"Who is she?"
"That's Ellen Ackers."
Beam laughed sharply. "And she's driving Paul Tirol around?"
"She's – well, she's driving Tirol around, yes. You can put it that way."
"How long?"
"I thought you were in on it. She and Ackers split up; that was last year. But he wouldn't let her leave; he wouldn't give her a divorce. Afraid of the publicity. Very important to keep up respectability… keep the shirt fully stuffed."
"He knows about Paul Tirol and her?"
"Of course not. He knows she's – spiritually hooked up. But he doesn't care… as long as she keeps it quiet. It's his position he's thinking about."
"If Ackers found out," Beam murmured. "If he saw the link between his wife and Tirol… he'd ignore his ten interoffice memos. He'd want to haul in Tirol. The hell with the evidence; he could always collect that later." Beam pushed away his drink; the glass was empty anyhow. "Where is Ackers?"
"I told you. Out at Lantano's place, picking him up."
"He'd come back here? He wouldn't go home?"
"Naturally he'd come back here." Garth was silent a moment. "I see a couple of Interior vans turning into the garage ramp. That's probably the pick-up crew returning."
Beam waited tensely. "Is Ackers along?"
"Yes, he's there. Banish It!" Garth's voice rose in stentorian frenzy. "Banish the system of Banishment! Root out the crooks and pirates!"
Sliding to his feet, Beam left the bar.
A dull light showed in the rear of Edward Ackers' apartment: probably the kitchen light. The front door was locked. Standing in the carpeted hallway, Beam skillfully tilted with the door mechanism. It was geared to respond to specific neural patterns: those of its owners and a limited circle of friends. For him there was no activity.
Kneeling down, Beam switched on a pocket oscillator and started sine wave emission. Gradually, he increased the frequency. At perhaps 150,000 cps the lock gui ltily clicked; that was all he needed. Switching the oscillator off, he rummaged through his supply of skeleton patterns until he located the closet cylinder. Slipped into the turret of the oscillator, the cylinder emitted a synthetic neural pattern close enough to the real thing to affect the lock.
The door swung open. Beam entered.
In half-darkness the living room seemed modest and tasteful. Ellen Ackers was an adequate housekeeper. Beam listened. Was she home at all? And if so, where? Awake? Asleep?
He peeped into the bedroom. There was the bed, but nobody was in it.
If she wasn't here she was at Tirol's. But he didn't intend to follow her; this was as far as he cared to risk.
He inspected the dining room. Empty. The kitchen was empty, too. Next came an upholstered general-purpose rumpus room; on one side was a gaudy bar and on the other a wall-to-wall couch. Tossed on the couch was a woman's coat, purse, gloves. Familiar clothes: Ellen Ackers had worn them. So she had come here after leaving his research lab.
The only room left was the bathroom. He fumbled with the knob; it was locked from the inside. There was no sound, but somebody was on the other side of the door. He could sense her in there.
"Ellen," he said, against the panelling. "Mrs. Ellen Ackers; is that you?"
No answer. He could sense her not making any sound at alclass="underline" a stifled, frantic silence.
While he was kneeling down, fooling with his pocketful of magnetic lock-pullers, an explosive pellet burst through the door at head level and splattered into the plaster of the wall beyond.
Instantly the door flew open; there stood Ellen Ackers, her face distorted with fright. One of her husband's government pistols was clenched in her small, bony hand. She was less than a foot from him. Without getting up, Beam grabbed her wrist; she fired over his head, and then the two of them deteriorated into harsh, labored breathing.
"Come on," Beam managed finally. The nozzle of the gun was literally brushing the top of his head. To kill him, she would have to pull the pistol back against her. But he didn't let her; he kept hold of her wrist until finally, reluctantly, she dropped the gun. It clattered to the floor and he got stiffly up.
"You were sitting down," she whispered, in a stricken, accusing voice.
"Kneeling down: picking the lock. I'm glad you aimed for my brain." He picked up the gun and succeeded in getting it into his overcoat pocket; his hands were shaking.
Ellen Ackers gazed at him starkly; her eyes were huge and dark, and her face was an ugly white. Her skin had a dead cast, as if it were artificial, totally dry, thoroughly sifted with talc. She seemed on the verge of hysteria; a harsh, muffled shudder struggled up inside her, lodging finally in her throat. She tried to speak but only a rasping noise came out.
"Gee, lady," Beam said, embarrassed. "Come in the kitchen and sit down."
She stared at him as if he had said something incredible or obscene or miraculous; he wasn't sure which.
"Come on." He tried to take hold of her arm but she jerked frantically away. She had on a simple green suit, and in it she looked very nice; a little too thin and terribly tense, but still attractive. She had on expensive earrings, an imported stone that seemed always in motion… but otherwise her outfit was austere.
"You – were the man at the lab," she managed, in a brittle, choked voice.
"I'm Leroy Beam. An independent." Awkwardly guiding her, he led her into the kitchen and seated her at the table. She folded her hands in front of her and studied them fixedly; the bleak boniness of her face seemed to be increasing rather than receding. He felt uneasy.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Cup of coffee?" He began searching the cupboards for a bottle of Venusian-grown coffee substitute. While he was looking, Ellen Ackers said tautiy: "You better go in there. In the bathroom. I don't think he's dead, but he might be."
Beam raced into the bathroom. Behind the plastic shower curtain was an opaque shape. It was Paul Tirol, lying wadded up in the tub, fully clothed. He was not dead but he had been struck behind the left ear and his scalp was leaking a slow, steady trickle of blood. Beam took his pulse, listened to his breathing, and then straightened up.
At the doorway Ellen Ackers materialized, still pale with fright. "Is he? Did I kill him?"
"He's fine."
Visibly, she relaxed. "Thank God. It happened so fast – he stepped ahead of me to take the M inside his place, and then I did it. I hit him as lightly as I could. He was so interested in it… he forgot about me." Words spilled from her, quick, jerky sentences, punctuated by rigid tremors of her hands. "I lugged him back in the car and drove here; it was all I could think of."
"What are you in this for?"
Her hysteria rose in a spasm of convulsive muscle-twitching. "It was all planned – I had everything worked out. As soon as I got hold of it I was going to -" She broke off.
"Blackmail Tirol?" he asked, fascinated.
She smiled weakly. "No, not Paul. It was Paul who gave me the idea… it was his first idea, when his researchers showed him the thing. The M, he calls it. M stands for machine. He means it can't be educated, morally corrected."
Incredulous, Beam said: "You were going to blackmail your husband."
Ellen Ackers nodded. "So he'd let me leave."
Suddenly Beam felt sincere respect for her. "My God – the rattle. Heimie didn't arrange that; you did. So the device would be trapped in the apartment."
"Yes," she agreed. "I was going to pick it up. But Paul showed up with other ideas; he wanted it, too."
"What went haywire? You have it, don't you?"
Silently she indicated the linen closet. "I stuffed it away when I heard you."
Beam opened the linen closet. Resting primly on the neatly-folded towels was a small, familiar, portable TV unit.