I sat down with the map and a directory and worked until a technician
came back with the developed film. Walker was still perspiring in front
of Cronus. He hadn't been able to focus on the crime a third time. The
Captain's door was closed, and his nasal voice was rattling the door
as he bellowed into his telephone. I pulled the curtains to darken one
corner of the room, and fed the film into a projection machine.
I ran the film ten times without coming up with anything new. I
couldn't make out the number on the door. I also couldn't decide
whether the assailant was a chance prowler or someone known to the
victim. I stopped the camera, and made a sketch of the room from what I
could make out in the way of furnishings.
The Captain came barging out of his office, took a quick look at my
sketch, and nodded approval. "We'll find the apartment," he said. "Then
our troubles will really start."
I couldn't see that, and I told him so. I figured our troubles would be
nearly over if we found the apartment.
"You think it's possible to prevent this crime," he said. "I don't.
Even if we find the apartment and identify the man and woman, the crime
is still going to happen."
"Why?" I said.
"Look at it this way. If we prevent the crime, it's not going to
happen. Right?"
"Right."
"And if it's not going to happen, Cronus wouldn't show it to us. All
you see on that screen is what _will_ happen. As far as Cronus is
concerned, it already has happened. Preventing it is like trying to
change the past."
"We can try," I said.
"Yes, we can try. The regular force will help us on this one. A team of
detectives is waiting outside. Tell them what you want done."
I wanted an apartment living room with a corner location and a door
scanner. It wasn't as bad as it sounded--the scanner was a new gadget
at that time. Not many apartment buildings would have it. There was
always the chance, of course, that an individual had had one installed
on his own, but that was a worry I could postpone.
I put in a hectic day of trudging through apartment buildings and
squabbling with superintendents, but we found it the next morning, in
a stubby little seven-story building on South Central. It was one of
those apartment buildings that went up way back in 1990, when the city
decided it couldn't afford the luxury of open spaces and opened part of
old Central Park to apartment buildings. This one was a midget among
the other buildings in that development, but it had been remodeled
recently. It had scanner screens.
After the usual protests, the superintendent showed me around. Most
of the occupants weren't home. He let me into a rear apartment on the
sixth floor, and I took one look and caught my breath.
I pulled out my sketch, though I had it memorized by this time, and
moved across the room to get the right angle. The sofa was there--it
_was_ an old-fashioned job with a back. What had been a bright blotch
in the picture turned out to be a mirror. A blur by the sofa was a low
table. A chair was in the wrong place, but that could have been moved.
What was I thinking about? _It was going to be moved._ Every detail
checked.
"Stella Emerson," the superintendent said. "_Miss_ Stella Emerson--I
think. She never gave me no trouble. Something wrong?"
"Not a thing," I said. "I want some information from her."
"I dunno when she's home."
Her next-door neighbor did. I went back to headquarters and picked up
the loose ends on the attempt to identify our assailant-to-be. No luck.
And at six o'clock that evening, I was having a cup of coffee with Miss
Stella Emerson.
She was the sort of person it's always a joy to interview. Alert,
understanding, cooperative--none of that petty, temperamental
business about invasion of privacy. She was brunette and twenty-six
or twenty-seven, maybe five feet four, a hundred and ten pounds. The
pounds were well distributed, and she was darned nice looking.
She served the coffee on the low table by the sofa, and sat back with
her cup in her hand.
"You wanted information?" she said.
I fingered my own cup, but I didn't lift it. "I'd like to have you
think carefully," I said, "and see if you've ever known a man who
matches this description. He's big, really big. Heavy set. Maybe six
feet eight or nine. He's left handed. He might walk with a slight limp
in his right foot...."
She set her cup down with a bang. "Why, that sounds like Mike--Mike
Gregory. I haven't seen him for years. Not since...."