Tyburn, who, with a key to the service elevators, had not had to change tubes on the way down as Ian had, was waiting for him when Ian entered. Ian did not seem surprised to see Tyburn there, and only glanced casually at the policeman as he crossed to a decanter of Dorsai whiskey that had since been delivered up to the room.
“That’s that, then!” burst out Tyburn, in relief. “You got in to see him and he ended up letting you out. You can pack up and go, now. It’s over.”
“No,” said Ian. “Nothing’s over yet.” He poured a few inches of the pungent, dark whiskey into a glass, and moved the decanter over another glass. “Drink?”
“I’m on duty,” said Tyburn, sharply.
“There’ll be a little wait,” said Ian, calmly. He poured some whiskey into the other glass, took up both glasses, and stepped across the room to hand one to Tyburn. Tyburn found himself holding it. Ian had stepped on to stand before the wall-high window. Outside, night had fallen; but—faintly seen in the lights from the city levels below—the sleet here above the weather shield still beat like small, dark ghosts against the transparency.
“Hang it, man, what more do you want?” burst out Tyburn. “Can’t you see it’s you I’m trying to protect—as well as Kenebuck? I don’t want anyone killed! If you stay around here now, you’re asking for it. I keep telling you, here in Manhattan Complex you’re the helpless one, not Kenebuck. Do you think he hasn’t made plans to take care of you?”
“Not until he’s sure,” said Ian, turning from the ghost-sleet, beating like lost souls against the windowglass, trying to get in.
“Sure about what? Look, Commandant,” said Tyburn, trying to speak calmly, “half an hour after we hear from the Freiland-North Police about you, Kenebuck called my office to ask for police protection.” He broke off, angrily. “Don’t look at me like that! How do I know how he found out you were coming? I tell you he’s rich, and he’s got connections! But the point is, the police protection he’s got is just a screen—an excuse—for whatever he’s got planned for you on his own. You saw those hoods in the foyer!”
“Yes,” said Ian, unemotionally.
“Well, think about it!” Tyburn glared at him. “Look, I don’t hold any grief for James Kenebuck! All right—let me tell you about him! We knew he’d been trying to get rid of his brother since Brian was ten—but blast it, Commandant, Brian was no angel, either—”
“I know,” said Ian, seating himself in a chair opposite Tyburn.
“All right, you know! I’ll tell you anyway!” said Tyburn. “Their grandfather was a local kingpin—he was in every racket on the eastern seaboard. He was one of the mob, with millions he didn’t dare count because of where they’d come from. In their father’s time, those millions started to be fed into legitimate businesses. The third generation, James and Brian, didn’t inherit anything that wasn’t legitimate. Hell, we couldn’t even make a jaywalking ticket stick against one of them, if we’d ever wanted to. James was twenty and Brian ten when their father died, and when he died the last bit of tattle-tale gray went out of the family linen. But they kept their hoodlum connections, Commandant!”
Ian sat, glass in hand, watching Tyburn almost curiously.
“Don’t you get it?” snapped Tyburn. “I tell you that, on paper, in law, Kenebuck’s twenty-four-carat gilt-edge. But his family was hoodlum, he was raised like a hoodlum, and he thinks like a hood! He didn’t want his young brother Brian around to share the crown-prince position with him— so he set out to get rid of him. He couldn’t just have him killed, so he set out to cut him down, show him up, break his spirit, until Brian took one chance too many trying to match up to his older brother, and killed himself off.”
Ian slowly nodded.
“All right!” said Tyburn. “So Kenebuck finally succeeded. He chased Brian until the kid ran off and became a professional soldier—something Kenebuck wouldn’t leave his wine, women and song long enough to shine at. And he can shine at most things he really wants to shine at, Commandant. Under that hood attitude and all those millions, he’s got a good mind and a good body that he’s made a hobby out of training. But, all right. So now it turns out Brian was still no good, and he took some soldiers along when he finally got around to doing what Kenebuck wanted, and getting himself killed. All right! But what can you do about it? What can anyone do about it, with all the connections, and all the money and all the law on Kenebuck’s side of it? And, why should you think about doing something about it, anyway?”
“It’s my duty,” said Ian. He had swallowed half the whiskey in his glass, absently, and now he turned the glass thoughtfully around, watching the brown liquor swirl under the forces of momentum and gravity. He looked up at Tyburn. “You know that, Lieutenant.”
“Duty! Is duty that important?” demanded Tyburn. Ian gazed at him, then looked away, at the ghost-sleet beating vainly against the glass of the window that held it back in the outer dark.
“Nothing’s more important than duty,” said Ian, half to himself, his voice thoughtful and remote. “Mercenary troops have the right to care and protection from their own officers. When they don’t get it, they’re entitled to justice, so that the same thing is discouraged from happening again. That justice is a duty.”
Tyburn blinked, and unexpectedly a wall seemed to go down in his mind.
“Justice for those thirty-two dead soldiers of Brian’s!” he said, suddenly understanding. “That’s what brought you here!”
“Yes.” Ian nodded, and lifted his glass almost as if to the sleet-ghosts to drink the rest of his whiskey.
“But,” said Tyburn, staring at him, “you’re trying to bring a civilian to justice. And Kenebuck has you out-gunned and out-maneuvered—”
The chiming of the communicator screen in one corner of the hotel room interrupted him. Ian put down his empty glass, went over to the screen and depressed a stud. His wide shoulders and back hid the screen from Tyburn, but Tyburn heard his voice.
“Yes?”
The voice of James Kenebuck sounded in the hotel room.
“Graeme—listen!”
There was a pause.
“I’m listening,” said Ian, calmly.
“I’m alone now,” said the voice of Kenebuck. It was tight and harsh. “My guests have gone home. I was just looking through that package of Brian’s things . . .” He stopped speaking and the sentence seemed to Tyburn to dangle unfinished in the air of the hotel room. Ian let it dangle for a long moment.
“Yes?” he said, finally.
“Maybe I was a little hasty . . .” said Kenebuck. But the tone of his voice did not match the words. The tone was savage. “Why don’t you come up, now that I’m alone, and we’ll . . . talk about Brian, after all?”
“I’ll be up,” said Ian.
He snapped off the screen and turned around.
“Wait!” said Tyburn, starting up out of his chair. “You can’t go up there!”
“Can’t?” Ian looked at him. “I’ve been invited, Lieutenant.”
The words were like a damp towel slapping Tyburn in the face, waking him up.
“That’s right . . .” he stared at Ian. “Why? Why’d he invite you back?”
“He’s had time,” said Ian, “to be alone. And to look at that package of Brian’s.”
“But . . .” Tyburn scowled. “There was nothing important in that package. A watch, a wallet, a passport, some other papers . . . Customs gave us a list. There wasn’t anything unusual there.”
“Yes,” said Ian. “And that’s why he wants to see me again.”
“But what does he want?”