Free A Shroud for Jesso by Peter Rabe

done the printing.
    “You don’t seem impressed, Jesso.” Kator turned the sheet so Jesso could see the figures. “Do these mean anything to you?”
    Jesso didn’t hesitate. “No, Baron. Do they to you?”
    “No.” Kator turned the sheet around again and started to tap on the figures with one small finger. The gesture looked idle and indifferent. “These are production figures, Jesso. They constitute the weekly output of two integral parts belonging to a certain bomb. The bomb is being made in the United States. A most important new bomb.”
    “Important to whom?”
    “To the highest bidder, Jesso.”
    “I thought the figures didn’t mean a thing to you.”
    “I haven’t finished. I said two parts are mentioned here. One is the trigger mechanism of the warhead; the other is the warhead housing.”
    “You’re over my head, Kator. What about the bomb?”
    “Yes. What about the bomb?” Kator poured himself a cup of coffee. It was barely lukewarm. “Let’s say I told you how many warhead housings were being produced, a lot of five hundred, and one bomb requires one such housing. Can you tell me how many bombs are being readied?”
    “Five hundred.”
    “No, Jesso, because the same housing is being used for a much more ordinary bomb. Five hundred housings could mean five hundred bombs of either kind, or none of one, or none of the other, or half and half. The figures for the housing mean nothing, Jesso. They leave a margin of guessing for which I cannot expect to collect a cent.”
    “So it’s the trigger mechanism you got to know about.”
    “Precisely. Five hundred trigger mechanisms mean five hundred bombs, plus or minus ten per cent. In other words, dear Jesso, a salable guess with half a dozen eager takers.”
    The flimsy piece of onionskin started to look gilt-edged. Jesso chewed his dry lips and waited, but Kator wasn’t saying any more. Perhaps he thought that Jesso knew enough, should know enough to say the next thing, whatever that might be. The onionskin looked just like paper again, and Jesso racked his brain, trying to spot the next right move.
    “Shall I go on?” Kator asked.
    “With what? If you know all that, Baron, what do you want from me?” It sounded brash, ignorant, and maybe Kator would think that Jesso was just hedging.
    Kator started tapping the paper again and didn’t raise his eyes. “One column on production of the housing, one column on production of the trigger part. Which is which, Jesso? Or which parts of the two columns go together?”
    This time neither of them spoke for minutes. Only the idle tapping of the finger, a gentle, padded sound. After a while Kator began to crook his finger until he struck the paper with his nail. It sounded hard, nervous.
    “Which is which, Jesso?”
    “Stop scratching, damn it! I’m trying to think.”
    Jesso jumped up and paced the cabin. “He mentioned figures. He kept rattling figures as if they were football scores.” Jesso paced, frowning, making a heavy play for just the right expression. Kator had to think that he was sifting information, that he was hard at work to find the clue in Snell’s jumbled talk. “It thought they were football scores, the way he put it. Rose Bowl, you know, and then he’d jabber on and on about this high-school game.” Jesso stopped, frowning. Better not bring in what Snell really said. He might have been saying a million-dollar word, the key that made the onionskin legal tender.
    Kator was watching. Make up something, Jesso, make it busy and fever-crazy “It was just figures over and over. Christ, Kator, gimme a clue. Don’t just sit there.”
    “Of course, of course.” Kator sounded soothing. “These places—Rose Bowl and so on. What other places did he mention?”
    That high-school place…. What was the name? He couldn’t think of it, but that was all right. He wasn’t going to repeat anything Snell had said, anyway
    “He mentioned some town, but damned if I can remember the name of