The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “Did you even send that much of an answer back in?” He shook his head and made a few tchukking noises. “Seems to me those rich floaters in security hotels buy their lottery tickets and pay their luxury charges to the States, just like the rest of us poor, honest types who don’t happen to have got caught with our fingers in the law-bending jar.”

  “We aren’t talking about parking violators and copyright infringers, Hammersmith. We’re talking about convicted murderers. If I were you, I’d be careful how I hinted in front of a polly about having gotten away with any crime in that category.”

  He spread his hand, the one that wasn’t holding his drink. “Hey, I proved in court it was self defense with that Rodrigo creep! All right, sometimes I get a little carried away by the philosophy of the moment, exaggerate a little, wax a little poetic.”

  “Seems to be an occupational hazard with you hard-boiled dicks.”

  “So forgive me. Anyway, I thought you had your doubts about whether or not M. Adrian Withycombe really was one of the guilty parties.”

  He could have found out about Magadance’s letter from a Hilton-Maracott source, or possibly from the daystaffer or chaplain who had smuggled it out. Or he might actually have received a similar letter himself. But so far as she was aware, nobody outside the Department, not even Withycombe himself, knew about her private doubts as to Withycombe’s guilt.

  It was probably as well that the waitress showed up at this point with their dinners and gave her something else to gripe about. “M.,” she said, with a glance at the plate just set before her, “I thought I was ordering creamed rabbit, not meatloaf.”

  “Oh, I—I’m sorry, M.! Would you care for another look at the menu?”

  Eying the young woman’s surprised face, Lestrade shook her head. “No thanks, M. It obviously isn’t your fault. I’m a little disappointed that Aster’s does this kind of thing, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy the meatloaf.”

  Still looking disturbed, the waitress vanished.

  Hammersmith remarked, tucking into his Abilene steak, “You should’ve taken her up on that menu offer, Dragon Lady. Now that you’ve sniffed out their little racket, they’d probably give you Alaska crab for the price of bunny in a garden.”

  “I notice you made sure they got your perceptive persuasion listed as ‘realizer.’ Correctly or not.”

  “Hell’s bells, Madame L., I thought you were at least fifty-fifty fancier, you’re so good at psychomystiquing the floaters.”

  “We don’t take fanciers on the regular force, Hammersmith. If they want to play fulltime detective, they have to get themselves licensed as private eyes.”

  “Wanna compare Test scores?”

  “Ninety-three point seven,” she shot back. Seeing him wince slightly and use a bite of steak to excuse his own lack of immediate response to her latest Standard Perception Test score, she went on, “I only specialize in fancy-class cases.”

  “Gotta empathize to understand ’em, right?”

  “You don’t have to be one of anything to imagine yourself in their place. Otherwise, every detective would have to be a spare-time criminal. Not that I don’t have as much sympathy for fanciers—most fanciers—as for anybody else.”

  “Except Adrian Withycombe, looks like. And maybe I oughta ask how much sympathy you’ve got for realizers. Like, for example, M. Gentian Truemeasure.”

  She tried not to stiffen. “I see you’ve been tabbing into the police databanks again. Even the newscasters have some respect for redtags and tracers.”

  “Unh-unh.” He shook his head. “The only reason those poor floaters keep more or less out of your files is because the public isn’t much interested in redtagged dirt these enlightened days. You know as well as I do that anybody with the right touch can get into any compfile from a nice, anonymous coinslot terminal, so don’t try pulling the old ‘tracer’ bluff on me.”

  “Go right on believing whatever you like about ‘anonymous’ comtabbing, but meanwhile, if I were you, I’d be a little grateful that in our generosity we program most of our redtags to wink at access by licensed private cops. We don’t program them to wink at access by news-noses.”

  “Um-hmm.” He infused it with a skeptical tone. “Okay, I’m grateful. How grateful would you be for an undocumented lead on where besides Truemeasure your man Lord Moan could have gotten the stuff that did in his loving countess?”

  Lestrade took a bite of meatloaf and chewed slowly, her intellect recognizing that it was very tasty, a combination of beef, ham, and chicken. She swallowed it, sipped some ice water, and said, “Was that a rhetorical question, or do you really have such a lead?”

  “Tell you later,” he said with a grin and a nod. “Right now, I think we’re about to get some company.”

  She followed the direction of his nod and saw a plump woman in neutral gray approaching, with their waitress in her wake.

  “At a wild guess,” Hammersmith added, “that’ll be our kitchen manager.”

  Wearing an expression of quiet distress, the newcomer reached their table. “M. Lestrade?” she began with the briefest glance at her handcom. “Please accept our deepest apologies. As it happens, we’re out of rabbit, due to an unexpectedly heavy call for it at midday. But if you’d care to make another selection ...”

  “The meatloaf is fine, thank you.”

  “Whatever dinner you may choose will be offered with the compliments of the house.”

  Ignoring Hammersmith’s wink, Lestrade told the kitchen manager, “Thank you, M., I understood at once that you were out of rabbit, or you would have brought me my original order instead of offering me the menu again. Believe me, your meatloaf is delicious.” It could be true about the midday call for rabbit. Easier to believe than that Aster’s regularly stocked and served a beef-ham-chicken mixgrind in preference to the less expensive meat. And at least some of the menu items had to be as described, or the management wouldn’t offer her another chance at the selection, now that they knew she was a reality perceiver. If she’d been out tonight for a good time, she might have enjoyed starting through the menu item by item, estimating how many dishes the kitchen would be “out of” to realizers.

  “If you’re sure, M., ...”

  “I’m sure,” said Lestrade.

  “Nevertheless, you will accept your dinner, dessert, and beverage with our compliments?”

  “Mine, too?” said Hammersmith.

  “My companion,” Lestrade said firmly, “has received and is paying for exactly what he ordered.”

  Looking relieved, the manager and waitress bowed and, after a few more apologies and reassurances, finally departed.

  “Now,” resumed the policewoman. “You were saying ...”

  “Sorry, dear lady. I’m not quite so generous as Aster’s. I don’t give it away with my compliments. Now maybe if you’d let them offer me a free dinner, too—”

  “Don’t try to play me for a mush-head, Hammersmith.”

  “Okay.” He dug a forkful of baked potato out of its skin, chewed it ostentatiously, swallowed, and bargained, “My lead on Earl Moan’s possible razzlelick supplier, for a little inside assistance on the Withycombe case.”

  On general principles, she made herself think it over. Barring the sudden appearance of new material evidence, Adrian Withycombe was beyond legal or official reach. Why not let Hammersmith have a go at saving his life? Aside from the consideration that the P.I. struck Lestrade as a bozo than whom Withycombe, if he really was innocent and in danger, deserved a lot better. She would have liked to examine the case more closely herself. She’d even have done it on her own time. But one more near-stressout would put her under some psychodoc’s direction, probably Ford’s or Youngdaughter’s; and departmental guidelines wouldn’t allow her to request another stressleave from homicide for the next twenty-one months. Still, how could it hurt Withycombe to have Hammersmith poking
around at his case, here outside the security wall?

  Besides, if Hammersmith knew that razzle was the substance involved in the death of Kara Winstanley, “the Countess of Moan,” he might actually have a viable lead on where Moan could have gotten it.

  “All right, M. Hammersmith,” said the policewoman, “you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  “Now you’re showing sense.” He cut, chewed, and swallowed another bite of steak, followed it with a swig of his drink, and said in a conspiratorial voice, “On Labor Day last year, a person who might have been one Elegius, Lord Moan, was sighted in Nostalgia City, coming out of a little shop calling itself the Pepper Pot, at about nineteen hundred hours.”

  “Seen by whom? And don’t give me that ‘privileged sources’ snapback. Nostalgia City caters to the Fancy Class.”

  “Also to fanciers-for-a-holiday, especially during that ol’ Memorial to Labor Day tourist season. The floater who saw Moan happens to be a personal friend of mine, with reality perception up in the eighty to ninety percent bracket.”

  “Your friend saw a person who might have been Moan. Moan’s standard description has been under the Privacy Rule since his arrest, so how do you make your identification?”

  “My friend saw the newsrelease wedding photo back in January of ’Eighty-Six.”

  Catching sight, over Hammersmith’s shoulder, of a couple of friendly acquaintances approaching their table, Lestrade should have checked him there. But it had been hard enough working him around to this dataflow.

  “For the record,” he was going on, “lean, dark, medium height, black hair, sharp nose, mole or possibly a beauty patch on the left jawbone, lightly accessorized black costume with ruffles at the wrists.”

  Lestrade’s acquaintances had reached the table. “Overhearing conversational descriptions,” said the young husband, “is rather unsettlingly akin to perusing tomes of medical symptoms. But for the ‘mole or beauty patch,’ I could have fancied that it was myself whom I overheard described.”

  “Your nose isn’t sharp, Poe,” said his wife. “Oh, bunny in the garden! I had that, too. Isn’t it good here?”

  “Very good,” Lestrade replied, wondering once again how they did it. Was Aster’s serving meatloaf for bunny in the garden and nothing else tonight, or was Angela Garvey slightly espersensitive? Her husband had shown signs of having a touch of the extrasensory.

  Hoping they were on their way to the theater, and yet suffering no doubt whatever about the polite order of presentations, Lestrade looked straight up at the young couple and said, “Let me introduce M. Hammersmith to you. M.’s Garvey and Poe, M. Hammersmith. M. Hammersmith, M.’s Garvey and Poe.”

  “Oh, just Angela, please!” said the wife. “And shall I call you ‘M.H.?”

  “Charmed!” he answered, half rising to shake her hand. He probably was. Angela G. Garvey had that effect on most people, right from the outset. “Fine with my first moniker, sweetheart, which is ‘Magnum.’ Join us for an after-dinner drink?”

  “Thank you,” said Poe, reaching as if to pull out a chair. Finding none—Aster’s was too high-toned to leave more chairs at a table than the reservation called for—he motioned for a waiter. Lestrade hadn’t observed it before, but now she suspected that he, like Hammersmith, had been indulging a little too heavily. And was probably much less used to it than the hard-boiled dick.

  Their overworked waitress having brought two extra chairs, Angela ordered a lemon mist and Poe had the sense to call for straight coffee.

  “And now,” said Angela, “set Poe’s mind at rest. Who were you talking about when we stepped up just now? Or mustn’t we ask?”

  “No reason you shouldn’t ask,” Lestrade lied firmly, “but it isn’t anyone whose name you’d recognize.”

  Poe chuckled gently. “Yes, we dark fellows of short to medium build are rather numerous, at least in our own perception. Tell me, M. Hammersmith, what culinary delight is that so rapidly vanishing from your plate?”

  “Mmmm.” Hammersmith swallowed politely before replying. Corwin Poe tended to have that effect on people. “The Abilene steak, baked Idaho, radish whip.”

  “I half feared as much. It appeared to be the same dish I received upon ordering prime rib. Except for the potato. Mine came whipped, in pastry shell.”

  Lestrade inquired, “Still suffering fits of reality perception?”

  “Intermittently. I have given over trying to eliminate them altogether. Now I strive merely to control their length and frequency. Meanwhile, M. Lestrade, may I compliment you on your gown?”

  “You can try,” said Hammersmith. “She won’t take any of my compliments.”

  “Then you, sir,” Angela said brightly, “may compliment me!”

  He obligingly started by complimenting her tunic and her hairdo, both of which were so simple that they had to be elegant.

  “Don’t forget her eyes,” said Poe, with a nod and a faintly dreamy smile. Then, making an obvious attempt to shake off the haze, he turned to Lestrade and said in a lowered voice, “But I fear that we may have intruded upon a private conversation?”

  She replied, “Yes and no.”

  “‘And no’?” Hammersmith said, breaking off in the middle of another compliment to Angela. “A private conversation, ‘yes and no,’ Senior Sergeant?”

  She returned his stare. “Private but not personal, M.”

  “‘Private’ but not ‘personal’? Okay, lovely lady, in that case, we should be able to get on with it. These good folks won’t mind. Will you, sweetheart?”

  Looking bemused, Angela shook her head. Her husband drummed his fingers once on the tablecloth and said, “M. Hammersmith, private business concerns can prove somewhat less than fascinating to disinterested third parties.”

  The P.I. came back with, “Well, friend, we’ve all got to listen to other people’s small talk once in a while, don’t we?”

  “Sure you wouldn’t like another drink or two first, M. Hammersmith?” said Lestrade.

  Instead of taking the hint, he swallowed what liquid was left in his glass, crunched an ice cube, and told her, “As I recollect, dear Aunt Polly, it was your turn in our little exchange.”

  “Send me a sealed letter. Assuming you can come up with any question I can answer that your own ‘privileged sources’ can’t.”

  “Not a piece of information. That’s my goods for you. From you, in return, what I want’s a favor.”

  “Ah!” said Poe. “The waitress with our postprandial libations.”

  “Good, sweetheart,” said Hammersmith. “And just bring me another of these.” He tapped his empty decanter. “Boss’s orders.”

  The waitress nodded, set the nonalcoholic cordial and coffee down in front of the proper people, and disappeared again. Angela said, “They’re so good here! They never seem to make a mistake or mix up an order.”

  If it was a last attempt to change the subject, it failed. Hammersmith rolled on, “I want to get inside that institution, you know the one. Clockround and undercover. We’ll never have a better chance than right now, and all you’ll have to do is pull a few strings and phony up a few programs.”

  “She already has,” said Poe. Carefully stirring a dollop of cream into his coffee, he added, “You’re just a trifle postmature, my friend. Senior Sergeant Lestrade already has her undercover agent. Myself.”

  Chapter

  When Corwin arrived next morning at the police station, he perceived it on the outside as a large, venerable old brownstone. On the inside it became more modern, patch-decorated in the bright motley preferred by reality perceivers. Where not obscured by plastimold chairs, garish vending machines, and other furnishings, the walls were covered with bulletin boards upon which comic strips printed out in full color outnumbered important-looking notices by approximately three to one. He guessed that the truly important bulletins, whether current or o
utdated, graced only the boards in those back rooms and offices where none save police and arrested persons were ever allowed.

  Informed at the front desk, a massive plastisteel collage mold apparently turned out by the same manufacturers responsible for so much of the furniture in budget-rental libraries, that both Sergeant Lestrade and her partner, Sergeant Click, were in court but might be back by lunchtime, he opted to wait and was shown to a small public lounge replete with reading screen, showscreen, self-contained screengame unit, and a small hamper of printed reading material.

  The waiting room might as well have been less cluttered. The hamper’s printed matter proved almost entirely aimed at young children, for reasons which he found several moments’ mental amusement in seeking to fathom. The reading screen had its selections entirely in memorybank; and while the titles looked eclectic and reasonably promising, either they were miscoded or the unit had some programming or mechanical peculiarity, so that Corwin, whose minimal computer literacy had been reacquired only within the last few years, began to experience a dreamlike frustration in trying to get beyond page two of the catalog with any success. The gamescreen, to which he turned more in curiosity than hope, appeared to be an antique so battered as to render it valueless for museums or reputable dealers, and finding a usable gamedisk in its drawer must surely constitute a major part of the sport. The showscreen alone functioned smoothly—its selection consisting of animated cartoons and public safety documentaries, the longest being listed at four hundred seconds.

  On the whole, he suspected that the lounge was purposely designed to discourage waiting, and that arrestees might well have a more diverting time of it in this institution than did peaceable citizens on legitimate business. He stepped out to the corridor vending machines for coffee and a cellopac of sodanuts, hoping that a much-needed flash into fantasy mode would change them into something more palatable. No such flash obliged him this morning. It might have been as well: the coffee, abominable as coffee, must have tasted even more so as mulled wine or hot cider. He sipped it only for the caffeine; in order to reach the police station at half past ten, he had risen at the early hour, for him, of nine, with something of a headache and something more of an anxious incertitude.