to which was the overwhelming reek of boiled cabbage, a lingering taint of garlic, and more than a wisp of overripe garbage. Hautley's soul, that of an esthete shrank from this malodorous ambusq, and all but wilted before the barrage.
He turned from the door, reaching for a light switch,
when, as it so very often does in Quicksilver's perilous line
of work, the totally unexpected sneaked up and caught the
galaxy's ace investigator flatfooted.
To be precise-lights flared, dazzling his eyes, and when
his vision cleared he found himself staring directly down the
cold grim throat of a General Nucleonics Mark IV coagulator pistol . . .
A rasping voice sounded in his ears from behind the
weapon. "One quiver of yer pinky finger, me fine bucko, an'
I'll zap ye down where ye stand, puttin' a foine big blood clot
two seconds from yer black heart) Freeze now, blast ye, or-"
Needless to say, Quicksilver froze.
i!O
WITH A SWIFT all-encompassing glance, Quicksilver noted his
immediate surroundings, including the man who stood behind
the pistol. A small dingy room and a small dingy man. His
opponent was old, balding, well past the 150 mark, and rapidly going to seed. Also to pot, Quicksilver noted, as he eyed the other's quivering paunch and drooping jowls.
However, the hand that gripped the coagulator was steady
as a rock.
The little old man peered fiercely at him with rheumy,
bloodshot little eyes. He cackled harshly, exposing a gaping
maw wherein the worn stumps of two or three greenish teeth
wobbled insecurely.
"That's it, me lad! Not a quiver o' yer eyelid, or I11 curdle
yer red stuff to blood puddin'," he wheezed. Hautley complied with unruflled demeanor.
Hufferd. if indeed it were he, and Hautley suspected such
was the case, looked him up and down curiously.
"Never saw ye before in all me days, so I'll be askin' yer
name, me lad, before I clot ye. Speak up! Who th' divil be
ye, heh?'•
Quicksilver's mind raced at flashing speed, weighing psycho-semantico-emotional factors, and spoke in a curt clipped voice of steely sternness.
"Captain Rex Dangerfield/" he snapped.
His verbal blockbuster had the desired effect. At the unexpected and shocking news that he held the most feared crime-fighter in the entire galaxy at gun point, Hufferd gaped,
gasped, and gagged. His gun hand flinched and wavered, no
longer pointing straight at Hautley's heart.
Quicksilver's right leg flashed out in a neo-karate stroke.
The coagulator went flying, clattering into a comer amidst
broken crockery and noisome garbage. Hautley dove on his
paralyzed prey, and it took him only 1 .04 seconds to secure
his aged opponent in a firm hammerlock.
"C-captain D-dangerf-fieldl" Shpem Hufferd spluttered,
writhing feebly in Quicksilver's iron grip. "B-but wh-what the
d-divil 'ud ye be wantin' wif an ol' duffer th' loikes o' me? I
haven't tipped me fumbly ol' mitt in twenny-foive year or
more, I b-been livin' the peaceable loife o' a retoired, lawr-abidin' citizen an' tax-payer, I have! Thar wuz I, takin' a li'l nap in t'other room, when I heard ye unlock me door-wot
was I to think, I asks ye!-so natcherly I gits me gun and
comes t' see what scut be pussyfootin' aroun' me quarters.
What c'd the loikes o' yez, Cap'n, be wantin' from the loikes
o' me . • . "
"Just one thing, Hufferd. The present whereabouts of your
former partner-in-crime, the notorious Dugan Motley. Quick!
Speak up, and I'll not run you in:' Quicksilver deadpanned in
a level voice.
Hufferd goggled incredulously .
.. Th' boss? Why, Cap'n, it's been many th' long year since
1-"
His quavering voice broke off on a querulous note, and the
fat little bandit sagged limply in Quicksilver's steely arms.
Had he fainted from the unaccustomed shock of this encounter? Hastily, Hautley stretched him out on the dusty floor and tried to arouse him from his swoon. Then his hands grew
still, and his bright mirror-eyes narrowed to glinting icy
alits . . •
Shpem Hufferd would never awaken from this swoon.
A tiny poison needle bristled from behind one sagging
jowl. The little old man's eyes were glazed in sudden death.
Hautley recalled the faintly audible hiss of compressed air
his sensitive ears had noted a split second before the little
gnome had slumped lifeless in his embrace. A needle gunJ
Fired from somewhere beyond the window, perhaps in the
street outside. . .
He sprang lithely to the rectangle of grease-smeared plastic
set in the street wall of the hovel. Sure enough, a minute hole
punctured the pane.
Mind flashing into high gear, Quicksilver calculated the
angle of fire from a swift mental reconstruction of the position of Shpem Hufferd s body
'
at the moment it was struck,
and the angle of the needle when it entered his flesh. The
shot had come from a second-floor window of the building
directly across the street. Keeping well out of the line of fire,
Quicksilver peered at the structure opposite. As he had already noticed, prior to entering the fiat, the first floor was a bar, the second floor seemed to be of a residential nature.
The upper windows were unlit, seemingly unoccupied. But
the murder shot could have come from no other position.
Hautley cursed briefly in three different languages. If only
Hufferd had not switched on the room lights when be bad
Quicksilver at gun point! If the room had remained in darkness, the unknown assassin across the way would have had to fire blindly, and the chances were that Shpern Hufferd would
ltill be alive this moment. But now he would never speak to
reveal the hiding place of the Master Burglar of
Capitan • • •
Quicksilver exploded into a whirlwind of action. There was
little if any time to be wasted. Valuable intelligence could be
wrung from the unknown assassin, but Hautley must be swift
to capture the villain before he eluded pursuit by mixing with
the crowd.
The galaxy's ace criminal ground his weight upon one certain edge of his left bootheel, wherein a hollowed compartment contained a micronegagrav of his own exclusive design.
The cunning device engaged, nullifying the gravitational
forces about Hautley's body.
He hurtled into the air in a long spring of uncoiling power.
The window of Shpem Hufferd's flat splintered into a
cloud of gritty particles as Hautley's body zoomed projectilelike through the aperature-arched into mid-air above the foetid street-flipped head over heels-and came crashing
through the window of the room above the bar.
Hautley landed in a fighting crouch, gun at the ready,
amidst a litter of shattered plastic.
But the room was emptyl
21
A BROKEN-DOWN BED slumped in one comer of the room,
and against the further wall, the remains of a cheap pneumo
sagged. Cheap garish 3D girlie prints hung on the walls. The
floor was uncarpeted, sheathed in wear-resistant plastic, and
liberally sprinkled with dust, aromatique butts, and even a
used ovo-snave wrapper or two. It stank of mildew, o
f old
meals, cheap booze, and smoke.
But it was empty. The assassin, or assassins, had fled. Hautley sprang to the door and tried it, but it was locked. The murderer of old Shpem Hufferd must have left only an instant or two before, for the chemical stench of a needle-gun still hung on the stale, vitiated air.
Hautley darted one hand into his "business suit," and withdrew a slim silvery tube which he pointed at the door. Time was of essence; he could easily pick the lock with his all purpose electronic key, but precious seconds were a-wasting. The silver tube flashed blindingly. The plastic door sagged, its
center panel sprawling limply like wet tissue. The door frame
around the lock dribbled down in rivulets of smoking, stenchful stuff that puddled the floor and left the metallic lock still fastened, hanging onto the wall's edge. Hautley sprang
through the smoking gap into a dusty ill-lit hall. Empty.
At the end of the hall was a staircase which led down to
the bar on the first floor. Quicksilver went down into a large
room crowded with shabby loungers inbibing pungent fluids,
smoking noisomely, filling the air with a concatenation of
odors and gabble. He caught the eye of a huge red barkeep
in a checkered apron, chewing on .the stump of an aromatique. He beckoned the fellow over with a flick of his fingers.
"What's yers, bo?'' the oaf growled around the muchchewed stump of his smoke.
"Information," Quicksilver said crisply, showing him a
bright iridium coin in the palm of his hand.
The fellow leered inquiringly, revealing an uneven row of
moss-green molars.
"Ask ahead, sport," he invited.
"The rooms upstairs-any of them taken?"
"Mmph. Lessee now. Yer can take yer pick, bud. De Mozart Room, de John Philip Sousa Room. de Diving Boilin Room, dey is all free. Oney one taken is de Meredith Wilsson
Room, what is let to a party till 2 : 30."
Quicksilver smiled thinly. "Cultural, aren't we!"
"De ol' songs are de best, kid," the scarlet-visaged barkeep
leered, chewing on his smoke.
Quicksilver cast a swift eye about the crowded noisy saloon. It was a motley horde, the spewings of the gutters of a hundred worlds. But nowhere amidst the seedy loungers did
his keen orb perceive a grey-complexioned Orgotyr in fluorescent scarlet tights slashed with dead-black piping and puckered ruffs, a kindly-faced Wollheimian in severely-tailored spray-on slacks with triple-gathered dockets down the cuff, a
plum-skinned Schloim from Pazatar 9, or a white-furred and
dual-headed entity from Wolverine 3. (May your historian
point out that Hautley Quicksilver had known he was being
followed all the time? I just wanted to call this to your atten·
tion.)
Hautley showed the barkeep the coin glinting in his palm
again, then asked who had taken the Meredith Wilsson room
for those hours. The barkeep spat into the sawdust-strewn
floor, and shrugged with a mountainous heave that set his
various bellies and chins bobbling �latinously.
"Jeez, mac, I dunno who he is. Stranger in town, never
sawr him before . . .
"
"Can you describe him, my good man?"
"Mmmf," the barkeep mused, dubiously, rubbing one
ham-sized hand over his stubbled jowls as if to massage into
heightened activity some dormant organ of recollection.
"Yeah, I guess so . . . lessee . . . he was a grey-complexioned Orgotyr in flourescent tights slashed wid dead-black pipin' an puckered ruffs. I t'ink!"
·"I thought so. And for what reason did he retain the ac-
commodations of your upstairs suite?"
"Said he had a game goin•."
Hautley's mirror-bright eyes flashed like chips of ice.
"And so he did, my man. The kind of game you hunt with
a gun."
Hautley tossed the fellow the coin and returned to search
the Meredith Wilsson Room swiftly but efficiently. He had
not thought to be so lucky as to actually discover a clue, but
the Gods of Chance were with him for a change. Near the
shattered window he came across a curious talisman whose
nature he could not at the moment recall. It was a bit of odd
purple metal, no larger than a humanoid thumbnail, worked
into the likeness of a hollow ellipse with a smaller circle contained within it-a symbol something like an eye. Strange.
He could not recall having ever seen its like. He nonetheless
slipped it into a pocket for a closer examination at a later
time.
Returning to the street by way of the noisy saloon, he reentered Huflerd's flat by means of the electronic key. Even though the former confederate of the Master Burglar of Capitan was defunct, Hautley hoped to find something in his quarters which might reveal the present location of Dugan
Motley. Anything would do-an address book perhaps, or an
old letter.
The light was burning. As soon as Ha:utley entered ·the
room, he stopped dead . • •
The assassin, whether it was the grey-complexioned Orgotyr in fluorescent tights slashed with dead-black piping and puckered ruffs, or one or another of his compatriots, had
been busy while Quicksilver had interrogated the crimsonfaced barkeep.
For the flat had been ransacked. It was a shambles; And
any clue to Dugan Motley's hiding place that Shpem Hufferd
might have had hidden away, must certainly have been discovered during such a thorough search.
Once more the Opposition had scored. Lips tightened
grimly, eyes cold as intergalactic space, Hautley vowed silently that this would be ,fueir last coup at his expense.
But be was wrong . . .
THE SHABBY APARTMENT had, quite literally, been turned upside down. Everything had been sifted through, including Hufferd's garbage. The room looked as if a double-barreled
cyclone had held a track meet in it for a Boy Scout troop of
midget tornadoes. Even the rotting furniture had been tom
apart. Hufferd's ragged clothing had been tom up the seams;
the grease-flecked, fly-spotted stikfast plastic wallpaper had
been ripped off the walls in sheets.
It looked completely hopeless. The enemy would surely not
have left any clues to the whereabouts of Dugan Motley laying around for Quicksilver to find, after this kind of a ransacking. Hautley's only hope for locating Dugan Motley, now that Shpem Hufferd slept in Abraham's bosom, lay in finding
a due amidst the rubble. So he swiftly but minutely searched
the wreckage.
Twenty minutes later he found the clue for which he
searched. He was leafing rapidly through the books in
Hufferd's small collection, when he noticed that one of the
titles was, by a suspicious coincidence, the memoirs of Dugan
Motley himself, a colloquial and not-unfiavorful tome called
Crime Does Not Pay (Much), disseminated by the Brasilia
Press, Sol lli, Centaurus Sector. Quadrant II. A passing
glance at the title page revealed something stamped with
smudged red ink above the publisher's address: a series of
code-numbers.
107-A-s/M.
He looked at the cryptic inscription thoughtfully. It seemed
to be nothing more than one of those public library subject
codes so enigmatic to the layman. The only difference was
that Hautley Quicksilver was no layman! Among his enormous fund of miscellaneous expertise, was a thorough familiarity with the common subject codes used through the civilized galax
y-the Fenster-Cosgrove Decimal System-and this was not it The Fenster-Cosgrove code was numerical
only. and this included alphabetical symbols.
Quicksilver's lips twisted grimly in a quirk of humor. It
would have fooled most searchers-the book itself was certainly battered and thumbed enough to pass for an ex-library copy-and the stamped r:ow of symbols was so ordinary,
most people would not have thought twice about them. But
Hautley Quicksilver was not "most people," and most people
were not Hautley Quicksilver!
It was a clever gambit. hiding a clue to Motley's habitat on
the one thing in the whole apartment which had the name of
Dugan Motley printed all over it
but what did the sym
•
•
•
bols mean? 107-A-s/M. It was not a phone number. that was
obvious: they had sixteen digits. Nor was it a homing system
wave length, and certainly not a set of galactographic coordinates. What, then. could it • • •
A street address!
Of course! His admiration for old Shpem Huflerd's intelligence multiplying by quantum-jumps, Quicksilver swiftly committed the number to memory. The old purloined letter
trick! Leaving the "concealed" information right smack out
in the open for anyone to trip over it! He grinned. and
looked at the title page again. In full, it read:
CRIME DOES NOT PAY (MUCH)
The Memoirs of
the Master-Burglar
of Capitan
Dugan Motley
107-A-s/M
Brasilia, Sol Ill
Quadrant II
BRASILIA PRESS I Centaurus Sector, I BRASILIA PRESS
Quadrant II
He widened his smile perceptibly. Once you spotted the
trick, it was actually almost impossible to miss the clue! Just
letting your eye slide down the center of the page, you saw
this:
Dugan Motley
107-A-s/ M
Brasilia, Sol Ill
Centaurus Sector,
Quadrant II.
He pulled out his personal phone and called the public li·
brary of Thieves' Haven, asking for the custodian of the planetary directories division. Brasilia turned out to be the capital city of the planet, Sol III, and there was only one street in the alien metropolis which could match the initials "A-s/M
Doomsman - the Theif of Thoth Page 15
