"Where was he when you saw him last?"
"On Mars. I was there for two years with Civil Service. Mike was a sort
of general handyman around the administration building."
"Do you know where he is now?"
"As far as I know, he's still on Mars!"
My coffee was scalding hot, but I didn't notice as I gulped it down.
"I'd like to know everything you can tell me about this Mike Gregory,"
I said. "May I take you to dinner?"
As my dad used to say, there's nothing like mixing business with
pleasure.
She suggested the place--a queer little restaurant in the basement
of a nearby apartment building. There were lighted candles on the
tables--the first candles I'd seen since I was a child. The waitresses
wore odd costumes with handkerchiefs wrapped around their heads. An old
man sat off in one corner scraping on a violin. It was almost weird.
But the food was good, and Stella Emerson was good company.
Unfortunately, her mind was on Mike Gregory.
"Is Mike in trouble?" she said. "He always seemed like such a gentle,
considerate person."
I thought of the knife-wielding shadow, and shuddered. "How well did
you know him?" I said.
"Not too well--he stopped to talk with me now and then. I never saw him
except at work."
"Was he--interested in you?"
She blushed. It was also the first blush I had seen in so long I
couldn't remember when. I had heard it said that the blush went out
when women did away with their two-piece bathing suits and started
wearing trunks like the men. I'm telling you, you can't have any idea
about what's wrong with our scientific civilization until you've seen a
girl blush by candlelight.
"I suppose he was," she said. "He kept asking me to go places with him.
I felt sorry for him--he seemed such a grotesque person--but I didn't
want to encourage him."
"You're certain about the limp?"
"Oh, yes. It was very noticeable."
"And about his being left-handed?"
She thought for a moment. "No. I'm not certain about that. He could
have been, I suppose, but I don't think I ever noticed."
"Is there anything else you remember about him?"
She shook her head slowly. "Not much, I'm afraid. He was just a person
who came through the office now and then. He had an odd way of talking.
He spoke very slowly. He separated his words, just ... like ... this.
Most of the girls laughed at him, and when they did he'd turn around
and walk away without saying anything. And--oh, yes, sometimes he'd
talk about California. I guess that was where he was from. I never
found out anything about his personal life."
"But you didn't laugh at him?"
"No. I couldn't laugh at him. He was just too--pathetic."
"Have you heard from him since you came back?"
"He sent me a Christmas card once. He didn't know my address on Earth,
so he sent it to the office on Mars so it would be forwarded. It didn't
reach me until July!"
"How long ago was that?"
"It must be four years ago. It was a couple of years after I left Mars."
I dropped Mike Gregory, and tried to learn something about Stella
Emerson.
She was twenty-eight. She'd worked for two years on Mars, and then
she came back and got a job as private secretary with a small firm
manufacturing plastic textiles. She made enough money for her own
needs, and was able to save a little. She liked having a place of
her own. She had a sister in Boston, and an aunt over in Newark, and
they visited her occasionally. She led a quiet life, with books, and
visits to the art institutes, and working with her hobby, which was
photography.
It all sounded wonderful to me. The quiet life. A detective gets enough
excitement on the job. If he can't relax at home, he's going to be a
blight on the mortality tables.
We were on our second cup of coffee, by then, and I motioned the old
fiddler over to our table.
His bloodshot eyes peered out ever a two-week growth of beard. I
slipped him a dollar bill. "How about giving us a melody."
He gave us a clumsy serenade and Stella reacted just as I'd hoped she
would. She blushed furiously, and kept right on blushing, and I just
leaned back and enjoyed it.
I took her back to her apartment, and said a friendly farewell at her
door. We shook hands!
And she didn't invite me to spend the night with her, which was just as
refreshing.
I rode the elevator with chiming bells and a wisp of the old man's
music floating through my mind. I stepped out on the ground level,
walked dreamily out the door and hailed an aircab with my pocket signal.
And just as I was about to step in, it stabbed me like the flickering
knife on Cronus's screen. She was a wonderful girl, and I was falling
for her, and in seven to twelve days--no, nearer five to ten days,
now--she was going to be murdered.
"Something wrong?" the driver said.
I flashed my credentials. "Police Headquarters," I said. "Use the
emergency altitude."
* * * * *
Walker was crouched in front of Cronus, perspiring, as usual, but
looking infinitely more tired. No matter what time I came in, he always
seemed to be there, or there was a note saying he was down in his lab
in the sub-basement.
"I haven't found it again," he said.
"That's all right. We can manage with what we have."
He frowned irritably. "It's important, confound it. This is just an
experimental model, and it's maddeningly inefficient. With money and
research facilities, we could produce one that would really work, but
we can't get that kind of support by predicting a few piddling holdups.
But a murder, now--that would make someone sit up and take notice."
"Stop worrying about your dratted Cronus," I snapped. "I don't give a
damn about that pile of junk. There's a girl's life to be saved."
It was unfair, but he didn't object. "Yes, of course," he said. "The
girl's life--but if I can't get more information...."
"I've found the apartment," I told him, "and I've found the girl.
But the man is supposed to be on Mars. It doesn't figure, but it's
something to work on."
I called the Captain, and gave him my report. If he resented my
bothering him at home, he didn't show it. Any wheel I could get my
fingers on I set turning, and then I went home. I won't pretend that I
slept.
By morning we had a complete report from the colonial administration on
Michael Rolland Gregory. Fingerprints, photos, detailed description,
complete with limp and left-handedness. The works. Also, the added
information that he'd resigned his civil service job eight months
before and had left immediately for Earth, on a Dawn Liner scheduled
to land at San Francisco.
I swore savagely, got off an urgent message to San Francisco, and left
for a dinner date with Stella Emerson. And another handshake at her
apartment door.
San Francisco did a thorough job, but it took time--two more days.
Michael Rolland Gregory had hung around for a while, living in run-down
rooming houses, and holding a series of odd jobs. Two months before he
had disappeared.
"He could be anywhere by now," I told the Captain.
"Including here in New York," the Captain said dryly.
Two to seven days.
I took Stella back to her apartment after our dinner date, and in front
of the door I said, "Stella, I like you."