by Gene Wolfe
Georges chimed in with, “Yes, we do.”
I confirmed that.
“Well, I was about to say maybe he loved his wife. I hope so. She wasn’t quite right, is what I heard, and that was the reason they’d never had servants. ’Bots would’ve been worse, I guess. They do pretty much whatever anybody tells them, is what I hear. But Mrs. C. wasn’t exactly right sometimes, and I guess maybe she might have told one to kill her.”
I said, “It wouldn’t have done it, but basically you’re correct. ’Bots might have done a great deal of damage if she had ordered it.”
“It seemed like he’d loved her and taken good care, you know. I heard that various times from Ms. Colette and Master Conrad, too.”
“But not his children?”
“Well, nothing that I ever saw.” Mrs. Peters’s voice fell. “Maybe you knew him?”
“No, not at all. None of us did.”
“Sometimes all three—that’s him and Master Conrad and Ms. Colette—would just sit at table and eat, and nobody’d say a word.”
“What about visitors to the house?” I asked. “Can you tell us who came?”
“Nobody. That was the funny thing. Of course it was less trouble for the staff, but it meant no tips for us, too. There were eight bedrooms, you know, up on the second floor. That was six guest rooms and the children’s rooms. Master Conrad’s and Ms. Colette’s, and all those guest rooms, too. But nobody ever slept in those. Not while I was there.”
Mrs. Peters waited for me to ask another question, but I did not. I had been struck by an idea and needed another minute to facilitate it. After a second or two it came, and I stood up. “Georges, I’m sure you have more questions of your own for Mrs. Peters. Ms. Levy and I are going to go outside for a breath of air. We won’t be gone long.”
When we returned, Georges was saying, “On those trips, the short ones, where did he go?”
“Out of town, sometimes. I could tell because he always packed his suitcase for those. Then, too, he had a cabin in the mountains. He went up there pretty often. When he needed to think, is what he told me.”
Georges asked, “Do you know where that was? It could be important.”
“No, sir.”
“What road his cabin was on?”
“I’m sure I never heard.”
“Where did he go to buy supplies?”
Mrs. Peters shook her head. “I haven’t any idea, sir.”
I said, “I’m sure someone’s looked into that by this time, and he’s certainly not there now. Do you happen to know where he’s buried?”
Mrs. Peters nodded. “In the Old Church Yard, I believe, Mr. Smithe. That’s a new place somebody opened a few years ago. It’s over on the west side.”
Georges said, “I suppose we’ll go over there to ask him a few questions.”
I grinned. “You and Ms. Levy? I agree. I might send you both.”
Mrs. Peters laughed politely, and I turned to her. “You’re the person we need. I talked it over with Ms. Levy and we agreed on that. Would you accept a hundred and fifty a week?”
There was a good deal of bargaining after that, which I will omit; in the end, we agreed upon a wage. She would start on Monday.
When we were settled into the convertible’s firm, fighter-flitter’s seats once more, Georges wanted to know what I wanted with a housekeeper. I said, “I want the house kept, of course.”
“I see.… All right if I ask what you and Mahala were really talking about outside?”
“Certainly, and she’d tell you in any event as soon as you two were alone. I wanted to know what the Coldbrooks had been paying Mrs. Peters, and I thought Mahala might have seen it as she was going through the father’s records. She had. It was two hundred a week. Knowing that, I was able to make a low offer that was not insulting.”
“For a housekeeper we don’t really need.”
“We won’t need her as long as we remain in the house, I agree. But I want someone there I can rely upon to apprise me of developments, if there are any. Suppose that Colette returns, for example. She may escape from the people who have her, or they may free her or bring her back. If that happens, Mrs. Peters will screen and tell me. Or if the police come looking for you, or a dozen other possibilities.”
Georges laughed. “Believe me, they don’t want me. They’ve had me, and they’re through with me.”
I did not believe a word of it, but I said, “Glad to hear it.”
“Where do you want to go now? Shall we visit the grave?”
I had been thinking about that. “Not yet, and perhaps never. How many funeral directors would you think there might be here in New Delphi?”
“Eight or ten. Could be more. You want to talk to them?”
“I may. Yes. Can Mahala use this ground car’s screen while you’re driving?”
“Sure. I could drive manually.”
“Suppose we tell the car—what’s its name, by the way? Do you know?”
“Geraldine. Somebody had a sense of humor.”
“Junior. I don’t know that, but it seems almost certain. If you give Geraldine a destination, can it take us there while Mahala’s using the screen?”
“Sure. Where do you want to go?”
“The coroner’s office. It may be called the medical examiner’s office. Try them both.”
Again, I reached over the seat to touch Mahala’s shoulder. “I’d like you to find out which mortuary prepared the body of Conrad Coldbrook, Senior, for burial, if you can. He probably died last year, but it could be early this year. I realize it may be impossible to find that out, but please try.”
She nodded, unhooked Geraldine’s little keyboard, and went to work.
Georges said, “Medical examiner. We’re on our way,” and I thanked them both.
At the medical examiner’s office, I explained to a smiling young woman that the three of us were collaborating on a biography of Conrad Coldbrook.
Her smile vanished. “You’ll have a difficult time of it, I’m afraid. He was a man of mystery.”
“He was indeed! That’s what makes him so interesting. What was your guess, Georges? Fifty thousand hits?”
He said, “Forty-seven thousand. Eventually you’ll find out that I was very close.”
“I hope so.”
I turned back to the young woman. “May we see the result of the examination? It should be a matter of public record.”
“It will be if there was one. Have you searched?”
“Not yet,” I told her.
“Then I will.” She spoke to her screen, “Conrad Coldbrook. Any record.”
Her fingers flew across the screen. “This is his son. Do you care about him?”
Georges said, “Hell, yes. Anything that bears on his father’s life.”
“He was strangled. I’ll send you the whole thing. What’s your address?”
Mahala wrote on her pad, tore off the sheet, and handed it to the young woman.
The young woman spoke to her screen again and turned away.
I said, “What about the father?”
“No examination. No reason for one. Do you want the attending physician’s report? It’s cardiac arrest.”
“If that’s all there is, then we want it. I was told that the law required an autopsy whenever someone under the age of one hundred died.”
“That might be a good one,” the young woman said, “but it’s not the law. It messes up the body, you see, and you’ve got to have a closed-coffin funeral. The families hate that. We do an autopsy whenever there’s reason to suspect foul play—that’s at public expense. We’ll also do one if the next of kin requests one, but the next of kin has to pay. There’s one or two of those in most years. Otherwise, when the doctor certifies natural causes, that’s that.”
Back in Geraldine, Georges said, “What are you smiling for? You didn’t get a thing there.”
I said, “You’re quite correct. By rights I ought to weep. Later I may. I hope not, but I may. May I ask h
ow Mahala’s progressing with the mortuaries?”
She turned in her seat to give me a thumbs-up.
Georges said, “She’s enjoying herself. This is fun for her. For me, too, in a crazy kind of way.”
I said, “You know a great deal, and in fact you’ve been a fountain of information and sound advice. Can you tell me whether there will be a written report on the death of Conrad Coldbrook, Junior?”
“On the son? Sure. You looking for the police report or the medical examiner’s? There’ll be both, and if you want the examiner’s we could’ve gotten it back there.”
I shook my head. “I want the police report, if we can get one.”
“We can, but there’s two glitches. The first one’s not too bad—there’ll be a fee. Nothing that will break the bank.” Georges paused, looking thoughtful. “The second one’s likely to get really rough.”
I said, “I think I can guess.”
“They’ll want to know why we want it. Plus who we are and where are we staying. Show some ID. So count me out. Mahala, too.”
“I understand. Let me out two or three blocks from police headquarters, please. Where can we meet when I’m finished in there?”
“How about the bus station?” Georges looked worried.
16
HIM AGAIN
Maybe three minutes after I left headquarters, I caught on to the fact that I was being followed. I had kind of expected it sooner or later, but it was a jolt just the same. The first me had told his readers how you can tell for sure in Nine Dead Women. You make three right turns. If he is still back there after that last turn, you have a shadow.
I had a shadow. Now what?
Two things bothered me straight off. Number one, I should not have spotted him so quick. The cop I had talked to mostly—that was Detective Serody—had been friendly and cooperative. No one had questioned the false ID that had been Colette’s father’s. Could Serody have arranged to have me tailed when I left? Well, of course, even though he had not sounded like he would want to. But that tail would have been a pro, right?
Also the tail would have been a cop, and cops are generally pretty big, even the women. This was a little guy in a black raincoat and a black rain hat—in July, when it had not rained a drop since the day our bus got to New Delphi.
So something really funny was going on, and maybe the Coldbrook house was actually bugged.
That is what I was thinking when I walked past a classy department store, the kind of place where you can buy a ’bot, a bassoon, or a bottle of perfume. Stores like that are always on corners; maybe you’ve noticed. Hey, if the store is going to take up half the block, are you going to put it in the middle? I stopped, looked at the stuff in a window, and saw that the little guy had stopped, too. Which tied it.
I went in, made a quick left, and went out another door onto a side street. Swell, only if I had just gone around the corner, he might not have gone in yet. Heck, we might have been almost nose to nose, and I wanted to get around behind him. So I made a right instead of another left, walked around the block fast, and went back into the department store through the same door I had used the first time. My tail was too short to spot easily; but there he was, smack in the middle of women’s clothing, looking around for me.
Now I wanted a good look at his face; so I bumped him a little and said, “Pardon me.” Then I bumped him again, harder.
He spun around and said, “Hey!” then snapped his mouth shut.
As soon as I saw his face I had him. I said, “Come on, I want to buy you some hot chocolate. A sandwich, too, if you’d like one. There’s probably a restaurant in here somewhere.”
He sort of froze, so I took his sleeve. “Besides, I owe you three hundred, remember? Only if you won’t have a sandwich with me and a little quiet conversation, I won’t pay you back.”
When I said that, a guy behind him who’d been looking at embroidered breast boosters turned, stuck his hand into the black raincoat’s side pocket, and whispered, “Do what the nice man tells you to and I won’t lift your pocket rocket.” It was Georges.
A ’bot stationed by the lift tubes told us we could get lunch at Alice’s Tea Room, on the fifth floor. It was a little bit too ladylike for three guys, maybe, what with the faux-linen tablecloths and napkins, the expensive-looking tableware, and the polished crystal wineglasses; but we got a good spot near a window and not too near anybody else. When we had ordered I told the little guy, “You’re a friend, or at least you and I were friendly the first time we met. Today you were following me. Want to explain?”
Georges added, “While you talk, I’ll be watching your hands. Keep them outside your coat.”
My tail nodded.
I said, “What’s your name?”
I could see him trying to decide whether he should tell the truth. “Chick.”
“Your full name, please.”
“It’s Chick Bantz.” Chick hesitated again, sucking air. “Probably you’d like to see some ID. Smooth, I got my license and some other stuff—only I’ll have to reach inside my coat to get it.”
I shook my head. “I just wanted to know what to call you, Chick.”
Georges said, “Your ID would be fake anyway, so what’s the point? What do you want with us?”
“Nothin’ with you,” Chick told him.
I smiled, wondering whether Chick’s fake ID would be as good as you could get with the app I had turned up on Conrad Coldbrook’s screen. “With me, then.”
“Remember the first time, when you were in that place with all the screens, and people on the wall like stuff in a store?”
Right then I started trying to figure out some way to get rid of Georges; if this went any deeper, he was bound to figure out that I was a reclone. I said, “The place in Owenbright? The one with all the screens? Certainly I remember it.”
“That’s the one. My boss wanted to talk to you then, only he said be nice, no rough stuff, an’ you wouldn’t come along. I tried, an’ I figured I’d come back later and try again. I did, only you were gone.”
He had stopped talking. Wishing I could shut him up, I said, “Go on.”
“Then him and his girlfriend come down here. That big house belongs to her, or that’s what he told me. Maybe you saw ’em there.”
Trying to digest “his girlfriend,” I shook my head.
“Well, he seen you. That’s what he said. They both heard your ground car and went over to the window, and you got out with some other guy and a woman. That’s what he told me.”
The wait ’bot returned with kafe for Georges, hot chocolate for Chick, tea for me, and a plate of pastries Georges had ordered.
It had given me a little thinking time—time I needed pretty badly. “You gave us your name,” I said when the ’bot had turned away. “What’s your employer’s? His full name, please.”
“No ducking,” Georges added. “No dodging. What is it and who is he?”
“He’s a government cop.” Chick stirred his chocolate. “I’m talkin’ about the big one in Niagara. Do you care?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Should we?”
“You better. You’re thinkin’ you can hand me over to those cops you talked to if I don’t play along, only I’ll walk. Want to try? I’d like that.”
Georges said, “You mean that your boss will spring you, but he won’t like having to since he’ll have to report it. You’ll catch hell for getting yourself booked. Also what did you tell us? He’ll know you talked, but he won’t know how much and he’ll have a lot of questions. Some other people may have questions, too. You sure you want to go that route?”
“You remember how it was that time in Owenbright, Mr. Smithe? Remember how nice to you I was? You were flat—anyway you said you were—an’ I fronted you three hundred. Three hundred for nothin’! Are you an’ me goin’ to shank each other now?”
I shook my head. He was scared and it showed, but probably not half as scared as I was. I said, “I’d like us to remain friends, Chick. Geo
rges here is a friend of mine. If you’re a friend, too, he won’t have any reason to get rough with you.”
“Listen up! I can get rough myself!” His voice quavered.
“I’m sure you can. Please don’t. Why were you following me?”
“’Cause you come out of headquarters! I wanted to find out what was up. If you’d been me, you’d have done the same thing.”
“I doubt it. You told us that your boss is an officer of the law.”
“He is! He’s Continental, too. These guys are just local, and he can pull rank on them. Think they’d like that?”
Georges asked, “Who does he work for? What department?”
“It’s the Continental Government, and that’s all I know.”
“How’d he get you—”
The ’bot was coming to our table. I said, “We’re fine. I don’t believe anyone wants anything more just now.”
“Are you Mr. Fevre, sir? I have a screen.” It held up an eephone.
“I am.” Georges reached for it. “You turn the damn thing off and this is what you get.” With the eephone at his ear, he said, “Fevre.”
He listened, his face serious; then he said, “Hold it,” and turned to us. “Excuse me a minute. This is private.”
I said, “Certainly,” and he hurried out.
Chick grinned. “Your buddy’s got problems.”
I nodded and tried not to look as relieved as I felt. “Don’t we all.”
“Now that it’s just you an’ me, we can settle this like pals, right?” Chick picked up a pastry, took a bite, and followed it with a sip of hot chocolate.
“Yes,” I said. “I hope so.”
Chick gave me a lopsided grin. “To start, look at where you’re sittin’. Your buddy was sittin’ up close and watchin’ my hands, all set to grab me anytime I went for my burner. You’re not. I could draw, shoot under this table, an’ you’d be rocket wrecked before you knew what happened.”
I smiled. “But you’re not going to do that.”