Wallenquist told the strip to roll the file more slowly. After a few seconds, Caird said, “Hold it! Allergic to shellfish? Orthodox Jews don’t cat shellfish!”
“Aha!” the major said, his tone indicating that he had just seen a great light. “This Jew does! Did, I mean. Just once. See…he got dizzy and broke out in hives. See there. He said it was a judgment of God on him!”
“Nobody’s perfect,” Caird said.
“Ah, but, by God, humankind will be perfect!”
Yes, Caird thought. Next year we meet in Jerusalem. The second coming of Christ occurs any moment now. The proletariat will govern, and the state will eventually wither away.
“As you can see,” Wallenquist said, “he seemed to be an exemplary citizen, aside from being religious. Then, poof!” Wallenquist threw his hands up. “Houdinied! Didn’t come out of his stoner yesterday. His colleagues at Yeshiva investigated, of course—he has no family—and his stoner was empty. No messages, nothing to indicate what had happened.”
Wallenquist bent down close to Caird. “That means that he’s in Tuesday. Right now!”
Caird got up from the chair and began pacing back and forth. “Yankev Gril,” he said. “I know the man.”
“You know him? But…”
“You didn’t read all the file. He played chess with other days via recordings. I was one of his opponents. I knew his name only, and, of course, this is the first time I’ve seen him. But I’m the champion chessplayer of Manhattan; I got seventh place in the Tuesday World Champion Matches and twelfth in the All-Days matches. Gril was eleventh in the All-Days.”
“Really?” Wallenquist said. “I don’t go for the game myself. When I think that you could go fishing instead… Anyway, I’m proud of you because you’re a champion, even if it’s just in chess. The whole department’s proud of you.”
He came up close to Caird, but Caird wheeled and walked away. When he was as far away from the major as he could get, he turned and stopped. “You’re not thinking of giving me a temporal passport?”
Wallenquist approached him. “Oh, no. That’s not necessary. Besides, it takes too much red tape to get one. Since you know something about him, have played chess with him, you’re the one who should chase him today. Devote most of your time to his case.”
“Well, either he’s just moved to this day or he’s breaking all the days. Why? Find the motive, find the man.”
“Excellent,” the major said, rubbing his hands together. “I know how to pick them.”
Caird slipped by Wallenquist, who had come nose to nose. “Can I get permission to voice-interview his Monday colleagues?”
“I’ll put in an application, but it’ll take some time to get a yes or a no.”
“Application” reminded Caird of Ozma’s demand.
“I’ll get right on it, Major,” he said, heading for the door. “Unless you’ve got something else for me.”
“Damn it, man, I don’t like talking to the back of your head!”
Caird stopped, turned, and smiled. “Sorry, Major. Overeager, I guess.”
“Quite all right, my boy. Always happy to see my men full of zeal. Not too much of that nowadays.”
“Anything else, sir?”
Wallenquist waved his hand. “Just keep me informed. Oh, yes, I saw on your schedule…you’re lunching with the commissioner-general?”
Envy? Indignation?
“Yes, sir. The commissioner and I grew up. together in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools. We like to get together now and then to talk about old times. Besides, we’re related. My first wife was her cousin.”
“Oh, well. I wasn’t prying.”
The major looked at two strips that had lit up at the same time. “Busy, busy. Run along. Have a good time at lunch. Be sure to give my best regards to the commissioner. Only, report on what you’ve found out about Gril—what the hell kind of a name is that, anyway?—report before lunch.”
Jeff gave the major a salute, which wasn’t noticed. Wallenquist was looking back and forth at the strips, unable to decide which was the most important. Caird went back to his office and asked a strip for Gril’s latest move.
The chessboard, sixty-four alternating green and red squares, eight horizontal lines of eight squares each, and the eight green and eight red pieces, appeared on the strip. The game had begun with Green, Yankev Gril, making the first move: 1 BL-WC-4. That is, the first move took Green’s World Councillor’s Block Leader to the fourth vertical square from World Councillor’s position. Red, Jeff Caird, had made his first move by putting his World Councillor’s Block Leader to his World Councillor’s Four square.
Green’s second move was BL-WC SG. Or 03. That is, he had moved his Organic Officer to World Councillor’s State Governor’s third square out.
Caird remembered that, when he had made this move, he was thinking that an early twenty-first-century chessplayer would not have been puzzled long if he had been watching this game. He would have caught on quickly that the white and black squares had been changed to green and red. The Kings had become World Councillors; the Queens, Superorganic Directors; the Rooks, Intraorganic Coordinators; the Bishops, State Governors; the Knights, Organic Officers; the Pawns, Block Leaders. If the hypothetical early chessplayer had any knowledge of present government setups, he would have surmised that the changes in the game were for political reasons and that they were superficial.
Caird studied the board for five minutes, though he was nagged by the feeling that he was neglecting duty for pleasure. Also, he could not keep from wondering where Gril had been when he had made his last move.
He told the strip to make a BL-WC or 04 move. He did not know if the refugee Gril would ever see the latest development. He hoped that he would. They were playing a dangerous but stimulating contest of simultaneous attack and defense. Both their World Councillors were open to, as a master had once put it, “flailing blows from all directions.”
That was also true of their real-life situations.
Caird had several matters to deal with before he could get to the Gril case. There was a raid planned for next Tuesday on the Tao Towers, an apartment building on West Eleventh. According to an informant, some tenants there were not only smoking tobacco but selling it. There were always people who desired harmful things even after seven generations of education and conditioning.
The poor, contrary to what Jesus had said, were no longer in society. At least, the poor did not have to be poor. But the perverse were still here. One born every hour.
The raid on the minnie district in search of Rootenbeak would take place inside an hour. Caird was not going to be there in person. He left that up to Detective-Inspector Ann Wong Gools, but he would be in constant VA (video-audio) contact.
He asked for and, after a ten-minute wait, got the results of the satellite sweep for both Rootenbeak and Gril. There were three sky-eyes up there taking photographs of the Manhattan and neighboring areas at three different angles. The computers had sent holographs of the culprits to the central base, and there the graphs of the two were compared with the faces of Manhattanites in the streets or on housetops. So far, the results were nil. That was not unexpected, since Gril and Rootenbeak had only to wear wide-brimmed hats and keep their faces down to avoid these being photographed. However, all wearing such hats had been tracked by the sky-eyes, and the buildings they entered had been noted. Unfortunately, the Organic Department did not have enough personnel to follow up the leads. Only central Manhattan addresses could be investigated, and that was going to take much time.
It was not difficult to get fake IDs if you knew where to go. Rootenbeak seemed to be the sort who would know. Gril, though, was a scholar and a recluse. What would he know of the underworld? Nothing—unless he had been planning his daybreak for a long time and so was well-prepared.
Caird put Rootenbeak on mental hold and considered Gril.
Find the motive; find the criminal. A fine dictum, except that he was not looking for suspects. He knew w
ho the culprit was.
Monday had opened Gril’s bio-data to Tuesday, but Caird could not interrogate Gril’s associates and intimates. That was up to Monday. About all he could do was to have the data transmitted to all organics’ R-T boxes so that they could see them while looking for Gril. The sky-eyes, of course, would also be scanning the streets for anyone resembling Gril. Caird did not think that Gril would be foolish enough to venture forth on the daytime streets. He also might have cut his hair and shaved his beard, though that had little chance of deceiving the sky-eyes. The ID Department had probably sent out photos based on what Gril’s shaven face would look like.
Gril’s file had some interesting personality bio-data, especially the item that he was the last Yiddish speaker on Earth. He was also an authority, in fact, the authority, on an ancient writer named Cerinthus. Two of Gril’s studies on him were in the World Data Bank. Caird had asked for a summary of data on Cerinthus, though more from curiosity than hope that it would give him any clue.
Cerinthus was a Christian who had lived circa A.D. 100. Born a Jew, he had converted to Christianity but was generally regarded as a heretic. Saint John was supposed to have written his Gospel to confute Cerinthus’ errors. Very little had been known about him until the discovery of a manuscript in the south of the state of Egypt three hundred obyears ago. He had founded a short-lived sect of Jewish Christians with Gnostic leanings. Though a Christian, the only New Testament book he had accepted was Matthew’s Gospel. Cerinthus had maintained that the world was created by angels and that one of these had given the Jews their law. But that law was imperfect. He also held to circumcision and the Jewish Sabbath.
“Sounds as crazy as the rest of them,” Caird had muttered when he had turned the display off.
Another strip glowed with orange letters, and a buzzer sounded loudly. It bore a reminder from Ozma to make out the reproduction permit. Caird turned off the Gril data and went to a desk computer. He had filled in only four lines of the form on the strip before him when another strip began flashing. Rootenbeak had been sighted in the Hudson Park district.
Caird put the application form on hold. He called the woman who had sent the message, Patroller-Corporal Hatshepsut Andrews Ruiz. She was standing before a transmitter strip on the wall of a building but parts of her were obscured. Some minnie had probably thrown mud or something worse on the strip. Behind her on the sidewalk were three organics, privates first class. One was holding a small camera and panning it up and down the street. Caird asked for its POV, and the street appeared on the wall strip by the one showing Ruiz. The woman who had turned Rootenbeak in was standing near Ruiz and was holding a large sack of groceries.
Ruiz saluted and said, “The witness, Benson McTavish Pallanguli, 128…”
“I’ll get that from the computer,” Caird said. “What happened?”
“The witness had just come from the West Clarkson Street Food Dispensall with a sack of groceries with a bunch of bananas on top.”
Caird had started to tell her to skip that, but the reference to the bananas changed his mind.
“The suspect, Dorothy Wu Rootenbeak, who has been positively identified by Pallanguli, walked by her. As he did so, he reached out and tore a banana from the stalk on top of the sack carried by Pallanguli. Rootenbeak thereupon ran down the street—” Ruiz pointed west “…until he came to the corner of Greenwich and West Clarkson. The suspect, according to Pallanguli and two other witnesses, thereupon turned left, still running, and proceeded down Greenwich Street. He entered the block building designated as GCL-1.”
Caird had a street map displayed on a strip so he could see the exact path taken by the fugitive. By now he also had points of view of two patroller-operated cameras in front of the building into which Rootenbeak had gone. The sergeant in charge, Wanda Confucius Thorpe, was just going through the doorway. He held in his right hand an electrical prod. Three organics, also armed with prods, were following him.
Caird radioed Thorpe and asked him if the building was surrounded. The sergeant, a faint tone of resentment in his voice, replied that he had arranged for this—of course. One of the cameras showed Caird two orange-and-white cars pulling up to the curb outside the door. Caird called the cameramen on the other two sides of the building and got a complete picture of the operation. The building occupied the whole block, but between it and the sidewalks was a yard with an uncut lawn, many dandelions and other weeds, and many palm trees and sycamores. No doubt, the block leader had gotten official reprimands from the state, followed by orders to clean the yard. But the minnie leaders were often as uncouth and rebellious as their flock.
The building was about forty objective years old, constructed when Nautical Design was all the rage in the Bureau of Architecture. Its upper sides curved outward, ending in a flat top. This and one tapering end and the three-story penthouse made it resemble a twentieth-century aircraft carrier. The rooms on the outside wall at the top floor had windows in the floors so that the tenants could look straight down into the yard.
Rootenbeak might be in one now, staring down at the organics.
Caird tingled with excitement. It had been three months since he had been in on a hunt. And now he had two in one day.
He asked the computer to clump all references to bananas in Rootenbeak’s file. This was flashed almost immediately on a strip. After reading it, he called Ruiz and asked her to ask Pallanguli if she knew the man who had snatched her bananas. The corporal did so with Caird watching and listening to the two. The dark woman’s expression changed a little and then was replaced by indignation.
“No, I never saw the stiff before, and if I ever see him again I’ll put a banana in him where the sun don’t shine.”
Ruiz had plugged in the woman’s ID before questioning her. Caird was running it off now after instructing the computer to expand and make orange any references to Rootenbeak. After a few seconds, a paragraph swelled and began flashing. Caird stopped its rollup to read it. Pallanguli had been Rootenbeak’s neighbor on the fourth floor of a Dominick Street apartment building three objective years ago.
He sighed with exasperation. Pallanguli must know that that would be in her file, yet she had lied. Was she just stupid or perverse? It made no difference. She must be brought in for questioning. But he would have bet thirty credits that her story was made up. Rootenbeak had asked her for help and gotten it. Moreover, he had gotten two other minnies to give a false story. Instead of turning left and running south and then entering the building, he had turned right and gone…where? Someplace close to but outside the police net.
That is, unless he was subtle enough to calculate that the person in charge would think of this and so he had, instead, actually entered the building. No. There was too much danger of outsmarting himself.
Caird would have called off the apartment search if he had been one hundred percent sure that he was right. He did ask for more personnel to widen the net and to send organics into nearby block buildings. He was told that he could get no more than ten people.
Caird glanced at the strip with its flashing APPL ON HOLD! No time for that now. The application for permission for Ozma to have a child by him would have to be transmitted later.
Another message appeared on a strip. It was from the commissioner-general’s secretary, asking him if he could move the luncheon date up to 11:30 A.M. He replied that he could. The strip displayed: RCVD & TRMD.
His request for satellite data re the search for Rootenbeak came in then. Usually, he got it within ten minutes. Today, for unexplained reasons, the channels were clogged. Caird studied the pictures and then called the Hudson Park substation for more personnel. He wanted ten more foot organics but was told that none would be available for several hours or more.
“Why not?”
“I’m sorry, Inspector,” the sergeant said. “But we have a particularly gory murder on Carmine Street. Two victims, a woman and a child.”
Caird was shocked. “That makes two murders in Manhatt
an this subyear, and the second month isn’t over yet. My God, there were only six all last subyear!”
The sergeant nodded solemnly. “It’s become an epidemic. Social rot, sir, though the terrible heat is a contributing factor.”
After Caird had quit talking to the sergeant, he sat and scowled. The organic force could have been much larger and he would not now be lacking personnel if every organic was not required to get a Doctor of Philosophy degree in criminology. But, no, every candidate had to pass a psychological test (which was also a subtle ideological test), which eliminated five out of ten. After this, the candidate studied for six subjective years at West Point. Then, if the candidate could survive the rigorous discipline and get a B average in the courses, he or she became an Organic Department foot-patroller, zero class.
Ah, well, he could only work with what he could get. By three this afternoon, according to the weather-strip report, he could no longer depend upon the sky-eyes. A heavy overcast would cut off their view.
5.
When eleven o’clock came, Rootenbeak still had not been observed or caught. Caird worked for a few minutes at other duties before leaving the building. A station-pool robot car took him up Womanway Boulevard to Columbus Circle and up Central Park West to West Seventy-seventh Street. The John Reed Community Block Building occupied all of the Number 100 blocks of Seventy-sixth and Seventy-seventh streets, including the enclosed streets. Just north of it was the Museum of Natural History. Caird got out of the car just off the third-level ramp. The car moved slowly away and disappeared down the west ramp. He walked into a huge lobby decorated this year in Mycenaean Mode. Golden Agamemnon masks smiled at him from the walls, ceiling, and floor. In the middle of the lobby was a fountain holding a statue of Ajax defying the gods. A yellow fluorescent jagged lightning bolt of plastic reached halfway down from the ceiling toward the arrogant and doomed Achaean. This piece of statuary had been selected by some bureaucrat who thought that it would subtly put across a moral. If you were stupid enough to resist the government, you were fried.
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