Bert said, “Come on back into the suite. They must have some kind of a medical kit in the bathroom. They’ve got everything else.”
The door identity screen picked them up and opened.
Bert led his companion into the bath of the master bedroom and helped him strip off jacket and shirt. The double wound didn’t look too bad. He had seen Jim shot up considerably worse than this He fumbled around in the medical chest set into the wall and came up with iodine, bandages and tape.
Jim growled, “I can handle it. Get going on Jill.”
Bert went back into the living room and sat before the phone screen there. He flicked it on and said, “Professor Ralph Marsh. Restricted. I’m listed. Albert Alshuler.”
“Thank you.”
The professor’s face faded in after a moment. He was petulant. “What is it this time, confound it? I’d think…”
“Shut up and listen. I’m in Suite G. We’ve just had a shoot-out. One man’s dead and one wounded. Get up here soonest with a medical kit.”
The other’s eyes were bugging. “Are you jesting?”
“Do I look like a clown? Get up here, damn it. A friend and I jumped four men who were kidnapping Jill Masterson, a girl who—”
“Jill Masterson!”
Chapter Seven
“Oh, so you know her, eh?” Bert said grimly. “Get up here and bring some muscle along. We’ve got problems, Marsh, and you’d better have some answers” Bert slapped the phone off.
He leaned back in the chair, trying desperately to think.
Jim Hawkins came in, trying to button a clean white shirt he had evidently appropriated from those in the master bedroom that Bert had discovered that morning. Bert got up and helped him. The shirt was a poor fit.
Bert said, “We’ve got to get that stiff out of the hall. Evidently, there’s nobody else living in this part of the building or they would’ve come out when that gyro-jet went off. However, you never know when somebody might come along. Where in the hell did you get that laser pistol? As though I didn’t know, you damn crook.” He began to lead the way back to the hall.
Jim was aggrieved. “What if we hadn’t had it? I had a feeling that something was off-beat. You being in this suite with your fancy clothes and fancy hooch and all the rest of it. Besides, ever since I got out of the army I’ve felt half naked going around without being heeled I just thought I’d borrow it for a while.”
Bert growled, “Great. But now we’re up on the top floor of this building with a corpse on our hands, a corpse killed with a highly illegal laser gun. And we’ve got one whale of a suspicious story to explain it all.”
Out in the hall, he went over to the body, took it by the heels and dragged it back in the direction of Suite G. Jim Hawkins bent down and picked up the shattered electronic device. Frowning at it, he re-entered the apartment, closing the door behind him.
Bert Alshuler put a small throw rug under the head of the dead man so that the blood wouldn’t stain the foyer floor and bent over the body again, shaking it down more completely than he had before.
He finally came to his feet in disgust “No Identity Card, no wallet, no nothing.”
Jim had been inspecting the electronic device. He said, “Look at this, Bert. It’s jury-rigged.” He held forth the compact but awkward appearing musher.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, it’s obviously not government issue. They don’t have any this small. Dad and I used to use them in our business. But they don’t make mini-mushers in this country, so we had to get them illegally from Japan. You set one up when you’re on a job. It prevents anybody from calling for help in case you’re flushed while you’re stripping an apartment or whatever.”
“I don’t get it,” Bert said.
“It’s home-made. Looks like some amateur put it together in some little electronic shop, or maybe a basement hobby-room—or, better still an electronic lab in some school.”
Bert scowled. “I see your drift. Those guys weren’t pros, Jim. That one that nicked you didn’t know guns. He missed the first time, even at that range And if he’d been up on being a gunman he would have gotten me too. Besides that, pros wouldn’t have sent four men to pick up a girl no bigger than Jill. Makes it too conspicuous. One or two would have been plenty. And there’s one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“They were all kids. Young fellows.” He dropped the subject. “Listen. Do you think you could get into that suite next to us? You haven’t got the use of your right mind.”
“Let’s give it a try.”
They left the apartment again and made their way to the door from which Jill had emerged with her abductors less than fifteen minutes before.
Jim said, “Stand to one side. Don’t let the identity screen pick you up. Devil only knows what kind of an alarm system they have rigged with a joint as classy as this.”
Bert Alshuler stood with his back to the wall, as Jim Hawkins, also taking care to keep out of the screen’s range, worked on it. He had brought a pocket knife forth which seemed to be a miniature tool kit.
He grinned over his shoulder at his companion. “Carry a burglar kit around with you and if somebody searches you, you’ve had it. But you can have one of these and everybody just figures you’re gadget-happy.”
Bert rolled his eyes upward, in a plea to the gods. “My old buddy,” he muttered.
The screen evidently disposed of, Jim went to work on the lock. He said, to nobody in particular, “If they’d automate doors completely, it’d be another thing, but they’ve got it half and half, on the off-chance of a breakdown.”
The door swung open and they both hurried inside and closed it after them.
The suite was considerably similar to that occupied by Bert Alshuler, with the difference that it had obviously been meant for female occupancy.
In the living room were half a dozen suitcases. Bert bent over them. He looked up. “Locked.”
Jim snorted at that and bent over each momentarily, his gadget pocketknife in hand. “There you are.”
Bert opened the largest and fumbled through it. There were various papers and documents among the feminine clothing and toilet articles.
Jim said, “It’s Jill’s stuff, all right. She was evidently just moving in. Hadn’t the time to unpack.” He paused. “She mentioned something about moving. But what in the hell would she be doing in a place like this? She was over in the Parthenon Building, watching her credits, just like the rest of us. She couldn’t afford to stay in a place like this for one day.” He looked suspiciously at Bert. “For that matter, what are you doing here?”
Bert Alshuler had been going through the rest of Jill’s things, trying to find some clue, but he drew a blank.
He stood and looked into his friend’s eyes “I can’t tell you.”
“The devil you can’t, old buddy. Start talking.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t, damn it, Jim. I said I can’t I don’t know what I’m doing here. It’s a madhouse. But I know one thing. I’m going to get a lot of explanations in the near future. Come on, let’s get back into the other suite. Our alleged friends should be turning up. How do you feel?”
They went on back to Suite G and to the bar in the living room. They had hardly poured a couple of straight drinks before the screen on the door pinged. Bert went to get it.
Professor Ralph Marsh bustled in, followed by two others who had been stamped from the same mold. That is, they were in their late fifties, or early sixties, were conservatively dressed and obviously from the professional class. The second two were on the nervous side, and very unhappy.
But Marsh snapped to Bert, “All right, all right, confound it. What is this, what is this?”
Bert closed the door behind them and indicated the body stretched out on the foyer floor. “You tell me, friend.”