Flatlander - Larry Niven [18]
“I wondered if you’d see that.”
“But why should he not be tied up? He is tied up and allowed to waken. Perhaps the arrangement is explained to him, perhaps not. That would be up to the killer. The killer then plugs Mr. Jennison into a wall. A current trickles through his brain, and Owen Jennison knows pure pleasure for the first time in his life.
“He is left tied up for, let us say, three hours. In the first few minutes he would be a hopeless addict, I think—”
“You must have known more current addicts than I have.”
“Even I would not want to be pinned down. Your normal current addict is an addict after a few minutes. But then, your normal current addict asked to be made an addict, knowing what it would do to his life. Current addiction is symptomatic of despair. Your friend might have been able to fight free of a few minutes’ exposure.”
“So they kept him tied up for three hours. Then they cut the ropes.” I felt sickened. Ordaz’s ugly, ugly pictures matched mine in every detail.
“No more than three hours, by our hypothesis. They would not dare stay longer than a few hours. They would cut the ropes and leave Owen Jennison to starve to death. In the space of a month the evidence of his drugging would vanish, as would any abrasions left by ropes, lumps on his head, mercy needle punctures, and the like. A carefully detailed, well-thought-out plan, don’t you agree?”
I told myself that Ordaz was not being ghoulish. He was just doing his job. Still, it was difficult to answer objectively.
“It fits our picture of Loren. He’s been very careful with us. He’d love carefully detailed, well-thought-out plans.”
Ordaz leaned forward. “But don’t you see? A carefully detailed plan is all wrong. There is a crucial flaw in it. Suppose Mr. Jennison pulls out the droud?”
“Could he do that? Would he?”
“Could he? Certainly. A simple tug of the fingers. The current wouldn’t interfere with motor coordination. Would he?” Ordaz pulled meditatively at his beer. “I know a good deal about current addiction, but I don’t know what it feels like, Mr. Hamilton. Your normal addict pulls his droud out as often as he inserts it, but your friend was getting ten times normal current. He might have pulled the droud out a dozen times, and instantly plugged it back each time. Yet Belters are supposed to be strong-willed men, very individualistic. Who knows whether, even after a week of addiction, your friend might not have pulled the droud loose, coiled the cord, slipped it in his pocket, and walked away scot-free?
“There is the additional risk that someone might walk in on him—an automachinery serviceman, for instance. Or someone might notice that he had not bought any food in a month. A suicide would take that risk. Suicides routinely leave themselves a chance to change their minds. But a murderer?
“No. Even if the chance were one in a thousand, the man who created such a detailed plan would never have taken such a chance.”
The sun burned hotly down on our shoulders. Ordaz suddenly remembered his lunch and began to eat.
I watched the world ride by beyond the hedge. Pedestrians stood in little conversational bunches; others peered into shop windows on the pedestrian strip or glanced over the hedge to watch us eat. There were the few who pushed through the crowd with set expressions, impatient with the ten-mile-per-hour speed of the slidewalk.
“Maybe they were watching him. Maybe the room was bugged.”
“We searched the room thoroughly,” Ordaz said. “If there had been observational equipment, we would have found it.”
“It could have been removed.”
Ordaz shrugged.
I remembered the spy-eyes in Monica Apartments. Someone would have had to physically enter the room to carry a bug out. He could ruin it with the right signal, maybe, but it would surely leave traces.
And Owen had had an inside room. No spy-eyes.
“There’s one thing you’ve left out,” I said presently.
“And what would that be?”
“My name in Owen’s wallet, listed as next of kin. He