A Borrowed Man (14 page)

“Correct. Also powder and face cream and so forth. I would have been surprised if she had not.”

“What about false eyelashes? Would you have spotted those? They tell me the best ones are very good. Really good, but they're expensive and they've got to be applied at a salon.”

I thought about that, wondering how long this would go on and whether I had any chance of getting away. “I doubt that very much. She wore mascara—but not false lashes, in my opinion.”

“I see.” (This was still Payne, leaning back with half-closed eyes.) “Good figure?”

“Yes, very good. Not voluptuous, you understand. She's slender, with long legs and a small waist. I've never seen her dance, but I would imagine she would be a good dancer. She's really very graceful for such a tall woman.”

“You fell for her.”

For some reason I had one hell of a time explaining that I was a reclone just then, but I knew I had to do it. “If I were to have a romantic relationship with a fully human, I would lose my life, Officer Payne. Besides, I—well, I am romantically attached to Arabella Lee, a famous poet. She was my wife—subsequently my ex-wife—during our real lives.”

Payne leaned over me. “Yeah, reclones are things, not people. That's right. But some people have certain things they care a lot about. A pair of shoes, a ground car, maybe just an old cabinet that's been in the family for a couple hundred years. Does Colette Coldbrook care a lot about you, Mr. Smithe?”

“Ask her, please. She ought to be a better source of information, and…”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“And please tell me what she says.”

Fish snorted.

I sipped my kafe, trying not to show that I felt like the biggest fool ever. “Something was said earlier about whitener and sweetener, and I see both on that tray. I'd like some, if it's not too much trouble.”

Grinning, Payne stood up to get them. “For somebody who's not a man, you're one hell of a man, Mr. Smithe. I wish I had you on our team.”

I said, “I am on your team, Officer Payne, for as long as you have me checked out.”

He took my mug and added rather too much whitener and rather too little sweetener to it, stirred it, and returned it to me.

Fish growled, “Ask him about the house.”

“Not quite yet.” Payne poured himself more kafe. “You wanted me to ask Colette Coldbrook how she felt about you, Mr. Smithe. Clearly you were hoping to find out if we had her.”

I shook my head. “I assume you do, though I doubt that she's in this house.”

“We don't have her at all. Someone does, and I think I know who. But it's not our department—not even close. Does she like you?”

“If you intend affection, I believe she does. She likes me as a friend, as she might like a good book or a small dog.”

“You've never slept with her?” Payne was grinning, and I wanted to hit him.

“Of course not! We've never so much as kissed.”

“Too bad. She's a rich woman, and she's sure as shit going to be one hell of a lot richer soon. You know about the brother? You told us he's dead, and that's right; but do you know how he died?”

I said, “Colette told me he was murdered. Strangled, I believe.”

“Exactly. Choked to death by somebody with a lot bigger, stronger hands than she's got. She'll get what would have been his half of the old man's money; but that's held up, and it's going to keep right on being held up until the brother's murder's solved. Did you know about that?”

I sipped my kafe. It was too strong but decent and still hot enough to keep all the yellow flowers blooming and spinning, but I hardly tasted it.

“Answer me, damn it!”

“Sorry. I hadn't even considered the possibility, and it took me by surprise. No, officer, I did not know about it.”

“Well, that's the way we do it now.” Payne rose and walked to the window. “Nobody profits by the crime until we find out who committed the crime. Did you ever meet the father?”

“Conrad Coldbrook, Senior?” I shook my head. “No, I did not. I never so much as knew he existed until Colette told me about him.”

“I didn't know him either.” Payne sounded thoughtful. “Now I wish I had. Somebody said once that he could pull gold out of the air. He couldn't, naturally, but I guess that was the way it seemed.”

“Colette told me that he was a financial genius,” I ventured.

“He was. It seemed like everything he touched made money. Naturally the trick was that he knew which ones to touch. Only where'd he get all his capital to start with? I don't suppose you know?”

I did not want to tell any more lies than I had to, so I said, “Someone must know.”

Payne shrugged. “Sure, but who? Does Colette know?”

“I doubt it. Here I want to say that I'll try to find out if you'll free me, but someone has her. That's how it looks, at least. She was abducted from our hotel suite. I suppose you know all about that.”

“Hell, no. All I know is that she's disappeared. Tell me about it.”

“If you wish. I'll make it as brief as I can. We went to Owenbright to question an academic, Dr. Roglich. It appeared that Colette's father had consulted him several times and paid for his advice. Dr. Roglich was afraid that someone was spying on him, but he wouldn't say who it was. I found a listening device concealed in a bookcase in his office, and I broke it.”

Fish asked, “What did you do with it after? Is it still there?”

“I doubt it. To the best of my memory, I dropped it into a wastebasket.”

Payne said, “You'd like to get Colette Coldbrook back, right? And free?”

“Of course. If that's what you and Mr. Fish are doing, you may trust me to cooperate fully.”

“By answering my questions?”

“Certainly. I'd do that in any event. In every other way, as well.”

“Then answer this one. I know what Fish and I want with you. We want to find out about the Coldbrooks and about Colette especially. The rest are dead issues, see? She's still alive, or we hope she is. What did she want with you?”

“I can tell you very readily, but I doubt you will believe me. She had a book, one that I had written. She thought there was a valuable secret concealed in it, and she wanted my help in learning it.”

Fish muttered something and moved closer.

“In a book you wrote.”

“Yes.” I nodded.

“What book is that?”

“Murder on Mars.”

“You put a secret in there?”

I shook my head. “Perhaps I did, but to the best of my knowledge I did not.”

Payne turned to Fish. “Get headquarters. Ask somebody there to dig up a copy for us. That's
Murder on Mars
by E. A. Smithe. Smithe with an
e
on the end.”

He turned back to me. “That secret was in the book. Or anyway, she thought it was in there. What made her think that?”

“I can only guess. Her brother had given her the book. He may have said something to cause her to believe it held a significant secret. Or his behavior at the time may have implied it. You are the police. You and Fish—or at least I have come to believe you are.”

Payne shrugged. “Have I ever said so?”

“No, you have not.”

“How about placing you under arrest? Did I do that, or even say I might?”

“Of course not. Persons may be arrested. Taken into custody, and so on. I am a thing, an object, a library resource that you have obtained entirely legally.”

“You got it.” Payne looked around, presumably to see whether Fish was in earshot, then pulled up a chair. “You remember all that, see? All the stuff you just reeled off. This is Spice Grove, right? You know that?”

I nodded. “Certainly.”

“Well, Colette Coldbrook was a schoolteacher in a private school here, only a teacher with enough cash and connections to live in the Taos Towers. That's very, very up-list. Flitters and furs.”

I nodded again.

“And somebody snatched her right out of that damned hotel in Owenbright. How do you think we feel about that? Not just Fish and me, but the whole force. How do you think the chief feels? How about the mayor? Those planet-size politicians in the Department of Enforcement up in Niagara? How do they feel?”

“You must find it unpleasant, I'm sure.”

“You bet we do. It's macro-red. If you can tell me anything that might help, I'll be your friend for life, and that's no chad, see? So come clean. You've been answering exactly what I asked. You don't have to admit it, I know it. Now just tell me something that might give us a little help.”

I said, “First allow me to deal with the way I have responded to your questions. Having no wish to be struck again, I speak exclusively of the subject at hand. When you give me liberty to wander, I may do so—though not far.”

“Wander all you want.” Payne straightened up. “How about some more kafe?”

I nodded. “With a trifle more sweetener this time, if you would be so kind.” I handed him my mug with its slowing yellow blossoms, and soon received it back restored to full bloom.

He sat in the chair he had pulled over. “Now talk. If it's helpful to us, I'll take anything.”

“It will anger you and perhaps frighten you, which I fear may be worse. But very well. Colette believed that there were listening devices hidden in her apartment. I don't know why she believed that, but she did. After she checked me out, we went by hovercab to a ruined garden. I don't know where it was, but the hovercab company will presumably have records.”

Payne nodded.

“We talked there for an hour or more. That was where she showed me
Murder on Mars
. She would not tell me what secret she hoped it contained, but we discussed several ways in which a secret might be concealed in a book. Do you want those?”

“No. Go on.”

“Eventually she screened our hovercab. It descended, picked us up, and took us to the Taos Towers. We intended to spend the night there and go to New Delphi the next day in her flitter, as eventually we did. We were seated in her lounge when a screen told us that someone was coming in, an A-1. I assume you know about that.”

“Sure,” Payne said. “They're special guests, or else they've got a warrant.”

“I see. I ought to have thought of that. Well, the door of Colette's apartment opened and two men came in. Their guns were of a type unfamiliar to me, but they were clearly guns. Soon they knocked me unconscious. When I regained consciousness, I was naked and had been tied to a chair. Colette was in the same condition.”

“She was naked, too?”

“Precisely.” I was growing weary of all the talk, but I tried not to let it show. “She said she had not been raped. I assume she told the truth. Certainly I have no reason to doubt her.”

“Had they robbed her? Taken her money and her jewelry?”

“I don't know, but I doubt it. If they had, she never mentioned it.”

“Did she tell you what they wanted?”

I nodded. “She said that they wanted the book. I had hidden it before they came, however. Colette had been very concerned about listening devices—about being spied upon; so I had thought it prudent.”

“She didn't tell them where it was.”

“She couldn't. She didn't know. I thought that was best. We reclaimed it before we left for New Delphi.” I waited for Payne to talk, but he didn't.

Finally I said, “I have never been a policeman, but I did write more than twenty published mysteries; and it seems to me that the great question for us in this case is not who killed Colette's brother, but who has kidnapped Colette. Colette's brother is dead, and thus beyond our rescue. Colette herself may still be alive.”

Payne nodded. “To hell with the brother. He lived in New Delphi and he died there. Let them worry about him. Colette Coldbrook lived right here, and fifty or a hundred important people knew her. Pictures on the society sites, all that. Hell, I've followed so many links and watched so many interviews I feel like I knew her myself. She worked on the Charity Committee, she taught rich kids in that school, she was an eligible heiress. The works. We'll be heroes if—”

Fish returned. Seeing Payne seated, he dropped into a chair himself. “No book. Nowhere. Nobody's even heard of it. He's stringin' us.”

“I'm not,” I insisted. “There was such a book, and Colette Coldbrook had a copy, which she said had been given to her by her brother on the day he was killed. Take me to New Delphi, and I'll retrieve it and show it to you. That is with the understanding that it is Colette's, and must eventually be returned to her.”

“He's stringin' us,” Fish muttered.

I said, “If this is a subterfuge, it is one you will find remarkably easy to unmask. Take me there. Challenge me to produce the book. If I cannot, do whatever you think best.”

“That's what we'll do anyway,” Payne told me. “You're showing a whole lot of guts, you are. You must be proud of yourself.”

“For this? No, not in the least. Are we going to New Delphi?”

Payne shook his head. “We can't leave Spice Grove without the chief's okay.”

“Which we'd never get for this dog shit,” Fish added.

I sighed. To tell the truth, I felt like crap on the carpet just then, but I tried not to let it show. “All right, I can solve your problem if you'll let me. Buses must run between Spice Grove and New Delphi. I saw several big passenger buses on the road when I traveled here from Owenbright by truck. Let me have creds enough for a bus ticket. If you'll do that, I'll go to New Delphi, retrieve the book, and bring it back to you.”

My offer was refused, as I knew it would be. The refusal was followed by blows and burns, and a great many more questions, few of which I could answer in a way that satisfied my questioners.

Eventually, I was locked in a windowless room. It contained a narrow bed and a mattress without sheets or blankets. There was a stinking bucket in a corner. I pulled off my shoes, lay down, and went to sleep as fast as I ever have in my life. Maybe you think that's impossible, but you have never been beaten or burned like I had been. I had nothing left. Hell, I had nothing left an hour before they quit.