Flatlander - Larry Niven [94]
“We’ve got men out there,” she said briskly. “There won’t be anyone tampering with evidence. What do you know about her?”
“I haven’t seen Naomi in ten years. I wouldn’t have said she was the killer type. When you take her outside, may I go along?”
“We’ll alert you. And you, Ms. Shaeffer.”
“Thanks. Make that Marion.”
“Okay. I’m Laura Drury. Make it Laura.”
We waited for the elevators. Marion said, “Gil, what do you consider the killer type?”
“Yeah, that’s a hard one, isn’t it? But Naomi strikes me as more the murder victim type.”
“What do you mean?”
She sounded like she was questioning a suspect. I put it down to habit, I said, “Once upon a time I might have killed her myself. Naomi has a way of … inviting a pass, then slapping the passer down hard. I really think she gets a charge out of leaving a man horny and frustrated. This isn’t just subjective, Marion. I’ve heard other guys talk about it. Still … it was ten years ago, and she got married and had a little girl. So your guess is as good as mine.”
The elevator came. We got in. Marion said, “I don’t have to guess. She was the only one out there, and she’s a flatlander.”
“So?”
She smiled. “The wound was too high. Eight, nine centimeters above the heart. Why?”
“The rim of the tub was too high.”
“Right. Now, there aren’t any tubs in the Belt, except in the bubble worlds. A flatlander wouldn’t expect a lunie bathtub to stand so tall. When it came time to make her move, Naomi couldn’t see Penzler’s heart. She just took her best shot.”
I shook my head. “A lunie would know how tall the tub was, but he wouldn’t expect Penzler to be so short.”
“He must have seen Penzler.”
“Sure, and Naomi’s seen lunie bathtubs, too.” While she was mulling that, I added, “Maybe it was a Belter. You said it yourself; the only tubs in the Belt are in the bubble worlds. You spin those for an Earth gravity. Belt bathtubs are just like Earth’s.”
Marion grinned. “Got me.”
“And we’re still missing the main point. Why didn’t the killer just wait till Penzler got out of the tub? If it was Naomi, she’d already been waiting most of four hours.”
“Now, that is a damn good question,” Marion said. And we parted on that note, her to her room, me to mine. I could catch two or three hours on my back before 0610.
At exactly 0610 I rang Taffy’s doorbell.
“Gil! Are you alone?”
The long stretch of hall was quite empty. “At this hour, what sane man would be up?”
“Chiron, open door.”
I walked in. And she was already in flight! I leaned far forward to catch her weight and managed not to bounce back into the hall. We took a long time over our first kiss. Tasting each other. By and by I noticed that she was wearing a surgeon’s paper coverall. Those things are intended to be used only once.
“Can I rip this off you?”
“Be my guest.”
I tore it off in handfuls, with sound effects: the roar of an unendurably frustrated male. The paper was tough. A lunie couldn’t have done it. I swept her in my arms and leapt for the bed and bounced off again. Pulled my own clothes off more sedately, moved back to the bed, and had some trouble.
She whispered in my ear. “Let me dominate, okay? I’ve had some practice. The missionary position doesn’t work at all.”
“What do I have to know?”
Partly she told me, partly she showed me. We had to use our muscles to keep us together; gravity wouldn’t help. We bounced. We spent considerable time above the bed. Taffy told me not to worry about falling off, and I didn’t. Old and accustomed partners danced a new dance, with Taffy leading.
We rested. Then I made love to her standing up, with Taffy’s strong legs wrapped around my hips, one arm out to clutch the edge of the tub. In lunar gravity that position is almost restful. And I studied her face, joyful, glowing, familiar.
We rested again. Sweat stayed where it was; it wouldn’t drip. Taffy stirred in my arms and asked, “Hungry?”
“Yes!”
There was a tray on the table. Scrambled eggs, chicken wings, toast, coffee. “It may have cooled off,” she said.