Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man

Powell snapped his fingers behind him. To the Captain who stepped forward, he said: "Conduct Madame and her guests to the study. No guards. The ladies and gentlemen are to be left in privacy."

"Mr. Powell, sir..." The Captain cleared his throat. "About Madame's guests. One of them arrived after the felony was reported. An attorney, Mr. ?maine."

Powell found Jo ?maine, Attorney-At-Law 2, in the crowd. He shot him a telepathic greeting.

"Jo?"

"Hi."

"What brings you to this Blind Tiger?"

"Business. Called by my cli(Ben Reich)ent."

"That shark? Makes me suspicious. Wait here with Reich. We'll get squared off."

"That was an effective act with Beck."

"Hell. You cracked our scramble?"

"Not a chance. But I know you two. Gentle Jax playing a thick cop is one for the books."

Beck broke in from across the hall where he was apparently sulking: "Don't give it away, Jo."

"Are you crazy?" It was as though ?maine had been requested not to smash every sacred ethic of the Guild. He radiated a blast of indignation that made Beck grin.

All this during the second in which Powell again kissed Maria's brow with chaste devotion and gently disengaged himself from her tremulous grasp.

"Ladies and gentlemen: we'll meet again in the study."

The crowd of guests moved off, conducted by the Captain. They were chattering with renewed animation. It was all beginning to take on the aspect of a fabulous new form of entertainment. Through the buzz and the laughter, Powell felt the iron elbows of a rigid telepathic block. He recognized those elbows and permitted his astonishment to show.

"Gus! Gus Tate!"

"Oh. Hello, Powell."

"You? Lurking & Slinking?"

"Gus?" Beck popped out. "Here? I never tagged him."

"What the devil are you hiding for?"

Chaotic response of anger, chagrin, fear of lost reputation, self-deprecation, shame---

"Sign off, Gus. Your pattern's trapped in a feedback. Won't do you any harm to let a little scandal rub off on you. Make you more human. Stay here & help. Got a hunch I can use another 1st. This one is going to be a Triple-A stinker."

After the hall cleared, Powell examined the three men who remained with him. Jo ?maine was a heavy-set man, thick, solid, with a shining bald head and a friendly blunt-featured face. Little Tate was nervous and twitchy... more so than usual.

And the notorious Ben Reich. Powell was meeting him for the first time. Tall, broad-shouldered, determined, exuding a tremendous aura of charm and power. There was kindliness in that power, but it was corroded by the habit of tyranny. Reich's eyes were fine and keen, but his mouth seemed too small and sensitive and looked oddly like a scar. A magnetic man, with something vague inside him that was repellent.

He smiled at Reich. Reich smiled, back. Spontaneously, they shook hands.

"Do you take everybody off guard like this, Reich?"

"The secret of my success," Reich grinned. He understood Powell's meaning. They were en rapport.

"Well, don't let the other guests see you charm me. They'll suspect collusion."

"Not you, they won't. You'll swindle them, Powell. You'll make 'em all feel they're in collusion with you."

They smiled again. An unexpected chemotropism was drawing them together. It was dangerous. Powell tried to shake it off. He turned to ?maine: "Now then, Jo?"

"About the peeping, Linc..."

"Keep it up on Reich's level," Powell interrupted. "We're not going to pull any fast ones."

"Reich called me in to represent him. No TP, Linc. This has got to stay on the objective level. I'm here to see that it does. I'll have to be present at every examination."

"You can't stop peeping, Jo. You've got no legal right. We can dig out all we can---"

"Provided it's with the consent of the examinee. I'm here to tell you whether you've got that consent or not."

Powell looked at Reich. "What happened?"

"Don't you know?"

"I'd like your version."

Jo ?maine snapped: "Why Reich's in particular?"

"I'd like to know why he hollered so quick for a lawyer. Is he mixed

up in this mess?" "I'm mixed up in plenty," Reich grinned. "You don't run Monarch

without building a stock-pile of secrets that have got to be protected." "But murder isn't one of them?" "Get out of there, Linc!" "Stop throwing blocks, Jo. I'm just peeping around a little because I

like the guy." "Well, like him on your own time... not mine." "Jo doesn't want me to love you," Powell smiled to Reich. "I wish you

hadn't called a lawyer. It makes me suspicious." "Isn't that an occupational disease?" Reich laughed. "No." Dishonest Abe took over and answered smoothly. "You'd never

believe it, but the occupational disease of detectives is Laterality. That's right-handedness or left-handedness. Most detectives suffer from strange changes of Laterality. I was naturally left-handed until the Parsons Case when I---"

Abruptly, Powell choked off his lie. He took two steps away from his fascinated audience and sighed deeply. When he turned back to them. Dishonest Abe was gone.

"I'll tell you about that another time," he said. "Tell me what happened after Maria and the guests saw the blood dripping down on your cuff."

Reich glanced at the bloodstains on his cuff. "She yelled bloody

murder and we all went tearing upstairs to the Orchid Suite." "How could you find your way in the dark?" "It was light. Maria yelled for lights." "You didn't have any trouble locating the suite with the light on,

eh?" Reich smiled grimly. "I didn't locate the suite. It was secret. Maria had to lead the way."

"There were guards there... knocked out or something?"

"That's right. They looked dead."

"Like stone, eh? They hadn't moved a muscle?"

"How would I know?"

"How indeed?" Powell looked hard at Reich.

"What about D'Courtney?"

"He looked dead too. Hell, he was dead."

"And everybody was standing around staring?"

"Some were in the rest of the suite, looking for the daughter."

"That's Barbara D'Courtney. I thought nobody knew D'Courtney and his daughter were in the house. Why look for her?"

"We didn't know. Maria told us and we looked."

"Surprised to find her gone?"

"We were beyond surprise."

"Any idea where she went?"

"Maria said she'd killed the old man and rocketed."

"Would you buy that?"

"I don't know. The whole thing was crazy. If the girl was lunatic enough to sneak out of the house without a word and go running naked through the streets, she may have had her father's scalp in her hand."

"Would you permit me to peep you on all this for background and detail?"

"I'm in the hands of my lawyer."

"The answer is no," ?maine said. "A man's got the constitutional right to refuse Esper Examination without prejudice to himself. Reich is refusing."

"And I'm in one hell of a mess," Powell sighed and shrugged. "Well, let's start the investigation."

They turned and walked toward the study. Across the hall, Beck scrambled into police code and asked:

"Linc, why'd you let Reich make a monkey out of you?"

"Did he?"

"Sure he did. That shark can stiff you any time."

"Well you better get your knife ready, Jax. This shark is ripe for

Demolition." "What?" "Didn't you hear the slip when he was busy stiffing me? Reich didn't

know there was a daughter. Nobody did. He didn't see her. Nobody did. He could infer that the murder made her run out of the house. Anybody could. But how did he know she was naked?"

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then, as Powell went through the north arch into the study, a broadcast of fervent admiration followed him: "I bow, Linc. I bow to the Master."

The "study" of Beaumont House was constructed on the lines of a Turkish Bath. The floor was a mosaic of jacinth, spinel and sunstone. The walls, cross-hatched with gold wire cloisons were glittering with inset synthetic stones... ruby, emerald, garnet, chrysolite, amethyst, topaz... all containing various portraits of the owner. There were scatter rugs of velvet, and scores of chairs and lounges.