Friday (18 page)

“So Georges and I worked out a deal,” Ian agreed, “as neither of us could manage Jan alone. Right, Georges?”

“You have reason, my brother. If indeed the two of us can manage Janet.”

“I have trouble managing you two,” Jan commented. “I had better sign up Marj to help me. Marj?”

I did not take this quasi-offer seriously because I felt sure that it wasn’t meant seriously. Everyone was making chitchat to cover the shocker I had dropped into their laps. We all knew that. But did anyone but me notice that my job was no longer a subject? I knew what had happened—but why did that deep-down layer of my brain decide to table the subject so emphatically? I would never tell Boss’s secrets!

Suddenly I was urgently anxious to check with Boss. Was he involved in these odd events? If so, on which side?

“More soup, dear lady?”

“Don’t give her more soup till she answers me.”

“But, Jan, you weren’t serious. Georges, if I take more soup, I will eat more garlic bread. And I’ll get fat. No. Don’t tempt me.”

“More soup?”

“Well…just a little.”

“I’m quite serious,” Jan persisted. “I’m not trying to tie you down as you are probably soured on matrimony at present. But you could give it a trial and a year from now we could discuss it. If you wished to. In the meantime I’ll keep you for a pet…and I’ll let these two goats be in the same room with you only if their conduct pleases me.”

“Wait a minute!” Ian protested. “Who fetched her here?
I
did. Marj is
my
sweetheart.”

“Freddie’s sweetheart, according to Betty. You brought her here as Betty’s proxy. As may be, that was yesterday and she’s my sweetheart now. If either of you want to speak to her, you’ll have to come to me and get your ticket punched. Isn’t that right, Marjorie?”

“If you say so, Jan. But it’s only a theoretical point as I really do have to leave. Do you have a large-scale map of the border in the house? South border, I mean.”

“As good as. Call one up on the computer. If you want a printout, use the terminal in my study—off my bedroom.”

“I don’t want to interfere with the news.”

“You won’t. We can uncouple any terminal from all the others—necessary as this is a household of rugged individualists.”

“Especially Jan,” agreed Ian. “Marj, why do you want a big map of the Imperium border?”

“I would rather go home by tube. But I can’t. Since I can’t, I must find some other way to get home.”

“I thought so. Honey, I’m going to have to take your shoes away from you. Don’t you realize you can get shot trying to cross that border? Right now the guards on both sides are sure to be trigger-happy.”

“Uh…is it all right for me to study the map?”

“Certainly…if you promise not to try to sneak across the border.”

Georges said gently, “My brother, one should never tempt one of the dear ones to lie.”

“Georges is right,” Jan ruled. “No forced promises. Go ahead, Marj; I’ll clear up here. Ian, you just volunteered to help.”

I spent the next two hours at the computer terminal in my borrowed room, memorizing the border as a whole, then going to maximum magnification and learning certain parts in great detail. No border can be truly tight, not even the bristling walls some totalitarian states place around their subjects. Usually the best routes are near the guarded ports of entry—often in such places the smugglers’ routes are worn smooth. But I would not follow a known route.

There were many ports of entry not too far away: Emerson Junction, Pine Creek, South Junction, Gretna, Maida, etc. I looked also at Roseau River, but it seemed to flow the wrong way—north into the Red River. (The map was not too clear.)

There is an odd chunk of land sticking out into the Lake of the Woods east-southeast of Winnipeg. The map colored it as part of the Imperium and showed nothing to stop one walking across the border at that point—if she were willing to risk several kilometers of marshy ground. I’m no superman; I can get bogged down in a swamp—but that unguarded stretch of border was tempting. I finally put it out of my mind because, while legally that chunk was part of the Imperium, it was separated from the Imperium proper by twenty-one kilometers of water. Steal a boat? I made a bet with myself that any boat, crossing that stretch of lake, would interrupt a beam. Failure to respond to challenge correctly would then result in a laser burn in the bow you could throw a dog through. I don’t argue with lasers; you can neither bribe them nor sweet-talk them—I put it out of my mind.

I had just stopped studying maps and was letting the images soak into my mind when Janet’s voice came out of the terminal: “Marjorie, come to the living room, please. Quickly!”

I came very quickly.

Ian was talking to someone in the screen. Georges was off to one side, out of pickup. Janet motioned to me to stay out of pickup, too. “Police,” she said quietly. “I suggest that you go down into the Hole at once. Wait and I’ll call you when they’ve gone.”

I answered just as quietly, “Do they know that I’m here?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“Let’s be sure. If they know I’m here and they can’t find me, you’ll be in trouble.”

“We are not afraid of trouble.”

“Thanks. But let’s listen.”

Ian was saying to the face in the screen, “Mel, come off it. Georges is not an enemy alien and you damned well know it. As for this—‘Miss Baldwin,’ did you say?—why are you looking here for her?”

“She left the port with you and your wife yesterday evening. If she’s not still with you, then you certainly know where she is. As for Georges, any Kaybecker is an enemy alien today no matter how long he has been here or what clubs he belongs to. I assume that you would rather have an old friend pick him up than a trooper. So switch off your sky guard; I’m ready to land.”

Janet whispered, “‘Old friend’ indeed! He’s been trying to get into bed with me since high school; I have been telling him no the same length of time—he’s slimy.”

Ian sighed. “Mel, this is a hell of a funny time to talk about friendship. If Georges were here, I’m sure he would rather be arrested by a trooper than be taken in under the guise of friendship. So go back and do it the right way.”

“Oh, so it’s that way, is it? Very well! Lieutenant Dickey speaking. I’m here to make an arrest. Switch off your sky guard; I’m landing.”

“Ian Tormey, householder, acknowledging police hail. Lieutenant, hold your warrant up to your pickup so that I may verify it and photograph it.”

“Ian, you are out of your silly mind. A state of emergency has been declared; no warrant is required.”

“I can’t hear you.”

“Maybe you can hear this: I am about to lock onto your sky guard and burn it out. If I set fire to something in doing so, that’s too damn bad.”

Ian spread his hands in disgust, then did something at the keyboard. “Sky guard is off.” He then switched to “hold” and turned to us. “You two have maybe three minutes to get down the Hole. I can’t stall him very long at the door.”

Georges said quietly, “I shall not hide in a hole in the ground. I shall insist on my rights. If I do not receive them, at a later time I shall sue Melvin Dickey for his hide.”

Ian shrugged. “You’re a crazy Canuck. Put you’re a big boy now. Marj, get undercover, dear. It won’t take too long to get rid of him as he doesn’t really know that you are here.”

“Uh, I’ll go down the Hole if necessary. But can’t I simply wait in Janet’s bath? He might go away. I’ll switch the terminal there to pick up what goes on here. All right?”

“Marj, you’re being difficult.”

“Then persuade Georges to go down the Hole, too. If he stays, I might be needed here. To help him. To help you.”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

I was not sure myself what I was talking about. But it did not seem like anything I had been trained for to declare myself out of the game and go hide in a hole in the ground. “Ian, this Melvin Dickey—I think he means harm to Georges. I could feel it in his voice. If Georges won’t go with me into the Hole, then I should go with him to see to it that this Dickey does not hurt him—anyone in the hands of the police needs a witness on his side.”

“Marj, you can’t possibly stop a—” A deep gong note sounded. “Oh, damn! He’s at the door. Get out of sight! And go down the Hole!”

I got out of sight, I did not go down the Hole. I hurried into Janet’s big bath, switched on the terminal, then used the selector switch to place the living room pickup on screen. When I turned up the sound, it was almost as good as being there.

A banty rooster strutted in.

Actually it was not Dickey’s body but his soul that was small. Dickey had a size-twelve ego in a size-four soul, in a body almost as big as Ian’s. He came into the room with Ian, spotted Georges, said triumphantly, “There you are! Perreault, I arrest you for willfully failing to report for internment as ordered by the Decree of Emergency, paragraph six.”

“I have received no such order.”

“Oh, piffle! It’s been all over the news.”

“I do not make a practice of following the news. I know of no law requiring me to. May I see a copy of the order under which you propose to arrest me?”

“Don’t try to come the shyster on me, Perreault. We’re operating under National Emergency and I’m enforcing it. You can read the order when I get you in. Ian, I’m deputizing you to help me. Take these nips”—Dickey reached behind himself, pulled out a pair of handcuffs—“and put them on him. Hands behind his back.”

Ian did not move. “Mel, don’t be more of a fool than you have to be. You have no possible excuse to put handcuffs on Georges.”

“The hell I don’t! We’re running shorthanded and I’m making this arrest without assistance. So I can’t take a chance on him trying to pull something sneaky while we’re floating back. Hurry up and get those cuffs on him!”

“Don’t point that gun at me!”

I was no longer watching. I was out of the bath, through two doors, down a long hall, and into the living room, all with a frozen motion feeling I get when I’m triggered into overdrive.

Dickey was trying to cover three people with his gun, one of them being Janet. He should not have done that. I moved up to him, took his gun, and hand-chopped his neck. The bones made that unpleasant crunching noise neck bones always make, so unlike the sharp crack of fractured tibia or radius.

I eased him to the rug and placed his pistolet by him, while noting that it was a Raytheon five-oh-five powerful enough to stop a mastodon—why do men with little souls have to have big weapons? I said, “Jan, are you hurt?”

“No.”

“I got here as fast as I could. Ian, this is what I meant when I said that my help might be needed. But I should have stayed here. I was almost too late.”

“I’ve never seen anyone move so fast!”

Georges said quietly, “I have seen.”

I looked at him. “Yes, of course you have. Georges, will you help me move this”—I indicated the corpse—“and can you drive a police APV?”

“I can if I must.”

“I am about at that level of skill, too. Let’s get rid of the body. Janet told me a bit about where bodies go, did not show me the spot. Some hole just off the escape tunnel, isn’t it? Let’s get busy. Ian, as soon as we dispose of
this
, Georges and I can leave. Or Georges can stay and sweat it out. But once the body and the APV are gone, you and Jan can play dumb. No evidence. You never saw him. But we must hurry, before he is missed.”

Jan was down on her knees beside the late police lieutenant. “Marj, you actually did kill him.”

“Yes. He hurried me. Nevertheless I killed him on purpose because in dealing with a policeman it is much safer to kill than to hurt. Jan, he should not have pointed his burner at you. Otherwise I might merely have disarmed him—then killed him only if you decided that he needed to be dead.”

“You hurried, all right. You weren’t here and then you were and Mel was falling. ‘—needed to be dead’? I don’t know but I won’t grieve. He’s a rat.
Was
a rat.”

Ian said slowly, “Marj, you don’t seem to realize that killing a police officer is a serious matter. It is the only capital crime that British Canada still has on the books.”

When people talk that way, I don’t understand them; a policeman isn’t anybody special. “Ian, to me, pointing a pistol at my friends is a serious matter. Pointing one at Janet is a capital crime. But I’m sorry I upset you. Right now here is a body to dispose of and an APV to get rid of. I can help. Or I can disappear. Say which but be quick; we don’t know how soon they will come looking for him—and for us. Just that they will.”

While I spoke, I was searching the corpse—no pouch, I had to search his pockets, being very careful with his trouser pockets because his sphincters had cut loose the way they always do. Not much, thank Bast!—he had barely wet his pants and he did not yet stink. Or not badly. The important items were in his jacket pockets: wallet, buzzer, IDs, money, credit cards, all the walk-around junk that tells a modern man that he is alive. I took the wallet and the Raytheon burner; the rest was trash. I picked up those silly handcuffs. “Any way to dispose of metal? Or must these go down the same hole as the body?”

Ian was still chewing his lip. Georges said gently, “Ian, I urge you to accept Marjorie’s help. It is evident that she is expert.”

Ian stopped jittering. “Georges, take his feet.” The men carried the body into the big bath. I hurried ahead and dropped Dickey’s gun, cuffs, and wallet on the bed in my room, and Janet put his hat with these items. I hurried into the bath, undressing as I went. Our men, with burden, had just reached it. Ian said, as they put it down, “Marj, you don’t need to peel down. Georges and I will take it through. And dispose of it.”

“All right,” I agreed. “But let me take care of washing it. I know what needs to be done. I can do it better naked, then a quick shower afterwards.”

Ian looked puzzled, then said, “Oh, hell, let him stay dirty.”

“All right if you say so, but you aren’t going to want to use this pool or even go through it getting in and out of the Hole until the water has been changed and the pool basin itself scrubbed. I think it is faster to wash the body. Unless—” Janet had just come in. “Jan, you spoke of emptying this plunge into a holding tank. How long does that take? Full cycle, in and out.”