I pulled out my tab and looked at the encyclopedia entry on Denny O’Reilly, particularly the stuff on his personal life. There was no mention of a mistress, although he had indeed been married at the time he’d died, and that woman, who had been dead herself for a dozen years, had inherited his estate; she’d doubtless had the money to transfer at some point, but had been killed unexpectedly in a plane crash.
The elderly customer was looking at a sample body in the window display. The man happened to be black and the body was white, but its build was similar to his own.
Since she was still busy, and since Rory would probably be a while longer, I stepped outside onto the street and used my wrist phone to call Dougal McCrae.
“Hello, Alex,” he said from the tiny screen.
“Hey, Mac. Did you guys investigate an incident at the home of a Reiko Takahashi recently?”
He looked away from the camera. “Two secs.” Then his freckled face turned back to me. “Yeah, a B&E. Kaur handled it. Strange; nothing taken.”
“What can you tell me about Miss Takahashi?”
He looked off camera again. “No wants, no warrants. Life-support tax paid in full. Came here three months ago. Works at NewYou—you’ve met her, remember?”
I nodded. “Thanks, Mac. Talk to you later.”
“One thing while I’ve got you, Alex.”
“Sure.”
“We’ve had a couple of missing-persons reports.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. A woman named Lakshmi Chatterjee and a man named Darren Cheung. Logged out of the dome, but apparently never returned. They rented a Mars buggy, and she rented a surface suit; the rental firm wants them back.”
“I can imagine so.”
“Same log shows that you and Dr. Pickover went out shortly before them.”
“I brought my suit back.”
“With a cracked helmet.”
“Shoddy workmanship,” I said.
Mac looked at me dubiously.
“Anyway,” I said, “I’ll let you know if I see them.”
“You do that, Alex.”
I nodded, shook the phone off, and started to head back inside. I was startled by the door sliding open before I’d reached it—it was the old man, coming out. “What did you decide?” I asked amiably.
He narrowed his eyes, as if wondering what business it was of mine. But he answered nonetheless. “I’m going home.”
He didn’t look like he was in good enough shape to hack the gravity on the mother world. “Really?” I said.
“Yup. Going back to Lunaport. No damn fossils anywhere there; I’ve had my fill of dead things.”
I nodded; he’d do fine there. “Bon voyage,” I said. I’d once made the effort here on Mars to see Luna without a telescope; it’s about as bright as Mercury is as seen from Earth’s surface, which is to say not very bright at all. I squeezed past the old codger and went inside.
“Sorry you didn’t make a sale,” I said to Reiko, jerking my thumb toward the front door.
“So am I,” she replied. “Sure I can’t interest you?”
I looked at her pretty face and thought that she interested me just fine. But what I said was, “About your grandfather’s diary…”
“Yes?”
“The thief didn’t find it. I trust you’ve got it somewhere safe.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Here at NewYou?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
She compressed her lips, and the color went out of them.
“Reiko, if you want me to investigate this, you have to trust me.”
She considered. “There’s a writer here, doing an authorized biography of my grandfather. She’s got it.”
I seriously doubted we had more than one writer, but I asked anyway. “Who?”
“Her name’s Lakshmi Chatterjee. She’s staying at Shopatsky House.”
“I thought she was doing a book about the B. Traven,” I said.
“What’s that?” asked Reiko.
It occurred to me that being a writer—or even just claiming to be one—was a great cover. You could tell people you were doing a book on just about anything, and they’d take you into their confidence. Still, if Lakshmi had the diary already, she obviously wasn’t the one who’d searched Reiko’s place. “Who else besides Lakshmi knows about the diary?”
“No one. At least, no one here on Mars. Lakshmi promised to keep it a secret.”
At that moment, Pickover came out of the back room. His face had been repaired, and although there were still two rips in his favorite shirt, I had no doubt that whatever damage there’d been underneath had also been fixed. He was followed by Horatio Fernandez. The two of them went over to the cash station to settle up.
“Okay,” I said to Reiko. “I’ll see if I can figure out who broke into your place, and, if I do, I’ll lean on them a bit—make sure they leave you alone in future.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lomax.”
“Alex. Call me Alex.”
She smiled, showing the perfect teeth again. “Thank you, Alex.”
Pickover was finished. I said goodbye to Reiko, and he and I headed outside. As soon as the door slid shut behind me, I turned to him. “You okay?”
“Good as new,” he said.
“Did he put a tracking chip in, do you think?”
“I watched him like a hawk—easy to do when someone is working on your face. I don’t think so. But I’ll get myself checked, as before.”
“Good, okay. Don’t forget.” I paused, then: “Here’s a shocker for you. Miss Takahashi is Denny O’Reilly’s granddaughter.”
“Oh, really?”
“No,” I said, unable to resist. “O’Reilly.” I waited for him to laugh—but I guess he was only laughing on the inside. “Anyway,” I said. “Yes, she is. Her grandmother was Denny’s mistress. That mechanical ticker of yours ready for another shock? There’s a diary of Weingarten and O’Reilly’s last voyage. Denny transmitted it to Miss Takahashi’s grandmother before they left Mars.”
Rory’s plastic face lit up almost—almost literally. “Oh, my God! If he recorded any paleontological details—I have to see it! There’s no known record of what they’d found on the third expedition. Who knows what treasures the Alpha yielded that were lost when their ship burned up?”
“Don’t sweat it,” I said. “I’ll get it for you. It’s at Shopatsky House, and, as we both know, the position of writer-in-residence is now vacant. I’ll go retrieve it.”
“And what about me?” asked Pickover.
I smiled my most reassuring smile. “Go home and clean some fossils. I’m going to swing by my office, then head out to get the diary. This shouldn’t take long.”
TWENTY-TWO
There was a sign outside Shopatsky House that I hadn’t seen the last time, because I’d approached it then from the opposite direction. It was a white rectangle with dark green lettering, and it talked about who Stavros Shopatsky had been and explained that although some might view this site as a tourist attraction—as if Mars got many tourists—it was actually a private home with a hardworking author within, and people should be quiet and respect the writer’s privacy.
But the sign, like so much in New Klondike, had been vandalized. Someone had carved “Books Suck” into it. Everybody’s a critic.
Most homes had their front doors well secured—and some other potential entrance that was easy to break in through. I went around back. The grounds were covered with ferns that did well in the dim sunlight we got here.
It used to be people left a spare key under a rock—and Mars had plenty of rocks. But unless you were a transfer, you probably used a biometric lock these days, and few people stored a spare finger somewhere in their backyard. I did a cursory search anyway but didn’t find anything. Still, there was a big window in the back—writers, I hear, like to stare out into space, which must be good work if you can get it. The window was probably alloquartz or shatterproof glass, but the molding around the window might, I thought, be made of less-stern stuff, and indeed that turned out to be the case.