a man who had difficulty containing his appetites, and he could barely keep his eyes off the confident young woman in their midst.

“Thank you,” said Colette, all too aware of Borceau’s gaze.

As Beekman and Freich introduced themselves to Borceau, Caine addressed himself somewhat brusquely to Gina Lao, a woman whom he knew Borceau had hired more for her looks than for her efficiency or her trustworthiness. Caine had never openly questioned Borceau’s decision to hire Gina, but he had thought many times that the lab could be run more efficiently if Borceau had hired someone more like his own reliable, but far from glamorous secretary, Nancy MacDonald.

“Gina,” Caine said, “I don’t want to be disturbed under any circumstances. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, sir,” Gina replied. She prepared to leave, though her boss was making no move to do so.

“Well, I do hope you enjoy your visit with us,” Borceau said awkwardly, still staring at Colette.

“Coffee, anyone?” asked Gina Lao, attempting to break the contact with Colette that Borceau had locked himself into. “Ms. Beekman?”

“No, I’ve had mine,” Colette said. She finally turned away from Borceau.

“If you change your mind, buzz me,” Gina added as she exited.

A long pause swelled before Borceau reluctantly turned from Colette, looked at Montaro, smiled at Freich, then followed his secretary out, closing the door behind him.

Colette laid her briefcase on Borceau’s desk, opened it, reached in among its well-ordered contents, removed a folded dark velvet cloth, then turned to face Caine. After a moment’s hesitation, she handed the packet to him. Caine felt a small box wrapped inside the soft material. Beekman and Freich seated themselves in the chairs before Borceau’s desk and focused their attention on Caine, who moved behind the desk.

Caine sat and unfolded the cloth to reveal a small gray jeweler’s box. He opened the box slowly. When he saw the contents of the box, his disappointment was instant, yet so was his confusion. Still, he tried not to reveal the slightest reaction. Yes, the object looked similar to the one he remembered—same size, same color—but the configuration of dots upon its face was not quite the same. He wondered if Freich and Beekman knew that the object was different from the one that he had analyzed at M.I.T.

Caine removed the coin from the box. He held it up for a long, close look at its face before turning the smooth, flat, reverse side upward toward the light. Had they brought him a fake?

“Well, let’s go to the lab,” he said, knowing that the spectrometer’s results would say all that needed to be said.

In the wonderfully musty laboratory, Montaro attempted to couch his apprehensions by preparing the coin for its compositional analysis. As he gently polished the coin, he described to Freich and Colette the workings of the spectrometer, which resembled a hefty old-fashioned office Xerox machine, and he offered a rudimentary explanation of the sort of wavelength readings that the spectrometer would provide. He explained that though this form of analysis had been around since World War II, it remained the most reliable and, further, it would do the least amount of damage to the object. He continued his lecture, knowing that Freich and Colette would stay with him for however long the procedure would last, and that they would not let him or the coin out of their sight. He disliked the arrangement, but it was the one he had agreed to. So, with his guests watching his every move, he fired up the machine and waited.

As the results of the analysis began to reveal themselves, Montaro was surprised and increasingly heartened to discover that this object’s toughness and resilience to heat were of the same remarkable level as that of the original coin. Throughout the workup, he remained careful to conceal his growing elation. What was the history of the coin, he wondered, and what was its connection to the other object he had once held? But no matter how many times his clients asked him and no matter how many times he analyzed, reanalyzed, checked and re-checked, he was not yet ready to tell his clients what the spectrometer was telling him. Yes, he had found elements that were not only unknown, but ones that he was fairly certain were not even contained in the makeup