Flatlander - Larry Niven [28]
“He was the one,” Loren said. “But it wasn’t every day. I had a man watching Jennison every second, through a portable camera. We took it out after he was dead.”
“And then waited a week. Nice touch.” The wonder was that it had taken me so long. The atmosphere of the place … what kind of people would live in Monica Apartments? The faceless ones, the ones with no identity, the ones who would surely be missed by nobody. They would stay put in their apartments while Loren checked on them to see that they really did have nobody to miss them. Those who qualified would disappear, and their papers and possessions with them, and their holos would vanish from the computer.
Loren said, “I tried to sell organs to the Belters through your friend Jennison. I know he betrayed me, Hamilton. I want to know how badly.”
“Badly enough.” He’d guess that. “We’ve got detailed plans for setting up an organ-bank dispensary in the Belt. It wouldn’t have worked anyway, Loren. Belters don’t think that way.”
“No pictures.”
“No.” I didn’t want him changing his face.
“I was sure he’d left something,” Loren said. “Otherwise we’d have made him a donor. Much simpler. More profitable, too. I needed the money, Hamilton. Do you know what it costs the organization to let a donor go?”
“A million or so. Why’d you do it?”
“He’d left something. There was no way to get at it. All we could do was try to keep the ARMs from looking for it.”
“Ah.” I had it then. “When anyone disappears without a trace, the first thing any idiot thinks of is organleggers.”
“Naturally. So he couldn’t just disappear, could he? The police would go to the ARMs, the file would go to you, and you’d start looking.”
“For a spaceport locker.”
“Oh?”
“Under the name of Cubes Forsythe.”
“I knew that name,” Loren said between his teeth. “I should have tried that. You know, after we had him hooked on current, we tried pulling the plug on him to get him to talk. It didn’t work. He couldn’t concentrate on anything but getting the droud back in his head. We looked high and low—”
“I’m going to kill you,” I said, and meant every word.
Loren cocked his head, frowning. “On the contrary, Mr. Hamilton. Another cigarette?”
“Yah.”
He sent it to me, lighted, on the rolling table. I picked it up, holding it a trifle ostentatiously. Maybe I could focus his attention on it—on his only way to find my imaginary hand.
Because if he kept his eyes en the cigarette and I put it in my mouth at a crucial moment, I’d leave my hand free without his noticing.
What crucial moment? He was still in the armchair. I had to fight the urge to coax him closer. Any move in that direction would make him suspicious.
What time was it? And what was Julie doing? I thought of a night two weeks past. Remembered dinner on the balcony of the highest restaurant in Los Angeles, just a fraction less than a mile up. A carpet of neon that spread below us to touch the horizon in all directions. Maybe she’d pick it up …
She’d be checking on me at 0945.
“You must have made a remarkable spaceman,” Loren said. “Think of being the only man in the solar system who can adjust a hull antenna without leaving the cabin.”
“Antennas take a little more muscle than I’ve got.” So he knew I could reach through things. If he’d seen that far— “I should have stayed,” I told Loren. “I wish I were on a mining ship right this minute. All I wanted at the time was two good arms.”
“Pity. Now you have three. Did it occur to you that using psi powers against men was a form of cheating?”
“What?”
“Remember Raphael Haine?” Loren’s voice had become uneven. He was angry and was holding it down with difficulty.
“Sure. Small-time organlegger in Australia.”
“Raphael Haine was a friend of mine. I know he had you tied up at one point. Tell me, Mr. Hamilton: if your imaginary hand is as weak as you say, how did you untie the ropes?”
“I didn’t. I couldn’t have. Haine used handcuffs. I picked his pocket for the key … with my imaginary hand, of course.”
“You used psi powers against