Within fifteen minutes, Tingle had gotten from six different sources all the available biographical data re Panthea Pao Snick. After two hours of trying every safe approach and every relevant circuit, he gave up trying to get her official orders for her mission. Either they were inaccessible or she had gotten them verbally.
At least, he knew all her weaknesses. That is, all that had been recorded. From his own experience, however, he knew that she could have withheld some of them from the government psychicists. He was just going to start his inquiries into Castor when all the operating strips flashed red and the data displays faded. Startled, he spoke into the strip connected with the door. His heart was beating fast, telling him that he was not as calm as he wanted to be. He was more distressed than he had admitted to himself.
“It’s me,” Paz’s voice said.
The security system was set up to warn Tingle and to turn off the displays if anyone tried to talk to him through the strips or inserted a lock-tip into the door hole.
Tingle pressed a button. The door swung open. Though he knew that Paz would have warned him if he had a companion, he swung around on the chair to make sure. Paz strode in; the door swung shut.
Tingle opened his mouth to tell his chief that he had not taken as much time with Snick as he had expected. The paleness and grimness of Paz’s face cut off his intention. He said, “What’s the matter?”
“The news on the organic channel! Somebody’s been killed in the house next to your apartment building! I don’t know, of course. It may be just a coincidence, but Castor…”
Tingle had risen to greet Paz. Suddenly feeling woozy, he sat back down.
Paz said, “Hey, what’s the matter?”
In that moment, Tingle had become a little less Tingle and a little more of Caird.
“Who’s been killed?”
“Hell, I don’t know!” Paz said loudly. “They were just bringing out the body. I thought since you live next door…and Castor…maybe he was found there and he got killed. Or he killed someone in the house by mistake.”
Paz did not know that Caird lived next door to Tingle. It was not necessary that he have that information.
“I think…” Tingle said.
Paz said, “Yes?” He looked expectantly at Tingle.
Tingle made a dismissing motion with his hand.
“Never mind. Turn the channel on. We’ll wait and see. This may have nothing to do with us. There are a dozen explanations…”
Paz breathed in deeply several times. “Yes. I probably jumped the gun, got spooked. It’s just a coincidence. But if Castor was cornered there and killed, that’s all to the good.”
The strip showed blue-uniformed organics on the sidewalk and in the street holding back the curious. Three news crews were shooting the scene. There were several patrol cars and an ambulance from the coroner’s office parked near the curb. Two men were guiding a cart down the steps, its wheels moving up and down to adjust to the steps. On top of the cart, strapped down, was a green bodybag—filled.
The face of Channel 87’s on-the-spot reporter, Robert Amanullah, appeared on the screen. He said, “We’ve just talked to Maha Aditi Rotwa via…”
The strip went blank.
12.
“Organic cutoff,” Paz said. “What’re they suppressing?”
Whatever the reason, other cameras were still operating. Paz ordered two other channels on, and these showed the scene from different angles. After a thirty-second delay, Channel 87 came back on. Amanullah was talking again but not saying a word about the identity of the body. This was put into the ambulance, which moved away slowly through the crowd. Once beyond the onlookers, the ambulance picked up speed but did not turn on its lights and siren. There was no hurry.
From what reporters said, someone had been murdered in the house. No details were known as yet. When the reporters got the story from the organics, they would broadcast it. Meanwhile…two of the cameras shifted to the East Side and other reporters took over the on-the-spot news there. Channel 87 continued its coverage, probably because Amanullah was angry at being censored.
“It’s a clampdown,” Paz said. “It may be hours before we find out.”
“Or never.”
Tingle rose unsteadily, walked to a wall and activated a strip. He asked a few questions, listened, then turned to Paz.
“You heard?”
“Yes. Rotwa lives in the house…”
“I…”
Tingle stopped. He had almost told Paz that he knew Rotwa. Or, at least, had seen her face many times through her cylinder window in the basement of that house.
The corpse could be Castor’s. Or it could be Ozma’s. It could not be one of the two Wednesday occupants because the woman was still alive. If she had murdered her husband, she would have been hustled out long ago, stoned to prevent an escape attempt.
There was a code that Tingle could use to ghost into the organic records. This, however, was to be used only in red-emergency situations. Wasn’t this one?
“We have to find out if the body was Castor’s,” he said.
Paz frowned, thought a minute, then said, “If he’s dead, there’s no hurry. We’ll find out eventually.”
“I doubt that it was Castor,” Tingle said. He smiled weakly. “Can God be killed?”
Paz stared hard at him, then said, “You’re a nice guy and a good man, Bob. But you are annoyingly facetious.”
“Facetious, right? Sorry.”
“There’s her husband, coming home,” Paz said. He pointed at a strip. “At least, I think it’s him.”
Tingle recognized the man but could not tell Paz that he was right. Or should he? Wasn’t it about time to reveal to Paz that he lived on Tuesday in that house? If he didn’t, he could not tell Paz that he was in a painful mental squeeze because Ozma might have been killed by Castor. On the other hand, perhaps Paz should know about it. He could alert his superiors that Castor was on Tingle’s trail and so was a danger to all immers.
He scanned the screens. None of the faces in the crowd was Castor’s. That madman might have been tempted to hang about the scene of the crime so that he could see the body being brought out and thrill with excitement. But Castor was too canny for that. He would be long gone.
There was a writhing, a moving thing that hurt in Tingle’s chest. He knew that the little animal of pain gnawing in his breast was the grief that Caird felt. As Caird’s agent, however, he could feel or would only allow himself to feel the lessened grief that he, Tingle, would experience at the murder of the wife of a client.
That was what Tingle told himself. Actually, the pain was sharper than that, so much so that he was afraid that it might break through. Should that happen, he would revert, partly at least, to Caird. He could not let that occur.
He told himself, Really, I don’t know that Ozma is dead.
Nevertheless, he knew.
“Well?” Paz said.
“I’m sorry,” Tingle said. “I was thinking.”
“Does thinking hurt that much?”
Tingle forced a smile.
“Only when I laugh. Forgive me, chief. I was thinking that we have to find Castor, get there fust with the mostest as the great Bedford Forrester once said.”
“Forester? What’s a ranger…”
“It’s a historical allusion begat by hysteria, I’m afraid. Forget it, chief. I’ve got all the data I could get on Snick, and I still don’t know if she’s really after Gril or her story’s a coverup and she’s after me. I…we…will have to handle her with improvisations. I’m sure the council has taken action to deal with her. So we won’t be without help.
“What’s important just now is Castor. I’ll go to work on him, but I don’t think the bank is going to help me. Action is what we want, not data. You let me think about this for a while. If I come up with something good, I’ll leave work. You can arrange an excuse, but you’d better tell me what it is before I leave.”
“That’s no sweat,” Paz said, p
erspiration sliding down his face. He walked out, saying over his shoulder, “Check in with me before you go, if you go.”
“Of course.”
He leaned back in the chair, eyes closed. Two minutes later, he got a call from Nokomis.
“Have you got anything for me?”
“Nothing yet, my dear. I’m swamped with urgent work. I really don’t know when I can get to the you-know-what.”
She frowned and said, “I need the you-know-what as soon as possible. Otherwise, my God!”
She rolled her large brown eyes and grimaced.
“If it can be done, it will,” he said.
She told him that their seven o’clock dinner date would have to be changed to eight. The producer and the choreographer had gotten into a shouting contest, which had become a slapping match until they were pulled apart. Roger Shenachi, the star ballerino, had overdosed himself with a laxative and now, when he landed from a grand jeté, he became a pathetic, if laughable, spectacle as he ran off the stage.
At another time, Tingle would have been amused by all this. He told Nokomis that he had to go, and he said good-bye. Tragedy and danger were stalking him, yet he was supposed to cluck-cluck over her trivia. He knew her well enough, however, to know that if he did not get her what she wanted he would have to endure not-so-mild reproaches.
A half-hour later, after pacing back and forth in the office, he gave up on all the plans he could think of for finding Castor. What he needed was something to take his mind off the problem for a little while. Then he could attack it with a fresh attitude.
He left the office, went to the urinal, and then went into Paz’s office. Paz had a huge lunch, including a large steak, spread out on the desk before him. He looked at Tingle as if daring him to comment. Tingle looked away from the food and said, “I’m going out now. No, I don’t have anything good for you. I need to exercise my body, not my mind. I’m going to the fencing gymnasium for a half-hour or so.”
“You wouldn’t be doing it if you didn’t need it,” Paz said. “Very well. Only I hope you come up with something soon.”
“I like to overtake events, not have events overtake me,” Tingle said. “But I’m afraid that just might happen. Then… I’ll have to improvise like hell.”
“One has to be a good improviser,” Paz said through a mouthful of steak. “But it’s better not to have to. Call me every half-hour.”
Paz did not look worried; he looked guilty. Tingle bowed to him and left, thinking that his chief was too sensitive about his meat-eating. He, Tingle, did not care what Paz ate, though he wished he would not eat so much. Any day now, Paz’s superior would have to ignore whatever influence Paz had used to pressure him, and she would force him to go on a diet. If that failed, he would be examined for, metabolic dysfunctions and either treated electrochemically or sent to a “fat farm.”
Tingle went on the elevator to the twentieth floor, walked down a corridor, and entered the anteroom of the fencing gymnasium. After warming up for ten minutes, he engaged in two matches with a woman and a man, neither of whom were immers or data bankers. He won both, which pleased him. But, during his shower, he began thinking again about Castor. Conclusion: Since the madman knew where he, as Caird, lived, he might also know where he, as Tingle, lived. The probability was strengthened because Tingle lived next door to Caird. Castor might have seen him coming out of the apartment building.
Since there was nothing else to do, Tingle decided to be a decoy. Though he might be wasting his time, whatever he did could be a time-waster. Castor, however, was a fanatic. Hence, he was not one to burn time as if it were incense. He would be doing whatever he could to get Tingle unless he had some crazed plan that involved mentally torturing his chief prey. Who knew what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow was not the only one; God also knew. Actually, God was The Real Shadow.
“But,” Tingle muttered, “Castor is not really God.”
He went down to the Fifth Avenue exit, stepped out into the heat and hailed a cab. After getting in and telling the driver where to go, he inserted the tip of his ID star into the machine mounted on the back of the front seat. The driver scarcely glanced at the ID verification and credit rating displayed on the front panel. She had never been ripped off and did not expect to be.
Tingle watched a news strip on the back of the front seat. The murder at Bleecker Street was not mentioned. It was evident that the government’s hand was over the mouth of the media. There would be nothing more on the news about the event unless the government decided on a coverup story. So…Ozma had been killed, and today’s authorities had decided that the public would not know about her. It might panic at the idea that another day’s citizen could be destoned and killed.
He shivered with cold at the vision of what might have been done, surely was done, to her by Castor. That was Tingle’s reaction, however. If he were wholly Caird, he would have vomited.
There was no point in trying to elude Snick. That would make her even more suspicious—if she suspected him. If she were not suspicious of him, she would be made so by his unroutine behavior. He would just go to his apartment and wait for Castor. Or perhaps wander around the neighborhood.
The cab turned east from Fifth Avenue onto Washington Square North. Tingle, sitting on the right side, looked out across Washington Square. He said loudly, “Stop!”
Startled, the driver said, “Huh!” She pulled over to the curb through the bicyclers. She turned around and said, “Changed your mind?”
“We’ll get going in a minute.”
Thirty feet south of the sidewalk was a large oak tree. Under its shade were some tables and chairs, all occupied by chessplayers. One of the intent garners was a stocky man in a black robe. His profile was aquiline, his eyebrows were enormously thick, and his red beard was long and uncut. On top of his red hair was a little black round cap called, if Tingle remembered correctly, a yarmulke.
“Gril!” Tingle said. Or was it Caird speaking?
For a minute, Tingle watched him. Gril seemed so unlike a fugitive from the law. If he was tensing for the inevitable hand on his shoulder, listening for the heavy footsteps, watching out of the corners of his eyes for the approaching shadows, he did not show it. Chess seemed to be his only concern. He watched the pieces as intently and motionlessly as a praying mantis who had just seen a caterpillar.
Tingle was surprised that Gril had escaped arrest. And then he realized why the man had been free so long. The organics would be looking for someone like Gril but not too much like him. They would assume that Gril had shaved his beard, abandoned his yarmulke, stained his face darker and put on contact lenses of a color other than green. But crafty Gril had remained an obvious Orthodox Hebrew. His disguise was himself.
“I’ll just walk from here,” Tingle said. He stuck the ID point into the hole so that he would have a record of the mileage to compare with that of the cab. If someone was tracking him, and that person questioned him later about his stopping there, Tingle would say that he had gotten out for exercise. That was the only excuse he could think of for leaving the cab. No, it was not. A chess enthusiast, he wanted to watch the players for a while. After all, he had played in Washington Square many times before. Some of Manhattan’s best were there.
Tingle strolled up to a table near Gril’s and watched for a while. After stopping at another table, he went to his real destination. He felt a little strange looking into Gril’s small green eyes. He was not recognized, yet he knew Gril well. Fairly well, anyway.
He could not keep from glancing up through the branches. A sky-eye, if it was watching him, could not see him or Gril now.
After a minute, during which neither player moved his pieces Tingle walked away. He had no reason to speak to Gril. The impulse to warn him had sped away, as it should. What was Gril to him, today, at least?
He walked slowly through the shouting and screaming children at play, the mimes, the carts with nuts, fruit, and vegetables for sale, the vendors with their ov
erhead cargo of brightly colored balloons, the blaring soapbox orators baring their singularly singed psyches, the tumblers and acrobats, the magicians plucking rabbits and roses from the air, the unkempt and foul-mouthed barbs (Wednesday’s minnies), and the always-there plainclothes organics. The latter had the indefinable but obvious—to him—expression they wore when among civilians.
Seeing them made him suddenly aware of the weight of the weapon in his shoulderbag. If he were stopped for some reason and searched… He shuddered. It was not wise to carry the gun with him. Yet he had to because he might find Castor.
Thinking of Castor seemed to conjure him.
Tingle faltered in his stride.
First, Gril. Now, yes, there was no doubt about it.
Castor was walking along fifty feet ahead of him on his right on a path that would meet his.
He renewed his former pace. And he faltered again.
To his left, about seventy feet ahead, also on a collision course, was a woman wearing a brown jockey cap and a brown robe decorated with green looped crosses. Her shoes were bright green.
Snick.
13.
All things throughout the universe are connected, but things similar are more closely connected than others.
Tingle, Gril, Castor, and Snick were more or less tightly bound together by the unlawful acts of three of them. And here they were, pulled together in Washington Square by what might be called the law of criminal gravity. They were like planets attracted by forces that, in this case, defied the statistics of probability. All, except Gril, falling toward a common center.
However, human beings were not unconscious forms of matter like planets. They could decide to leave their orbits.
Castor was the first to do so. Looking to his left, he saw Tingle. His eyes widened; his pace was checked. And then he ran. God does not run; He is all-powerful and fears nothing. Just now, however, He fled like a human, not like one who could float or fly or make Himself invisible or zap His enemy with lightning or a quick case of the creeping crud.