John's Other Practice
uncomfortably remindful of the latest in electronic calculators which were rapidly gaining the reputation of being, "man's other brain."

"Tell me, Miss—"

"Doctor Calicoo," she prompted me pleasantly, as she slipped the tiny test prods of a miniature meter into the machine's mercenary heart.

"Tell me, Dr. Calicoo, how may I get in touch with the supplier of this equipment?"

She handed me a card and with it a slightly interested look that dropped my stability quotient at least three points.

The card was less interesting than the expression in her provocative blue eyes. I broke down and asked, "Doctor of what?"

"Philosophy. Electronics and Mathematics. You don't run a hotel," she said shrewdly.

"Make a liar out of Mr. Dennithy if you choose," I told her, "but would you be kind enough to take me to," I glanced at the card, "to Dr. John Cunningham?"

"I'll take you," she nodded, then her voice hardened a little, "but if you are just a snooper or a patent-jumper it will be no favor."

She invited candor, so she got it. I showed her my badge. Her mouth pulled into a startled little "o," like an oversized, pitted cherry.

We left Dennithy clinking quarters, trying to determine how he might figure into a possible scandal. In the elevator to the basement garage I commented acidly, "You must have known this was inevitable, of course?"

"To the contrary," she parried, "I had a notion that a genuine M.P. sleuth would be ninety-two years old and wear a white coat with a stethoscope in his side pocket. You seem to have youth and a rather charming virility, Doctor."

"Cut the flattery," I said. "Let's find your car."

The address was over in New Brooklyn. She slipped the light blue sedan into the proper cross-town tunnel entrance, adjusted the automatics and turned upon me suddenly. The dim reflection of the headlights from the dull-painted walls of the one-way tunnel gave her face a ghostly loveliness. I had just become sharply aware of this phenomenon, when she brushed a light, experimental kiss across my lips.

Volume II, of Dr. Bankawaya's "Twenty-First Century Emotional Reactions to the Love Stimulus" notwithstanding, my socially-adjusted, medically-trained 
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