"Do we take them in order?" asked Gwen. "Number ten is the only one I can ansv'er."
"That one I just chucked in," I answered. "Of the first nine I think that, if I find answers to any three, I could then deduce the rest." I went on putting words up on the screen:
POSSIBLE ACTIONS "When in Danger or in Doubt. Run in Circles. Scream and Shout."
"Does that help?" asked Gwen.
"Every time! Ask any old military man. Now let's take it one question at a time":
Q. 1-Phone each Taliaferro in the directory. Learn preferred pronunciation of name. Strike out any who use the every-letter pronunciation.
Q. 2-Dig into background of whoever is left. Start with the Herald back files.
Q. 3-While checking Q2, keep ears spread for anything scheduled or expected for noon Sunday.
Q. 4-If you were a corpse arriving at Golden Rule space habitat and you wanted to conceal your identity but had to be able to get at your passport and other documents for departure, where would you stash them? Hint: Check when this cadaver arrived in Golden Rule. Then check hotels, lockers, deposit box services, poste restante, etc.
Q. 5-postpone
Q. 6-postpone
Q. 7-Reach by phone as many of the "Walker Evans" oath group as possible. Keep going till one spills. Note: Some jelly brain may have talked too much without knowing it.
Q. 8-Morris, or the maitre d', or the busman, or all of them, or any two, knows who killed Schultz. One or more of them expected it. So we look for each one's weak point- liquor, drugs, money, sex (comme ci ou comme ga)-and what was your name back dirtside, chum? Any paper out on you somewhere? Find that soft spot. Push it. Do this with all three of them, then see how their stories check. Every closet has a skeleton. This is a natural law-so find it in each case.
Q. 9-Money (Conclusive assumption until proved false.)
(Query: How much is all this going to cost me? Can I afford it? Counter query: Can I afford not to pursue it?)
"I've been wondering about that," said Gwen. "When I poked my nose in, I thought you were in real trouble. But apparently you are home free. Why must you do anything, my husband?"
-I need to kill him."
"What? But you don't know which Tolliver is meant! Or why he should be dead. If he should be."
"No, no, not Tolliver. Although it may develop that Tolliver should be dead. No, dear, the man who killed Schultz. I must find him and kill him."
"Oh. Uh, I can see that he should be dead; he's a murderer. But why must you do it? Both are strangers to you-both the victim and whoever killed him. Actually it's not your business. Is it?"
"It is my business. Schultz or whatever his name is was killed while he was a guest at my table. That's intolerably rude. I won't put up with it. Gwen my love, if one tolerates bad manners, they grow worse. Our pleasant habitat could decay into the sort of slum Ell-Five is, with crowding and unmannerly behavior and unnecessary noise and impolite language. I must find the oaf who did this thing, explain to him his offense, give him a chance to apologize, and kill him."
III
'One should forgive one*s enemies, but not before they are hanged.**
HEINRICH HEINE 1797-1856
My lovely bride stared at me. "You would kill a man? For bad manners?"
"Do you know of a better reason? Would you have me ignore rude behavior?"
"No but- I can understand executing a man for murder;
I'm not opposed to capital punishment. But shouldn't you leave this to the proctors and the management? Why must you take the law into your own hands?"
"Gwen, I haven't made myself clear. My purpose is not to punish but to weed... plus the esthetic satisfaction of retaliation for boorish behavior. This unknown killer may have had excellent reasons for killing the person who called himself Schultz... but killing in the presence of people who're eating is as offensive as public quarreling by married couples. Then this oaf capped his offense by doing this while his victim was
my guest... which made retaliation both my obligation and my privilege."
I went on, "The putative offense of murder is not my concern. But as for proctors and the management taking care of that matter, do you know of any regulation forbidding murder?"
"What? Richard, there must be one."
"I've never heard of one. I suppose the Manager might construe murder as a violation of the Golden Rule-"
"Well, I would certainly think so!"
"You do? I'm never certain what the Manager will think. But, Gwen my darling, killing is not necessarily murder. In fact it often is not. If this killing ever comes to the Manager's attention, he may decide that it was justifiable homicide. An offense against manners but not against morals.
"But-" I continued, turning back to the terminal, "-the Manager may already have settled the matter, so let's see what the Herald has to say about it." I punched up the newspaper again, this time keying for today's index, then selecting today's vital statistics.
The first item to roll past was "Marriage-Ames-Novak" so I stopped it, punched for amplification, keyed for printout, tore it off and handed it to my bride. "Send that to your grandchildren to prove that Granny is no longer living in sin."
"Thank you, darling. You're so gallant. I think."
"I can cook, too." I scrolled on down to the obituaries. I usually read the obituaries first as there is always the happy chance that one of them will make my day.
But not today. No name I recognized. Especially no "Schultz." No unidentified stranger. No death "in a popular restaurant." Nothing but the usual sad list of strangers dead from natural causes and one by accident. So I keyed for general news of the habitat, let it scroll past.
Nothing. Oh, there were endless items of routine events, from ships' arrivals and departures to (the biggest news) an announcement that the newest addition, rings 130-140, was being brought up to spin and, if all went by schedule, would be warped in and its welding to the main cylinder started by 0800 on the sixth.
But there was nothing about "Schultz," no mention of any Tolliver or Taliaferro, no unidentified cadaver. I consulted the paper's index again, punched for next Sunday's schedule of events, found that the only thing scheduled for noon Sunday was a panel discussion assembled by holo from The Hague, Tokyo, Luna City, Ell-Four, Golden Rule, Tel Aviv, and Agra: "Crisis in Faith: The Modem World at the Crossroads." The co-moderators were the president of the Humanist Society and the Dalai Lama. I wished them luck.
"So far we have zip, zero, nit, swabo, and nothing. Gwen, what is a polite way for me to ask strangers how they pronounce their names?"
"Let me try it, dear. I'll say, 'Miz Tollivuh, this is Gloria Meade Calhoun f'om Savannah. Do you have a cousin, Stacey Mac, f'om Chahlston?' When she corrects my pronunciation of her name, I apologize and switch off. But if she-or he- accepts the short form but denies knowing Stacey Mac, I say, 'I wonduhed about that. She said it, Talley-ah-pharoh... but I knew that was wrong.' What then, Richard? Work it up into a date or switch off by 'accident'?"
"Make a date, if possible."
"A date for you? Or for me?"
"For you, and then I'll go with you. Or keep the date in your place. But I must first buy a hat."
"A hat?"
"One of those funny boxes you sit on the flat part of your head. Or would if you were dirtside."
"I know what a hat is! But I was born dirtside same as you were. But I doubt if a hat has ever been seen off Earth. Where would you buy one?"
"I don't know, best girl, but I can tell you why I need one. So that I can tip my hat politely and say, 'Sir or madam, pray tell me why someone wishes you dead by noon Sunday.' Gwen, this has been worrying me-how to open such a discussion. There are accepted polite modes for almost any inquiry, from proposing adultery to a previously chaste wife to soliciting a bribe. But how does one open this subject?"