hates to see clods eating triple deck-aire sandwiches. He wants to cook treed instead.”
“Cook treed? I thought that was something you did to a coon.”
“Please, Miss Cusack, leave us not be facetious. Treed was the Prophet’s favorite dish—next to his wife.”
“It’s Mrs. Cusack, I keep telling you.”
“I like to keep up the illusion I’ve got a young, beautiful, voluptuous girl as a secretary, rather than an old, beaten-up, married broad.”
Carol Ann sighed and said, “While you were out, Mr. Wonder, down in Transportation, called.”
“What’d Dick want?”
“Another seventy-five seater electro-steamer.”
“Oh, wizard, with our budget melting away by the minute. Why?”
“He thinks it would make a profit. We’ve got enough residents now working over at the Dodge-Myers Complex on all four shifts to make it worth while running a bus service.”
“Oh? We have?” Barry thought about it. “How far is the Dodge-Myers set-up, Miss Cusack?”
“A hundred and seventy-five kilometers. According to Mr. Wonder, the Shyler-deme employees there would save fifteen or twenty minutes time a day, if they had their own bus running back and forth for each shift.”
“Well, it’s worth looking into. Have you ever seen the Dodge-Myers Complex, Miss Cusack?”
“I applied for a job there, just before taking this one. It’s tucked away, up in the hills, and most of the buildings are underground. One of the most modern industrial complexes in this vicinity. No smoke, no industrial mess, the nearest homes at least five miles away. All in the newest tradition.”
“So it’s to be assumed that our people will continue to work there. I’ll take it up with Dick Wonder later. Has Bat come up with anything on the burglaries?”
“Not that I know of, Mr. Ten Eyck. I haven’t seen Mr. Hardin since he was in here with you earlier.” She turned to answer one of her phone screens. “Here’s Mr. Hardin now.”
Barry activated one of his own screens. “Hi, Bat. What spins?”
Bat Hardin’s face was registering shock. “Barry,” he said, “listen. The burglar’s been at it again.”
“This soon! And in broad daylight? Same as before?”
Bat Hardin said strangely, “Not exactly. This time he didn’t do so well in selecting an empty apartment. He was jumped by the resident, evidently, while prowling the place. It was Lawrence McCaw’s mini-apartment on the fiftieth floor.”
“Good grief, what happened?”
“The burglar killed him.”
Barry Ten Eyck winced. “Oh, Lord,” he said. He shook his head and began to come to his feet. “What tower?”
“Tower-Two,” Bat said. “You coming up, Barry?”
“I’ll be right there.”
Half way to the door he called back to Carol Ann, “Get Mayor Levy and the Security Chief over at Administration. Tell them … well, tell them what happened. You know as much about it as I do.”
He hurried out into the corridor and to the elevator banks. The fiftieth floor, in Tower-Two. Devoted entirely to mini-apartments. You would think a prowler would be more ambitious. Damn few who lived in mini-apartments had anything worth stealing. But that was the big mystery, wasn’t it? This burglar didn’t seem to steal anything worth stealing. Barry wondered if the man was some sort of kleptomaniac.
Two of Stevens’ human relations officers were posted outside Apartment 508. Barry nodded to them wordlessly and hustled on through.
The tiny apartment was jam-packed with Bat Hardin, Stevens, Doctor Bert McCoy, of the Shyler-deme hospital, one more of Stevens’ men and, sprawled on the floor and now covered with a bedsheet, what was obviously the remains of the late occupant of the apartment.
Barry stared down at the corpse. He said, “He’s dead, Doc?”
“Very. Several knife wounds in the abdomen and up into the heart region. You wish to see him?”
“Good grief, no.” Barry looked around at them. “Did any of you know him? What did you say his name was, Bat?”
“Lawrence McCaw. No, I didn’t know him. With anywhere from fifteen to twenty thousand people in Shyler-deme at any given time, you never get to know more than a fraction.”
The doctor, an efficient, straight-standing type, shook his head, as did the Security officer.
Stevens, who was staring down at the sheet covered figure glumly, said, “I knew him slightly. He was more or less a recluse. Almost an escapist. You seldom saw him in the public rooms.”
“Who found him?”
Stevens stirred. “I did. Pure luck, actually. Almost intuitive, I guess you’d say. I had a strange feeling that our burglar friend was on the prowl again and I was checking the spy lenses. Just on an off chance, I activated several of the apartment lenses on this floor.”
Barry Ten Eyck’s eyebrows went up.
“I know, I know,” Stevens said sourly. “It’s supposedly illegal for anyone save proper government authority to invade the privacy of a home. But you know what the situation was. At any rate, I gave a quick check-out on several apartments. The fourth one I tried, I saw McCaw, there, sprawled on the floor. I made a beeline up here. His door was partially open. And there he was.”
Barry looked at the Security officer. “Go on out and tell those two guards not to let anyone in here and above all not to tell anyone what’s happened.”
“Yes, sir.” The man left.
Bat Hardin said, “You notify Levy and Ben Snider?”
“I had Carol Ann do it. I imagine they’ll be over shortly.” Barry rubbed his hand down over his face and muttered, “We’ve got to keep this bottled up long enough to find whoever did it. We’ve got to, or residents will be moving out of this building like rats. Burglaries and murders!”
One of the guards stuck his head in the door. “Here comes Mayor Levy and Chief Snider.”
The doctor had been putting equipment back into his bag. He said, “One thing before I leave. If I have the story correctly, supposedly the apartment was being burglarized when the occupant here, McCaw, interrupted the thief. However, if so, the wounds were strangely located. By them and the position of the corpse, I would have said the opposite situation applied.”
Barry scowled at him.
The doctor said, almost defensively, “It would appear, rather, that the victim was the one surprised. Perhaps I am wrong.”
Barry looked at Stevens. “Steve, how do you know this was one of the burglar’s jobs?”
“Same pattern,” Stevens growled. “Two other apartments on the floor have been prowled. And look at this place. It’s been ransacked.”
Mayor Emmanuel Levy came bustling in, closely followed by his Chief of Security of Phoenecia, Ben Snider. Both were heavy-set though energetic men.
“What in the world is going on here? A killing! We haven’t had a killing in six months and that was more of an accident than …” Levy began.
His eyes fell on the covered body and he sucked in air.
Later, when they had talked it out from every angle, and the whole thing had been turned over to Security routine, Barry Ten Eyck had the mayor for lunch in Le Chalut, Shyler-deme’s French restaurant. It was, as Head Chef Daunou had described it, a perfect replica of a Provence restaurant, complete to placards on