‘But Ma! Isn’t Pa officially dead?’
‘Sure. And North America is officially a continent, and the Atlantic is officially an ocean, but so what? On the astral plane, it could all be switched around tomorrow, just like that.’
Sheriff Benson cleared his throat. ‘You mind not snapping your fingers so loud there, Ma? I’m trying to concentrate on Lucky Couple. Heck of a big jackpot there, must be — oh, you leaving young feller?’
‘Got to catch the bus.’
‘Too bad you can’t stick around. In a minute they got The Big Break, then Mr and Mrs Jackpot, then Beautiful Winners — no wait, that’s on the other network — they got Boom or Bust, For Richer or Poorer, Hit a Gusher, Winning Streak, Crazy-stakes, Cash In, Read the Will, Slush Fun, Crapout…’
But the young man with the symmetrical face — Benson had no idea who he might be — was gone, faster than the time limit for one of them questions on Take the Cash. One of them real hard questions.
‘…Course we’re protected, but we ain’t exactly gonna make a pile on that deal,’ said Mr Kratt’s voice. ‘Not unless we buy this Bangfield out of Welby’s company… anyway you get your ass back here, next time don’t go telling the damn chauffeur how to drive the damn car.’
‘Yes sir.’ Ben hung up just as the bus was pulling in. Even so, by the time he’d gulped the tepid coffee, paid and tipped, counted his change twice and gathered up his notebook and God is Good Business, he was the last one aboard.
He found an empty seat behind a pair of nuns. Across the aisle was a young man Ben thought he recognized, until he saw him full-face (without a birthmark).
‘Reading about God, are you?’
‘Yes.’ Ben turned away quickly to the window. For all you knew, this guy could be one of the executioners last night.
The thought sent Ben back to his notebook:
‘In 1791 William Godwin wrote: “A servant who has been taught to write and read ceases to be any longer a passive machine.” In this he expressed the fading hope that any distinction could still be made between the common man and the common gadget. For by the time Godwin’s daughter had completed her New Prometheus (and while in the next room her husband echoed her creation in Prometheus Unbound: “And human hands first mimicked and then mocked,/With moulded limbs more lovely than its own,/The human form, till marble grew divine…”), by that time the French had already celebrated their revolution by creating a new automatic headsman, while in England the law declared that men who smash an automatic knitting machine must be hanged — as though they had committed murder.’
The man across the aisle was writing, too. Ben looked away, saw an ambulance go by, and heard one of the nuns:
‘Poor Father Warren! Imagine, getting malaria right here in the middle of Nebraska!’
‘On top of everything else, Sister!’
‘Yes, Sister. No wonder Mrs Feeney thinks he’s a saint.’
‘Ah, who knows, Sister?’
‘Ah, who indeed?’
It was late afternoon in New York, where they were changing one of the flags in front of the UN building. The peacock-blue-and-gold of the Shah of Ruritania came down to be replaced by the tricolour of a new People’s Republic. There was no ceremony, nothing to disturb the normal rise and fall of pigeons, flapping up to invisible ledges somewhere above, swooping down to join the sea of columbine grey through which waded a few tourists, among them Mr Goun.
Mr Goun and his camera had come to see the UN building, not to see if it was really (as its architect claimed) a ‘Cartesian skyscraper’ (Cartesian it was, as any sheet of graph-paper) or ‘a passion in glass’, but merely to finish a roll of film and the last afternoon of his vacation. He was passionately aware how much his feet hurt, how tired he was of standing like this in groups of tourists, all snapping away at some sight, all complaining about their feet, all anxious to get back to their homes (that is, to the machines in which they lived).
He was lonely. The only person he had spoken to (aside from foot complaints) was a policeman yesterday, who said:
‘Watch the way ya carry that camera, buddy. Lotsa cameras snatched like that, see?’
‘Thanks, offic—’
He thought of that conversation now, as he reached for his camera and came up with nothing but two ends of the strap, each neatly razored.
‘I’ve been robbed!’ he said. No one looked at him.
‘Hey I’ve been robbed!’ he said to a man in a Hawaiian shirt (matching the band of his straw hat).
‘Yeah? Tough.’ The man turned away to continue his conversation with someone else: ‘Okay so the Shah was a puppet, but I say, whose puppet? Whose puppet?’
Goun turned and bumped into someone.
‘Oh I’m sorry — hey! Professor Rogers, holy—’
‘Mistake!’ said the other, in an oddly hoarse voice. Indeed, his glittering gold hair did not look much like that of Rogers (except at the roots, where Goun was now looking), and some of his pock-marks seemed to have been filled in with putty.
‘But sure you must be, holy, hey it’s great to see you Prof—’
‘Mistake! Mistake! My name Felix Culpa!’
Goun watched, amazed, as the stranger ran off to jump into a yellow taxi. There was something like blood on the door.
Dear Dan,
The picture on the other side of this card is the post office in Newer where I won’t be mailing it. I hope you’re feeling better. Ma & Pa send their love. I’m fine.
Your pal,
Nothing to add, so he stared out of the window as familiar places flickered past: Virgil’s Hardware, Joradsen’s Drug, Fellstus Motors, the sort of new Simple Simon Supermart, HAIR TODAY, the Legion Hall, the Idle Hour, Violetta’s shoppe (now it was to be called VI & I NOTIONS), the pool hall, the library, Buttses Dairy, Bangfield Realty, Welby Investments, the site of the proposed Bangwel Building, Newer Produce, Cliff’s junkyard, the motel and chapel, and finally the office recently vacated by Dr Smith the dentist — men were carrying in a new mechanical receptionist, other men were putting gold lettering on the windows:
NOTE ON DIE! DIE! YOUR LORDSHIP
The murderer must be Dr Coué, using the billiard cue, between 8:00 and 8:15, and dropping the clue of the hair. Reasoning is as follows:
1. If the billiard cue was not the weapon, then either Drumm embezzled or Coué was blackmailed, or both. If Drumm embezzled, then the daughter was compromised. Since she was not, Drumm did not embezzle. If Coué was blackmailed, then the butler was an addict; if the butler was an addict, then the billiard cue was the weapon. In short, if the cue was not the weapon, then the cue was the weapon. This contradiction resolves only if:
The billiard cue was the weapon.
2. Since Adam used the polo-stick, and Brett the poker, only Coué or Drumm could have used the billiard cue. (Each suspect had access to only one weapon.)