Free Assignment - Quayle Question by Edward S. Aarons

banks. Maybe not even Rufus.”
    “You refer to your father by his given name?”
    “I think of him like that.”
    “And you have not seen Rufus Quayle for how long?” “Months and months. Maybe a year.”
    “And where is he now?”
    “I’ve told you. I don’t know.”
    “My dear Miss Quayle. Do you realize how much I have stretched the limits of my patience?”
    “You stretch mine, too.”
    “It is said here and there, in the media and in the international business, financial, and industrial circles, that of all the thousands of members of the Q.P.I. complex, you, his daughter, and you alone, always know where Rufus Quayle may be reached. You, and you alone, always know where he is.”
    “Are you after my father? Is that your real aim?”
    “Please respond to my question.”
    “It’s not true. I used to know, always, where to reach him. Rather, it was the reverse. He always knew where to reach me. When he needed me.”
    “For your—ah—instincts? Your talent?”
    “My talent is like ashes in my mouth.”
    “You are a brilliant woman, Miss Quayle. Do you not agree?”
    “I’m a freak.”
    “Because of your abilities to remember, to collate, to integrate, to see relationships between diverse items of data that no one else, and no computer, can see?”
    “That’s my talent, yes.” “And you have lied a third time. You do know where Rufus Quayle may be reached.”
    “No.”
    “You defend him and his privacy, even at the risk of your own life? Do you do that?”
    “I told you—”
    “Has Rufus Quayle ever shown you the slightest hint of affection?”
    “No.”
    “Or paternal love?”
    “No.”
    “Yet you love him?”
    “He’s my father.”
    “Answer me, please. You love him?”
    “Yes ”
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know. I shouldn’t. He hasn’t ever been a real father to me. But I love him.”
    “And so you are loyal to him?”
    “Yes.”
    “Out of love? Not fear?”
    “Perhaps a bit of both.”
    “And where is he, Miss Quayle?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “And what did Martin want you to solve?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “My patience, for now, has come to an end.”
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    The small dancer type, the man who had bowed to her with that odd, mocking Oriental gesture, was the leader. She never had a chance to see what they had done to Martin. She was blindfolded, with such swiftness and dazzling efficiency that there was no opportunity, absolutely none, to struggle again. They had led her out the back door of the apartment and down to Park Avenue, onto the ramp that led to the underground garage below the building, and from there she had been pushed into a waiting car. She tried to listen to their voices, to tape them in her mind so she could identify them later; but they rarely spoke, and their orderly plan proceeded smoothly without any need for them to direct each other.
    They did not take Martin with her, and she wondered about that, and then realized that one of the original trio was missing, not in the smoothly driven car. So Martin was with the absent third man. She felt an ache of worry in the pit of her stomach. She felt outrage and anger at being the victim of what was obviously a kidnapping. She felt violated. A number of possibilities rippled through her mind. It could be just a criminal kidnapping for ransom. If so, they were fools, she thought bitterly. Rufus would never pay a cent for her. That was the way he was. Proud and indomitable, stubborn and unyielding, whether it was a commercial deal or a personal matter. (But she knew little about her father’s personal life.) Rufus Quayle was too ruthless in his own right ever to yield to a simple criminal ploy like this.
    Perhaps it was something else. A matter of industrial espionage? Yes, that could be it, she thought. If so, then Q.P.I. would get her free. The conglomerates within conglomerates that represented the empire of Rufus Quayle,