Harry Turtledove The Case Of The Toxic Spell Dump

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

"Judy? Judy Adler in 272?" He gaped at me, and then at the door I'd left open,
I suppose to confirm that that was the flat I was talking about He stood
aside. "You'd better come in."
His flat could have been furnished from the St Ferdinand's Valley swap meet;
the operative phrase was essence of bad taste. From the couch, his wife gave
me a fishy stare. That was the least of my worries.
But he took me to the phone and let me use it, so his carp-eyed wife could
stare all she liked.
Even through two phone imps, the Long Beach constabulary decurion sounded
bored when he answered my call.
Kidnapping
, though, is a word to conjure with when you're talking to constables.
"Don't go back into the flat," he told me. "Stand out in front of the building
and watt for our units. It won't be long, Mr., uh, Fisher."
I stood out in front of the building. It wasn't long. Two black-and-whites
pulled up, red and blue lanterns flashing. Right behind them were a couple of
plainweave carpets that carried plainclothes constables.
Everybody swept up to Judy's flat and started doing constabulary-type things:
physical searches, spells, what have you. One of the plainclothesmen grunted
when he saw the imploded phone. "Looks like a professional job," he said. "We
aren't likely to come up with anything much."
They hadn't bothered asking me for a statement yet I said, "This isn't just an
isolated case. I can guarantee you that."
"Oh? How?" The plainclothesman sounded skeptical is the politest way I can put
it.
As with the bored decurion at the phone desk, I had the words to rock him. I
spoke them, one by one:
attempted murder, Thomas Brothers fire. Central Intelligence
. "You'd better get hold of Legate
Shiro Kawaguchi, up in St Ferdinand's Valley," I added "He can fill you in on
the details."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"All right, sir, we'll do that" the plainclothesman said he was a tall black
fellow named Johnson. "Jesus, what kind of mess are we walking into the middle
of?"
"A bad one," I said. "But you're not in the middle of it; you're just on the
edge.
I'm in the middle and so is my fianc�e."
A fellow wearing forensics crystal balls on his collar tabs came up to Johnson
and said, "I ran a similarity check between the blood on the bedspread and the
razor I found in a bathroom drawer. They match, so that's probably Adler's
blood"
I moaned. That's a word you hear every so often, but you hardly ever use ,
let alone do it. This was it one of those times. I felt as if I'd been kicked
in the belly. Judy, bleeding? Judy, maybe dead?
I must have said that out loud (though I don't remember doing it), because the
forensics man put a hand on my shoulder and said, "I don't think she's dead
sir. There's evidence of some funny kind of fast-dissipating sleep spell in
the flat. My best guess is, she put up a fight they slugged her, she kept
fighting, and they knocked her out so they could get her away from here."
I liked him, and believed him, too. He didn't try sounding like somebody who
knew everything there was to know; no pseudo-learned drivel about analyses and
reconstructions. His best guess was what he had and that's what he gave me. I
thought it seemed likely, too.
The constables in uniform had been knocking on doors through the block of
flats. People opened doors for them even the louse who lived next to Judy and
Page 136
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
had pretended I didn't exist. But there's a difference between getting doors
to open and learning anything once they have. The constables came back to
Judy's flat empty-handed: nobody had seen anything, nobody had heard anything.
That's insane," I exploded. They take an unconscious woman downstairs and out
of a block of flats at a busy time of the evening and nobody noticed?"
"Must have been magic," Johnson said. they used it to knock Mistress Adler
out, they probably used it
If to aid the getaway, too."
I ll check that," the forensics man said, and he bustled out onto the walkway.
"What do I do now?" I said, as much to myself as to anyone else. Half of me
wanted to make like a light-and-magic show mercenary and go out slaughtering
all the bad guys. The other half, unfortunately, reminded me that not only did
I not know how to get my hands on the bad guys, but that if I went after
them whoever they were alone, they d dispose of me instead of the other way
round.
Johnson s answer showed that, as suited a constable, he had a thoroughly
practical mind "What you do now, Mr. Fisher, is come down to the station with
us so we can get a sworn statement from you."
I didn't know where the Long Beach constabulary station was; I had to follow
one of the plainweave carpets back there. It turned out to be almost on the
ocean, in a fancy new building. Legate Kawaguchi would have killed for
Johnson's large, bright, efficient office. Come to that, I wouldn't have
minded having it myself.
Like constables anywhere in the Barony of Angels, the Long Beach crew had a
regular library of scriptures on which the people with whom they dealt could
swear truthfulness: everything from the
Analects to the
Zend-Avesta
. They pulled out a Torah for me; I rested my hand on the satin cover while
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
I repeated the oath Johnson gave me.
Then he called up their scriptorium spirit to take down my words. I repeated
everything I'd said in Judy's flat, and added detail to go with it. After a
while, I paused and said, "What time is it, anyhow?"
Johnson asked his watch. It said, "Nine forty-one."
"Could you get me a sandwich or something?" I asked "I came down here for a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Archiwum