Mick smiled before asserting, "Oh, most assuredly, sir. Clint is the CEO of . . ."
"Of what?"
"Why, of his own life, sir. Mr. Indigence is perhaps the last of his kind, a man who freely thinks for himself and acts accordingly."
"Fortunately, I am not the last," Clint contradicted, turning from King's comparatively low view on the world and striding back around the desk to stare down on King. "Young Loneshark here is also such a man."
"Evidently," King conceded, "since he has succeeded in walking you through top security to appear here without an appointment."
"Evidently not," Mick quipped.
"Not what?" King demanded.
"Top."
King frowned. "Captain Middleman wasn't supposed to reveal – "
"He didn't!" Loneshark cut across King's complaint, an action that had never been braved in the bank. "Jim doesn't even know I'm in Chicago."
"So you deduced that I ordered this assignment for you?"
"Immediately."
"Then your intuition is as keen as your captain claimed."
"When Jim suggested I accept this assignment, he was able to provide me with copies of classified documents and a cover as one of your bank's security guards. I instantly inferred that only King Midas would have the means to make those feats possible."
"Excellent!" King cried.
"Elementary," Mick murmured, correctly quoting fiction's most intuitive detective.
"Very well, Mr. Loneshark, you have impressed me with your acuity, but I've had quite enough of this frivolity. Now! Have you accomplished your mission?"
"Two pieces are still missing from the jigsaw puzzle, but I'm quite sure I know what its picture shows."
"And that is?" Midas leaned forward as he asked the all-important question that had consumed his thoughts for the past year.
"May I suggest that you send for your public relations director? Since he will be the one to paint the picture I'm about to describe to the world, I see no need in his hearing that description second hand." King sternly frowned at the delay but then relented, deciding the detective's suggestion was reasonable. Midas keyed the intercom and instructed Miss Heelclicker to summon Dr. Barker. The three men waited in silence.
Slightly panting from the exertion, Brad entered. "You wanted to see me, sir?"
"Yes, Doctor, I have two gentlemen I'd like you to meet."
