"Fair enough. Although I may beat you to death with your own sophistries."
"Beating her husband to death is every married woman's privilege... as long as she does it in private. Please pipe down, dear; I've got troubles. Can you think of any good reason why Tolliver should be killed?"
"Ron Tolliver? No. Although I can't think of any good reason why he should be allowed to live, either. He's a boor."
"He's that, all right. If he were not one of the Company partners, he would have been told to pick up his return ticket and leave, long ago. But I didn't say 'Ron Tolliver,' I just said Tolliver.'"
"Is there more than one? I hope not."
"We'll see." I went to the terminal, punched for directory, cycled to "T."
"'Ronson H. Tolliver, Ronson Q.'-that's his son-and here's his wife, 'Stella M. Tolliver.' Hey! It says here: 'See also Taliaferro.'"
"That's the original spelling," said Gwen. "But it's pronounced 'Tolliver' just the same."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure. At least south of the Mason and Dixon Line back dirtside. Spelling it 'Tolliver' suggests poh white trash who can't spell. Spelling it the long way and then sounding all the letters sounds like a Johnny-come-lately damyankee whose former name might have been 'Lipschitz' or such. The authentic plantation-owning, nigger-whupping, wench-humping aristocrat spelled it the long way and pronounced it the short way."
"I'm sorry you told me that."
"Why, dear?"
"Because there are three men and one woman listed here who spell it the long way, Taliaferro. I don't know any of them. So I don't know which one to kill."
"Do you have to kill one of them?"
"I don't know. Mmm, time I brought you up to date. If you are planning to stay married to me at least fourteen days. Are you?"
"Of course I am! Fourteen days plus the rest of my life! And you are a male chauvinist pig!"
"Paid-up lifetime membership."
"And a tease."
"I think you're cute, too. Want to go back to bed?"
"Not until you decide whom you intend to kill."
"That may take a while." I did my best to give Gwen a detailed, factual, uncolored account of my short acquaintance with the man who had used the name "Schultz." "And that's all I know. He was dead too quickly for me to leam more. Leaving behind him endless questions."
I turned back to the terminal, keyed it to shift to wordpro-cessing mode, then created a new file, as if I were setting up a potboiler:
THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSPELLED NAME Questions To Be Answered:
1. Tolliver or Taliaferro?
2. Why does T. have to die?
3. Why would "we all be dead" if T. is not dead by noon Sunday?
4. Who is this corpse who called himself "Schultz"?
5. Why am I the logical hatchet man for T.?
6. Is this killing necessary?
7. Which one of the Walker Evans Memorial Society sicked this thumb-fingered bubblehead on me? And why?
8. Who killed "Schultz"? And why?
9. Why did the staff of Rainbow's End move in and cover up the killing?
10. (Omnibus) Why did Gwen leave before I did and why did she come here instead of going home and how did she get in?
"Do we take them in order?" asked Gwen. "Number ten is the only one I can ansv'er."
"That one I just chucked in," I answered. "Of the first nine I think that, if I find answers to any three, I could then deduce the rest." I went on putting words up on the screen:
POSSIBLE ACTIONS "When in Danger or in Doubt. Run in Circles. Scream and Shout."
"Does that help?" asked Gwen.
"Every time! Ask any old military man. Now let's take it one question at a time":
Q. 1-Phone each Taliaferro in the directory. Learn preferred pronunciation of name. Strike out any who use the every-letter pronunciation.
Q. 2-Dig into background of whoever is left. Start with the Herald back files.
Q. 3-While checking Q2, keep ears spread for anything scheduled or expected for noon Sunday.
Q. 4-If you were a corpse arriving at Golden Rule space habitat and you wanted to conceal your identity but had to be able to get at your passport and other documents for departure, where would you stash them? Hint: Check when this cadaver arrived in Golden Rule. Then check hotels, lockers, deposit box services, poste restante, etc.
Q. 5-postpone
Q. 6-postpone
Q. 7-Reach by phone as many of the "Walker Evans" oath group as possible. Keep going till one spills. Note: Some jelly brain may have talked too much without knowing it.
Q. 8-Morris, or the maitre d', or the busman, or all of them, or any two, knows who killed Schultz. One or more of them expected it. So we look for each one's weak point- liquor, drugs, money, sex (comme ci ou comme ga)-and what was your name back dirtside, chum? Any paper out on you somewhere? Find that soft spot. Push it. Do this with all three of them, then see how their stories check. Every closet has a skeleton. This is a natural law-so find it in each case.
Q. 9-Money (Conclusive assumption until proved false.)
(Query: How much is all this going to cost me? Can I afford it? Counter query: Can I afford not to pursue it?)
"I've been wondering about that," said Gwen. "When I poked my nose in, I thought you were in real trouble. But apparently you are home free. Why must you do anything, my husband?"
-I need to kill him."
"What? But you don't know which Tolliver is meant! Or why he should be dead. If he should be."
"No, no, not Tolliver. Although it may develop that Tolliver should be dead. No, dear, the man who killed Schultz. I must find him and kill him."
"Oh. Uh, I can see that he should be dead; he's a murderer. But why must you do it? Both are strangers to you-both the victim and whoever killed him. Actually it's not your business. Is it?"
"It is my business. Schultz or whatever his name is was killed while he was a guest at my table. That's intolerably rude. I won't put up with it. Gwen my love, if one tolerates bad manners, they grow worse. Our pleasant habitat could decay into the sort of slum Ell-Five is, with crowding and unmannerly behavior and unnecessary noise and impolite language. I must find the oaf who did this thing, explain to him his offense, give him a chance to apologize, and kill him."
III
'One should forgive one*s enemies, but not before they are hanged.**
HEINRICH HEINE 1797-1856
My lovely bride stared at me. "You would kill a man? For bad manners?"
"Do you know of a better reason? Would you have me ignore rude behavior?"
"No but- I can understand executing a man for murder;
I'm not opposed to capital punishment. But shouldn't you leave this to the proctors and the management? Why must you take the law into your own hands?"
"Gwen, I haven't made myself clear. My purpose is not to punish but to weed... plus the esthetic satisfaction of retaliation for boorish behavior. This unknown killer may have had excellent reasons for killing the person who called himself Schultz... but killing in the presence of people who're eating is as offensive as public quarreling by married couples. Then this oaf capped his offense by doing this while his victim was
my guest... which made retaliation both my obligation and my privilege."
I went on, "The putative offense of murder is not my concern. But as for proctors and the management taking care of that matter, do you know of any regulation forbidding murder?"
"What? Richard, there must be one."
"I've never heard of one. I suppose the Manager might construe murder as a violation of the Golden Rule-"
"Well, I would certainly think so!"
"You do? I'm never certain what the Manager will think. But, Gwen my darling, killing is not necessarily murder. In fact it often is not. If this killing ever comes to the Manager's attention, he may decide that it was justifiable homicide. An offense against manners but not against morals.
"But-" I continued, turn
ing back to the terminal, "-the Manager may already have settled the matter, so let's see what the Herald has to say about it." I punched up the newspaper again, this time keying for today's index, then selecting today's vital statistics.
The first item to roll past was "Marriage-Ames-Novak" so I stopped it, punched for amplification, keyed for printout, tore it off and handed it to my bride. "Send that to your grandchildren to prove that Granny is no longer living in sin."
"Thank you, darling. You're so gallant. I think."
"I can cook, too." I scrolled on down to the obituaries. I usually read the obituaries first as there is always the happy chance that one of them will make my day.
But not today. No name I recognized. Especially no "Schultz." No unidentified stranger. No death "in a popular restaurant." Nothing but the usual sad list of strangers dead from natural causes and one by accident. So I keyed for general news of the habitat, let it scroll past.
Nothing. Oh, there were endless items of routine events, from ships' arrivals and departures to (the biggest news) an announcement that the newest addition, rings 130-140, was being brought up to spin and, if all went by schedule, would be warped in and its welding to the main cylinder started by 0800 on the sixth.
But there was nothing about "Schultz," no mention of any Tolliver or Taliaferro, no unidentified cadaver. I consulted the paper's index again, punched for next Sunday's schedule of events, found that the only thing scheduled for noon Sunday was a panel discussion assembled by holo from The Hague, Tokyo, Luna City, Ell-Four, Golden Rule, Tel Aviv, and Agra: "Crisis in Faith: The Modem World at the Crossroads." The co-moderators were the president of the Humanist Society and the Dalai Lama. I wished them luck.
"So far we have zip, zero, nit, swabo, and nothing. Gwen, what is a polite way for me to ask strangers how they pronounce their names?"
"Let me try it, dear. I'll say, 'Miz Tollivuh, this is Gloria Meade Calhoun f'om Savannah. Do you have a cousin, Stacey Mac, f'om Chahlston?' When she corrects my pronunciation of her name, I apologize and switch off. But if she-or he- accepts the short form but denies knowing Stacey Mac, I say, 'I wonduhed about that. She said it, Talley-ah-pharoh... but I knew that was wrong.' What then, Richard? Work it up into a date or switch off by 'accident'?"
"Make a date, if possible."
"A date for you? Or for me?"
"For you, and then I'll go with you. Or keep the date in your place. But I must first buy a hat."
"A hat?"
"One of those funny boxes you sit on the flat part of your head. Or would if you were dirtside."
"I know what a hat is! But I was born dirtside same as you were. But I doubt if a hat has ever been seen off Earth. Where would you buy one?"
"I don't know, best girl, but I can tell you why I need one. So that I can tip my hat politely and say, 'Sir or madam, pray tell me why someone wishes you dead by noon Sunday.' Gwen, this has been worrying me-how to open such a discussion. There are accepted polite modes for almost any inquiry, from proposing adultery to a previously chaste wife to soliciting a bribe. But how does one open this subject?"
"Can't you just say, 'Don't look now but somebody's trying to kill you'?"
"No, that's the wrong order. I'm not trying to warn this bloke that someone is gunning for him; I'm trying to find out why. When I know why I might approve so heartily that I would just sit back and enjoy it... or even be so inspired by the purpose that I would carry out the intent of the late Mr. Schultz as a service to mankind.
"Contrariwise, I might disagree so bitterly that I would enlist for the duration, volunteer my life and my services to the sacred cause of keeping this assassination from happening. Unlikely if the intended target is Ron Tolliver. But it's too early to choose sides; I need to understand what is going on. Gwen my love, in the killing business one should never kill first and ask questions afterwards. That tends to annoy people."
I turned back to the terminal, stared at it without touching a key. "Gwen, before we make any local calls I think I should place six time-delay calls, one to each of the Friends of Walker Evans. That's my basic clue anyhow, that Schultz could mention that name. Some one of that six gave him that name... and that one should know why Schultz was in such a sweat."
"'Time delay'? Are they all out-far?"
"I don't know. One is probably on Mars, two others may be in the Belt. Could even be one or two dirtside but, if so, under phony names just as I am. Gwen, the debacle that caused me to give up the merry profession of arms and caused six of my comrades to wind up as my blood brothers... well, it smelled nasty to the public. I could say that media reporters who didn't see it happen could not possibly understand why it happened. I could assert truthfully that what we did was moral in context-that time, that place, those circumstances. I could- Never mind, dear; let it stand that my band of brothers are all in hiding. Tracing them all down could be a tediously long chore."
"But you want to talk to just one, don't you? The one who was in touch with this Schultz."
"Yes but I don't know which one that is."
"Richard, would it be easier to backtrack Schultz to find that one than it would be to locate six people all in hiding, some under assumed names, and scattered all over the Solar System? Or even outside it."
I stopped to consider it. "Maybe. But how do I backtrack Schultz? Do you have an inspiration, my love?"
"No inspiration. But I do remember that, when I arrived here in Golden Rule, they asked me at the hub not only where I lived, and checked it against my passport, but also where I had come from that trip-and checked that against my visa stamps. Not just that I had come from Luna-almost everyone arrives here from Luna-but how I got to Luna. Weren't you asked that?"
"No. But I was carrying a Luna Free State passport showing mat I was bom in the Moon."
"I thought you were bom on Earth?"
"Gwen, Colin Campbell was bom dirtside. 'Richard Ames' was bom in Hong Kong Luna-it says here."
"Oh."
"But attempting to backtrack Schultz is indeed something I should try before I try to locate all six. If I knew that Schultz had never been out-far, I would look first close to home- Luna, and dirtside, and all habitats ballistically coupled to Terra or Luna. Not the Asteroid Belt. Or even on Mars."
"Richard? Suppose that the purpose is to- No, that's silly."
"What's silly, dear? Try it on me anyhow."
"Uh, suppose this-whatever it is-conspiracy, I suppose-isn't aimed at Ron Tolliver or any other Tolliver, but is aimed at you and your six friends, the 'Walker Evans' people. Could the purpose be to get you to take strong measures to get in touch with all the others? And thereby get you to lead them, whoever they are, to all seven of you? Could it be a vendetta? Could whatever happened cause a vendetta against all seven of you?"
I had a cold feeling at the pit of my stomach. "Yes, that could be. Although not, I think, in this case. As it would not explain why Schultz was killed."
"I said it was silly."
"Wait a moment. Was Schultz killed?"
"Why, we both saw it, Richard."
"Did we? I thought I saw it. But I admitted that it could have been faked. What I saw appeared to be death by explosive dart. But- Two simple props, Gwen. One makes a small dark spot appear on Schultz's shirt. The other is a small rubber bladder he holds in his cheek; it contains fake blood. At the right instant he bites the bladder; 'blood' comes out of his mouth. The rest is acting... including the strange behavior of Morris and other staff members. That 'dead' body has to be removed quickly... through that 'Employees Only' door... where he is given a clean shirt, then hustled out the service door."
"You think that is the way it happened?"
"Uh- No, damn it; I don't! Gwen, I've seen many deaths. This one happened as close to me as you are this minute. I don't think it was acting; I think I saw a man die." I fumed to myself. Could I be mistaken on such a basic point?
Of course I could be! I'm no supergenius gifted with psi powers; I could be wrong
as an eyewitness quite as easily as Gwen could be.
I sighed. "Gwen, I just don't know. It looked to me like death by explosive dart... but if the intention was to fake it and if it was well prepared, then of course it would look like that. A planned fakery does account for the swift cover-up. Otherwise the behavior of the staff of Rainbow's End is almost unbelievable." I brooded. "Best girl, I'm not sure of anything. Is somebody trying to drive me out of my skull?"
She treated my question as rhetorical, which it was-I hope. "Then what do we do?"
"Uh... we try to check on Schultz. And not worry about the next step until we have done that."
"How?"
"Bribery, my love. Lies and money. Lavish lies and a parsimonious use of money. Unless you are wealthy. I never thought to ask before I married you."
"Me?" Gwen's eyes went wide. "But, Richard, I married you for your money."
"You did? Lady, you've been swindled. Do you want to see a lawyer?"
"I suppose so. Is that what they call 'statutory rape'?"
"No, 'statutory rape' is carnal knowledge of a statue... although why anyone should care I have never understood. I don't think it's against regulations here." I turned back to the terminal. "Do you want that lawyer? Or shall we look for Schultz?"
"Uh... Richard, we're having a very odd honeymoon. Let's go back to bed."
"Bed can wait. But you can have another waffle while I try to look up Schultz." I keyed the terminal again for directory, scrolled for "Schultz."
I found nineteen listings for "Schultz" but no "Enrico Schultz." Small wonder. I did find "Hendrik Schultz," so I keyed for amplification:
"The Reverend Doctor Hendrik Hudson Schultz, B.S., M.A., D.D., D.H.L., K.G.B., Past Grand Master Royal Astrological Society. Scientific Horoscopy at moderate prices. Weddings solemnized. Family counseling. Eclectic and holistic therapy. Investments advice. Bets accepted at all hours at track odds. Petticoat Lane at ring ninety-five, next to Madame Pompadour." Over this was his picture in holo, smiling and repeating his slogan: "I'm Father Schultz, your friend in need. No problem too large, no problem too small. All work guaranteed."
The Cat Who Walked Through Walls Page 3