"Why do you say that?" Her eyes wavered. "Suppose you continued to investigate… and suppose you found an answer that pointed to murder… you would report it, wouldn't you?" "Of course." "And there would be a trial." Qwilleran nodded.
"And because I found the body, I would have to testify, wouldn't I? And then my position would be exposed!" She slid out of the rocking chair and knelt on the floor at his side. "Qwill, that would be the end of everything I live for! The publicity — my father-you know what would happen!" He put aside his pipe, and it fell on the floor. He studied her face.
"It's the newspapers I'm afraid of!" she said. "You know how they are about names. Anything for a name! Leave matters the way they are," she begged. "Andy's gone. Nothing will bring him back. Don't make any more inquiries. Qwill.
Please!" She reached for his hands and stared at him with eyes wide and pleading. "Please do it for me." She bent her head and rubbed her smooth cheek against the back of his hand, and Qwilleran quickly raised her face to his.
"Please, Qwill, tell me you'll drop the whole matter." "Mary, l don't…" "Qwill, please promise." Her lips were very close. There was a breathless moment. Time stood still. Then they heard: "Grrrowrrr… yeowww!" Then a hissing: "Hhhhhhh!" "Grrrowrrr! Ow!!" "KOKO!" shouted the man.
"Ak-ak-ak-ak-ak!" "Yum Yum!" "GRRRRR!" "Koko, quit that!"
16
Qwilleran dreamed about Niagara Falls that night, and when the tumult of the cataract succeeded in waking him, he glanced about wildly in his darkened room. There was a roar of water — a rushing, raging torrent. Then, with a gasp and a choking groan, it stopped.
He sat up in his swan bed and listened. In a moment it started again, somewhat less deafening than in his dream — a gushing, swishing whirlpool, followed by a snort, a shuddering groan, a few final sobs, and silence.
Gradually the source of the noise penetrated his sleep- drugged mind. Plumbing! The aged plumbing of an old house! But why was it flushing in the night? Qwilleran swung his legs out of bed and staggered to the bathroom.
He switched on the light. There, balancing on the edge of the baroque bathtub, was Koko, with one paw on the porcelain lever of the old-fashioned toilet, watching the swirling water with an intent, nearsighted gaze. Yum Yum I was sitting in the marble washbowl, blinking her eyes at the sudden brightness. Once more Koko stepped on the lever and stared in fascination as the water cascaded, churned, gurgled, and disappeared.
"You monkey!" Qwilleran said. "How did you discover that gadget?" He was unsure whether to be peeved at the interruption of his sleep or proud of the cat's mechanical aptitude. He lugged Koko, squalling and writhing, from the bathroom and tossed him on the cushions of the Morris chair. "What were you trying to do? Resurrect Yum Yum's mouse?" Koko licked his rumpled fur as if it had been contaminated by something indescribably offensive.
Daylight in a menacing yellow-gray began to creep over the winter sky, devising new atrocities in the form of weather. While opening a can of minced clams for the cats, Qwilleran planned his day. For one thing, he wanted to find out how Ben Nicholas folded his money. He also wished he knew how that red feather had transferred from a tweed porkpie to a silk tophat. He had asked Koko about it, and Koko had merely squeezed one eye. As for the avalanche, Qwilleran had discussed it with Mary, and she had a glib explanation: "Well, you see, the attic in Ben's building is used for sleeping rooms, and it's heated." He had not exactly promised Mary that he would drop his unofficial investigation. He had been on the verge of promising when Koko created that commotion. Afterwards, Qwilleran had simply said, "Trust me, Mary. I won't do anything to hurt you," and she had become nicely emotional, and altogether it had been a gratifying evening. She had even accepted his Christmas Eve invitation. She said she would go to the Press Club as Mary Duxbury — not as Mary Duckworth, junk dealer — because the society writers would recognize her.
Qwilleran still faced a dilemma, however. To drop his investigation was to shirk his own idea of responsibility; to pursue it was to hurt Junktown, and this neglected step- child of City Hall needed a champion, not another antagonist.
By the time the junk shops opened and Qwilleran started his rounds, the weather had devised another form of discomfort: a clammy cold that chilled the bones and hovered over Junktown like a musty dishrag.
He went first to Bit o' Junk, but Ben's shop was closed. Then he tried the store that sold tech-tiques, and for the first time since Qwilleran had arrived in Junktown, the place was open. When he walked in, Hollis Prantz came loping from the stockroom in the rear, wearing something somber and carrying a paintbrush.
"Just varnishing some display cabinets," he explained. "Getting ready for the big day tomorrow." "Don't let me interrupt you," Qwilleran said, as he perused the shop in mystification. He saw tubes from fifteen- year-old television sets, early hand-wired circuits, prehistoric radio parts, and old-fashioned generator cutouts from 1935 automobiles. "Just tell me one thing," he said. "Do you expect to make a living from this stuff?" "Nobody makes a living in this business," said Prantz. "We all need another source of income." "Or extremely monastic tastes," Qwilleran added. "I happen to have a little rental property, and I'm semi-retired. I had a heart attack last year, and I'm taking it easy." "You're young to have a thing like that happen." Qwilleran guessed the dealer was in his early forties.
"You're lucky if you get a warning early in life. It's my theory that Cobb had a heart attack when he was tearing that building apart; that's heavy work for a man of his age." "What kind of work did you do — before this?" "I was in paint and wallpaper." The dealer said it almost apologetically. "Not much excitement in the paint business, but I get a real charge out of this new shop of mine." "What gave you the idea for tech-tiques?" "Wait till I get rid of this varnish brush." In a second Prantz was back with an old straight-back office chair. "Here.
Have a seat." Qwilleran studied the disassembled innards of a primitive typewriter. "You'll have to talk fast to convince me this junk is going to catch on." The dealer smiled. "Well, I'll tell you. People will collect anything today, because there aren't enough good antiques to go around. They make lamps out of worm-eaten fence posts. They frame twenty-year-old burlesque posters.
Why not preserve the fragments of the early automotive and electronics industry?" Prantz shifted to a confidential tone.
"I've got a promotion I'm working on, based on a phenomenon of our times — the acceleration of obsolescence. My idea is to accelerate antiquity. The sooner an item goes out of style, the quicker it makes its comeback as a collector's piece. It used to be a hundred years before discards made the grade as collectibles. Now it's thirty. I intend to speed it up to twenty or even fifteen…. Don't write this up," the dealer added hastily. "It's still in the thinking stage. Protect me, like a good fellow." Qwilleran shrank into his overcoat when he left Hollis Prantz. The dealer had changed a five for him — with dollar bills folded crosswise — but there was something about Prantz that did not ring true.