Otto nodded at his mood rather than at his state-ment. “Sure. I know just how you feel. But that’s pretty plush, Nick: The Capricorn-Ritz. At least twelve credits a day.”
“So what? I can live high for a week, if I want to. And with my background, I can always pick up a fast job as soon as I get low. I want something plush for tonight, Blotto Otto.”
“Okay, okay. You got my address, huh, Nick? I’ll be at my cousin’s place.”
“I have it, all right. Luck with Elsa, Otto.”
“Thanks, Luck with Freddy. Uh—so long.” The little man turned abruptly and entered a main street elevator. When the doors slid shut, Crandall found that he was feeling very uncomfortable. Henck had meant more to him than his own brother. Well, after all, he’d been with Henek day and night for a long time now. And he hadn’t seen Dan for—how long was it?—almost nine years.
He reflected on how little he was attached to the world, if you excluded the rather negative desire of removing Stephanson from it. One thing he should get soon was a girl—almost any girl.
But, come to think of it, there was something he needed even more.
He walked swiftly to the nearest drugstore. It was a large one, part of a chain. And there, featured prominently in the window, was exactly what he wanted.
At the cigar counter, he said to the clerk: “It’s pretty cheap. Do they work all right?”
The clerk drew himself up. “Before we put an item on sale, sir, it is tested thoroughly. We are the largest retail outlet in the Solar System—that’s why it’s so cheap.
“All right. Give me the medium-sized one. And two boxes of cartridges.”
With the blaster in his possession, he felt much more secure. He had a good deal of confidence—based on years of escaping creatures with hair-trigger nervous systems—in his ability to duck and wriggle and jump to one side. But it would he nice to be able to fight back. And how did he know how soon Stephanson would try again?
He registered under a false name, a ruse he thought of at the last moment. That it wasn’t worth much, as ruses went, he found out when the bellhop, after being tipped, said: “Thank you, Mr. Crandall. I hope you get your victim, sir.”
So he was a celebrity. Probably everyone in the world knew exactly what he looked like. All of which might make it a bit more difficult to get at Stephanson.
While he was taking a bath, he asked the television set to check through Information’s file on the man. Stephanson had been rich and moderately important seven years ago; with the Stephanson Switch—how do you like that, the Stephanson.
Switch!—he must be even richer now and much more important.
He was. The television set informed Crandall that in the last calendar month, there were sixteen news items relating to Frederick Stoddard Stephanson. Crandall considered, then asked for the most recent.
That was datelined today. “Frederick Stephanson, the president of the Stephanson Investment Trust and Stephanson Electronics Corporation, left early this morning for his hunting lodge in Central Tibet. He expects to remain there for at least—”
“That’s enough!” Crandall called through the bathroom door.
Stephanson was scared! The arrogant beanpole was frightened silly! That was something; in fact, it was a large part of the return on those seven years. Let him seethe in his own sweat for a while, until he found the actual killing, when it did come at last, almost welcome.
Crandall asked the set for the fresh news and was immediately treated to a bulletin about himself and how he had registered at the Capricorn-Ritz under the name of Alexander Smathers. “But neither is the correct name, ladies and gentlemen,” the playback rolled out unctuously. “Neither Nicholas Crandall nor Alexander Smathers is the right name for this man. There is only one name for that man—and that name is death! Yes, the grim reaper has taken up residence at the Ritz-Capricorn Hotel tonight, and only he knows which one of us will not see another sunrise. That man, that grim reaper, that deputy of death, is the only one among us who knows—”
“Shut up!” Crandall yelled, exasperated. He had almost forgotten the kind of punishment a free man was forced to endure.
The private phone circuit on the television screen lit up.
He dried himself, hurried into clothes and asked, “Who’s calling?”
“Mrs. Nicholas Crandall,” said the operator’s voice.
He stared at the blank screen for a moment, absolutely thunderstruck. Polly! Where in the world had she come from? And how did she know where he was? No, the last part was easy—he was a celebrity.
“Put her on,” he said at last.
Polly’s face filled the screen. Crandall studied her quizzically. She’d aged a bit, but possibly it wasn’t obvious at anything but this magnification.
As if she realized it herself, Polly adjusted the controls on her set and her face dwindled to life-size, the rest of her body as well as her surroundings coming into the picture. She was evidently in the living room of her home; it looked like a low-to-middle-income-range furnished apartment. But she looked good—awfully good. There were such warm memories …
“Hi, Polly. What’s this all about? You’re the last person I expected to call me.”
“Hello, Nick.” She lifted her hand to her mouth and stared over its knuckles for some time at him. Then: “Nick. Please. Please don’t play games with me.”
He dropped into a chair. “Huh?”
She began to cry. “Oh, Nick! Don’t! Don’t be that cruel! I know why you served that sentence those seven years. The moment I heard your name today, I knew why you did it. But, Nick, it was only one man—just one man, Nick!”
“Just one man what?”
“It was just that one man I was unfaithful with. And I thought he loved me, Nick. I wouldn’t have divorced you if I’d known what he was really like. But you know, Nick, don’t you? You know how much he made me suffer. I’ve been punished enough. Don’t kill me, Nick! Please don’t kill me!”
“Listen, Polly,” he began, completely confused. “Polly girl, for heaven’s sake—”
“Nick!” she gulped hysterically. “Nick, it was over eleven years ago—ten, at least. Don’t kill me for that, please, Nick! Nick, truly, I wasn’t unfaithful to you for more than a year, two years at the most. Truly, Nick! And, Nick, it was only that one affair—the others didn’t count. They were just—just casual things. They didn’t matter at all, Nick! But don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” She held both hands to her face and began rocking back and forth, moaning uncontrollably.
Crandall stared at her for a moment and moistened his lips. Then he said, “Whew!” and turned the set off. He leaned back in his chair. Again he said, “Whew!” and this time it hissed through his teeth.
Polly! Polly had been unfaithful during their marriage. For a year—no, two years! And—what had she said?—the others, the others had just been casual things!
The woman he had loved, the woman he suspected he had always loved, the woman he had given up with infinite regret and a deep sense of guilt when she had come to him and said that the business had taken the best part of him away from her, but that since it wasn’t fair to ask him to give up something that obviously meant so much to him.
Pretty Polly. Polly girl. He’d never thought of another woman in all their time together. And if anyone, anyone at all, had ever suggested—had so much as hinted —he’d have used a monkey wrench on the meddler’s face. He’d given her the divorce only because she’d asked for it, but he’d hoped that when the business got on its feet and Irv’s bookkeeping end covered a wider stretch of it, they might get back together again. Then, of course, business grew worse, Irv’s wife got sick and he put even less time in at the office and—
“I feel,” he said to himself numbly, “as if I’ve just found out for certain that there is no Santa Claus. Not Polly, not all those good years! One affair! And the others were just casual things!”
The telephone circuit went off again. “Who is it?” he snarled.
“Mr. Edward Ballaskia.”
“What’s he want?” Not Polly, not Pretty Polly!
An extremely fat man came on the sceen. He looked to right and left cautiously. “I must ask you, Mr. Crandall, if you are positive that this line isn’t tapped.”
“What the hell do you want?” Crandall found himself wishing that the fat man were here in person. He’d love to sail into sombody right now.
Mr. Edward Ballaskia shook his head disapprovingly, his jowls jiggling slowly behind the rest of his face. “Well, then, sir, if you won’t give me your assurances, I am forced to take a chance. I am calling, Mr. Crandall, to ask you to forgive your enemies, to turn the other cheek. I am asking you to remember faith, hope and charity—and that the greatest of these is charity. In other words, sir, open your heart to him or her you intended to kill, understand the weaknesses which caused them to give offenses—and forgive them.”
“Why should I?” Crandall demanded.