Collected Short Fiction, page 43
“Don’t worry,” I told him, “I’m going to make sure.” I meant it. “Where do you intend to start?”
“With the only clue we have,” van Pelt said. “The remains of the puppet. We’ll let you know what we find out.”
Ceil was waiting for me outside the police monitor’s office. She was sitting in the driver’s seat of my flitter.
“How’d you find out so quick?” I asked.
“The monitor phoned Carl, and Carl phoned me. I took a taxi.”
I sat down in the seat beside her. She lifted the flitter into the air.
“I had them phone Carl,” I said. “I figured it would be better to have him tell Mara than for some cop to do it.”
“Want me to head for Mara’s?”
“We’d better, I suppose,” I said. I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat. “This is a stinking mess. It’s bad enough to have to face her with Vern dead—but murder! It’s inconceivable!”
“She deserves it,” said Ceil. “It’s her own fault for getting him into it. If she wasn’t such a tease, she’d—”
“She wasn’t flirting with this guy, get it? This wasn’t any kind of guy! This was a robot, deliberately operated by somebody who wanted to kill Vern.”
“Still, if Mara didn’t act the way she did, it might not have happened.”
“She wasn’t flirting this time,” I said. “I was watching.”
“She wasn’t? That’s the first time, then.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Ceil! My brother’s dead, and you keep raking up old bits of cattiness. Vern was deliberately murdered by someone who didn’t dare take his chances in a duel.”
“My apologies, gentle sir,” she said formally. I dropped the matter right there. We rode on silently for a while, as a few minutes later Ceil brought the flitter down on the landing where I’d picked up Vern at seven that morning. It seemed like days ago.
Carl’s flitter was already parked, and Ceil scooted into the space next to it.”
As she stepped out, I put my hand on her shoulder. “Ceil—”
“Yes?”
“Do me a favor? Will you be nice to Mara? At least be quiet.”
She tried to smile, but it came out as a lopsided, sardonic grin. “It’s a funny thing, but I’ve never said a word to Mara that wasn’t perfectly polite. And you know it. After all, I do carry this.” She patted her side-arm. “But now you warn me.”
“There’s no Vern around to challenge you,” I pointed out.
Her eyes grew cold. “I do not feel you are being gentle, Mr. Hughes. You know as well as I do that Vern wouldn’t have given a damn what I said about Mara. He wouldn’t have made himself look silly in a duel with me; he’d have dismissed it the way you did, as cattiness. I never worried about Vern.
“In the second place, Carl is down there now, and he respects my arms. If I were to wise off to Mara, he’d be forced to protect her. Carl’s not half as self-assured as Vern was.”
“My apologies, gentle lady,” I said. “I’m afraid I’m all mixed up. I’m not thinking straight.”
She put her hand on mine. “Neither of us is. That’s the second time we’ve come close to being at gunpoint in the last ten minutes.”
I nodded. “Come to think of it, we’d both better be on our toes when we get down there. They’re probably jumpier than you and I are.”
They were. Carl was pacing up and down the floor of the apartment, and about every third or fourth time he walked by the bar, he’d stop and pour another beer. He had let us in when the announcer identified us, and then dialed in orders that we were not to be disturbed.
Carl went across the room, filled his glass again, walked back to the middle of the room, and stopped. He looked at me.
“What do the police monitors say?”
“They’re looking. They’ll have to check into the puppet. They’ve got a lot to do.”
“Meanwhile,” he said, “what are you going to do?” His voice was accusing.
“There isn’t much I can do yet. I haven’t anything to work on. But I’m thinking about it. Remember, it’s an obligation of honor, aside from the fact that Vern was my brother, too. Where’s Mara?”
“In her bedroom,” he said, glancing at the door. “There is a psychomedic in there with her.” He looked back at me. “You’re his second. And his brother. You’ve got to find out who did it. If you don’t, I’ll go out looking for myself.”
I shook my head. “You’d end up in jail or dead. The cops don’t like unauthorized persons getting themselves in jams over police business. Leave it to me; I’ll find out who did it.” I wasn’t sure of that at all, but I had to say something authoritative to keep Carl from being foolish. He was about half tight.
“All right,” he said, “but remember: if you don’t get on the job, you’ll have me to answer to.”
“Sure, Carl, sure,” I said. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll find Vern’s murderer.”
He looked at me, and behind the drunkenness I knew he was clear-minded and angry. He drained the glass and slammed it to the floor. It bounced ringingly and rolled over into a corner. There was a long silence.
Finally, Carl said: “Who would do it, Denny? And why? And why couldn’t they have done it the right way? I could take it if Vern had died honorably—I always expected him to go that way sooner or later—but to be—to be murdered!” He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head.
“It’s horrible,” said a contralto voice. “It’s all ghastly, isn’t it?” It was Mara.
I turned around and looked at her. She was wearing a bedroom robe and her eyes were red-rimmed and sore, but the robe clung close and the red eyes somehow managed to give extra depth to her beauty. Still, I could tell she had taken Vern’s death hard.
“Hello, Mara,” I said. “How do you feel?”
“How do you think a brand-new widow should feel, Denny? I haven’t heard all the details yet. Is it definitely murder? And what’s this about a puppet?”
Evidently, the psychomedic had calmed her hysteria a bit.
Quickly, I filled her in on everything. She cried a little as I explained the details of Vern’s death.
“That’s monstrous,” she said. “Why would someone do a thing like that? Why couldn’t they kill him the fair way? That’s the way he would have wanted to die!” Her voice sounded angry.
“I know,” I said. “And I’m going to find the man who killed him.” I made it a promise.
It sounded noble and impressive, but after I left I stopped to consider that I had no leads whatsoever.
I took the flitter home. I dropped Ceil at her place, kissed her, and tried to smile when she wished me luck. I knew I’d have to get this murder business cleared up before Ceil and I could do anything about taking out a companionate agreement.
But where did I start?
Vernon had been killed by a puppet. Fine. The puppet had been operated by remote control; the man with whom Vernon had duelled had been sitting comfortably miles away, in no great danger as he fought. The killer was someone who didn’t have the guts to get out and risk his neck.
There weren’t more than three or four thousand suspects. Both Carl and I stood to inherit plenty from him. Anyone close to Vern could have done it. But it wasn’t me, and it couldn’t have been Carl, since he had been right there at the table when the challenge was made. He couldn’t have been operating the puppet.
What seemed most likely to me was that a relative of one of Vern’s numerous opponents had decided to get even. But which one? Where to start?
I reached for the phone and called Lieutenant van Pelt. His heavy-jawed face filled the screen.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Hughes.”
“Hello, Lieutenant. Any leads yet?”
“Possibly. How about you?”
“I’m considering the idea of investigating the relatives of Vern’s opponents,” I said. “But there are so damned many of them!”
“You’re telling me,” said van Pelt. “I’ve got the list right in front of me. So far, we’ve figured a hundred and sixty-two suspects, including anyone fast enough on the draw to be able to shoot Vernon Ledwick by way of puppet. It’s only fair to tell you that the list includes Carl Ledwick.”
“Carl? He didn’t kill Vern! He couldn’t. He was right there when the affront was made.”
“I didn’t say he did it, Mr. Hughes. I just said he was on the list. It’s a big list. You’re on it, too.”
“Me? Listen, van Pelt—”
“We haven’t made any formal accusations,” the lieutenant cut in, smiling. “We haven’t accused anyone. Don’t get insulted, please. I’d hate to have to fight duels with a hundred and sixty-two people. The only reason I told you was to show you that we’re giving the case careful consideration.”
“All right,” I said. “What else do you know?”
“We’ve got a lead for you to follow. We can’t touch it ourselves until we’re positive, but you can make a stab at it on what little we’ve got. Just don’t get yourself killed.”
“What is it?”
“The puppet. It was a secretly made job, of course. It’s illegal to imitate human beings. There aren’t any identifying marks on it at all. But, from a detailed study of the internal construction, we’re pretty sure that it was made by either General Robotics or Fedderman Remote Control. We have no proof, but if you want to try it, that’s your business.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Good luck,” he said, and cut off.
So they suspected me, eh? I didn’t like even the vague idea of it, but it showed that they were on their toes. Of course, I knew they damn well weren’t going to solve that crime. Oh, no. It was all up to me.
I knew the police record on murders; about four out of a hundred. The police are like anyone else; they can only back up their authority with guns. And accusing a man of murder is an insult worthy of a challenge. The cops don’t accuse anyone until they have absolute proof that they know will hold up in court.
I didn’t envy them their job. They had to probe too deeply for clues. They had to find out things which weren’t gentle to find out. Trouble was, they rarely did so.
So I had to do it all myself. Van Pelt and his crew did the best they could, but the best isn’t very much.
I thought over what van Pelt had said about the puppet. Either General Robotics or Fedderman. He was playing it cagey. He knew that GR didn’t do that kind of work; GR was too big. It could only be a little outfit like Fedderman. But van Pelt hadn’t been silly enough to say so, even to me.
When Fedderman opened Monday morning, I was going to be there. Asking lots of questions.
Fedderman was a little fellow with great scraggly eyebrows and a twisted bit of a smile. He was wearing a shabby lab smock and was busy over some schematics when his assistant let me into his office.
He looked up at me with his twisted smile. “Yes, please?”
“I’m thinking of buying a puppet,” I said. “I’d like to see what you have on hand. I have a special job in mind, but I’d like to take a look at your control systems before I commit myself.”
He stood up and wiped his palms on his smock. “Ah, yes. Did you have something of a precision nature in mind?”
“Yes,” I said. “Very precision stuff.”
“Come,” he said, beckoning to me and his assistant.
I followed him into a back room which had obviously been set up for demonstration purposes. On one side was a desk-high box from which protruded the head, shoulders, and arms of a shiny, chromium-plated robot. On the other side were the operating controls. Between the two lay a cable the size of my wrist.
He led me over to the control panel and said: “Sit down, sir. Let me help you with the control adjustments.”
A helmet went down over my eyes, and my hands went into a pair of metallic gloves.
The assistant adjusted them carefully.
“Now, I will turn it on,” said Fedderman. There was a click, and suddenly I could see again. But now I was looking out through the eyes of the robot across the room.
“Wiggle your fingers,” Fedderman said. “Move your hands.”
I did so, and I had the eerie sensation of watching the metal arms in front of my eyes move the same way. It was as though I were actually in the robot.
“Now here is a nice feature,” the little man went on. He removed the helmet from my head. “If there are a set of motions which must be done time after time, without variation, the puppet has a recording apparatus.”
He pushed another switch. “Now, move your hands. Do something. That’s it. Now watch.” He moved the switch in the other direction. The hands on the shiny robot across the room moved just as I had moved my hands.
“Your motions are recorded on tape,” explained Fedderman, “and can be replayed back at any time.”
I pulled my hands out of the metal gloves. “That’s very good,” I said, “but I want something a little more complicated.”
His eyes brightened under the scraggly brows. “Of course, sir. Naturally, the price would be higher, but in precision work . . .” His voice trailed off as he spread his hands. “What sort of machine did you have in mind?”
“Well,” I began, “in the first place, I want one without cables; remote control. And I want a complete mannikin—”
I went on and described Jason Blade, right down to the polish on his fingernails. And as I talked, Fedderman’s smile faded slowly into nothingness. But, oddly enough, the smile seemed to have been transferred to his assistant, who beamed and nodded brightly.
“That’s very similar to the one we did last week,” said the assistant helpfully.
Fedderman flashed him a look of pure hatred. “The boy’s mistaken,” he said. “We don’t do jobs of that sort. He’s thinking of a display dummy we did for Gimbel-Macy’s.”
If it weren’t for the clever boy standing there looking as though he had just eaten a canary and then found it was poisoned, I’d have left and tried General Robotics. But I knew who’d turned out Jason Blade now.
I frowned and persisted. “It seems to me it could be done,” I said.
“We don’t do that sort of thing, Mr.—” He paused.
“Hughes,” I said quietly. “Dennis Hughes. Vernon Ledwick was my brother.”
He looked a little startled. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Please accept my sympathies. A terrible tragedy.”
I thought it over. Fedderman didn’t look like much of a gunfighter, but I didn’t care to get involved in more trouble by giving him offense. After struggling for the proper phrasing for a moment, I said: “Begging your pardon, gentle sir, but my brother’s death places a heavy obligation on me. I feel that there might be some possible lead I could obtain here—not implying any complicity on your part, of course,” I added cautiously.
Fedderman scowled, but he looked uneasy, and I knew I had him. He was afraid I might challenge him if he didn’t come across, now that his hand had been tipped. I pressed my advantage.
“If it wouldn’t inconvenience you,” I said politely, “would it be possible for me to examine your records of recent weeks?”
His scowl became blacker, but he said: “Look, Mr. Hughes—just keep my name out of this and I’ll tell you what you want to know. But keep my name out of this, will you?”
“Of course,” I said. “What do you know about the puppet Jason Blade?”
“Fetch me my file book,” he told the assistant. “And get that Ledwick letter out of recent correspondence.” The assistant brought the book. Fedderman examined it for a moment, then looked up at me. “The Jason Blade puppet was built and delivered last week—no, check that. We built it last week, but it was delivered Friday.” Friday. The challenge had been made Saturday, and Vern had been murdered Sunday morning. It was now Monday.
I squinted at Fedderman. “Can you tell me who ordered the puppet? I mean, if it’s not a breach of personal ethics—”
“This should amuse you,” Fedderman said. “The puppet was ordered by your brother. Vernon Ledwick.”
It took me a second or two to react, and a couple more to recover from my double take. Vernon had ordered the damned thing?
“Here’s the proof,” said Fedderman. He handed me a letter.
It was neatly typed on Vern’s stationery, with either Vern’s signature or a damned good electronic duplication thereof at the bottom. I read it.
It was an order for a puppet, the specifications roughly matching the appearance of Jason Blade. Vern had said he wanted the puppet “for a prank” he planned to play on us. He enclosed a check to cover costs. It was to be delivered at his office Friday.
I looked at the letter, then at Fedderman. He didn’t seem happy, but it looked like he hadn’t been lying to me. I read the letter again, and then a third time.
“I’m afraid this is all the time I can spare, Mr. Hughes. And—I do hope this will be the last I hear of this unpleasant affair.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. I thanked him and left.
Out in the street, I thought about the letter some more. It was all completely crazy; it didn’t make one little bit of sense.
Vern had ordered the puppet? Hell, no. Despite the stationery, despite the signature, despite everything, I couldn’t believe that. Perhaps I could accept the fact that it was an elaborate stunt had it ended Saturday night, but then there had been the sequel Sunday morning. Could it have been a prank that had gone wrong? I doubted it. Vern wasn’t much of a jokester, nor did he seem like the kind who’d conceive such an elaborate method of suicide.
No. Fedderman hadn’t been lying when he showed me the letter. But Vernon Ledwick hadn’t written it.
I caught a flitter and headed downtown to Vern’s office. Fedderman had said the puppet had been delivered there, Friday. That was phony too. Vern had been off on a business trip Friday, and his one-man office had been closed.
