“Well?” he said, abruptly. “Well? You came here to see me about Brian, didn’t you? What about Brian?” He added, before Ian could answer, in a tone suddenly brutal: “I know he was shot, so you don’t have to break that news to me. I suppose you want to tell me he showed all sorts of noble guts—refused a blindfold and that sort of—“
“No,” said Ian. “He didn’t die nobly.”
Kenebuck’s tall, muscled body jerked a little at the words, almost as if the bullets of an invisible firing squad had poured into it.
“Well . . . that’s fine!” he laughed angrily. “You come light-years to see me and then you tell me that! I thought you liked him—liked Brian.”
“Liked him? No,” Ian shook his head. Kenebuck stiffened, his face for a moment caught in a gape of bewilderment. “As a matter of fact,” went on Ian, “he was a glory-hunter. That made him a poor soldier and a worse officer. I’d have transferred him out of my command if I’d had time before the campaign on Freiland started. Because of him, we lost the lives of thirty-two men in his Force, that night.”
“Oh.” Kenebuck pulled himself together, and looked sourly at Ian. “Those thirty-two men. You’ve got them on your conscience—is that it?”
“No,” said Ian. There was no emphasis on the word
as he said it, but somehow to Tyburn’s ears above, the brief short negative dismissed Kenebuck’s question with an abruptness like contempt. The spots of color on Kenebuck’s cheeks flamed.
“You didn’t like Brian and your conscience doesn’t bother you—what’re you here for, then?” he snapped.
“My duty brings me,” said Ian.
“Duty?” Kenebuck’s face stilled, and went rigid.
Ian reached slowly into his pocket as if he were surrendering a weapon under the guns of an enemy and did not want his move misinterpreted. He brought out the package from his pocket.
“I brought you Brian’s personal effects,” he said. He turned and laid the package on a table beside Kenebuck. Kenebuck stared down at the package and the color over his cheekbones faded until his face was nearly as pale as his hair. Then slowly, hesitantly, as if he were approaching a booby-trap, he reached out and gingerly picked it up. He held it and turned to Ian, staring into Ian’s eyes, almost demandingly.
“It’s in here?” said Kenebuck, in a voice barely above a whisper, and with a strange emphasis.
“Brian’s effects,” said Ian, watching him.
“Yes . . . sure. All right,” said Kenebuck. He was plainly trying to pull himself together, but his voice was still almost whispering. “I guess . . . that settles it.”
“That settles it,” said Ian. Their eyes held together. “Good-by,” said Ian. He turned and walked back through the silent crowd and out of the living room. The three muscle-men were no longer in the foyer. He took the elevator tube down and returned to his own hotel room.
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 whisky 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 whisky 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 whisky 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 window-glass, trying to get in.
“Sure about what? Look, Commandant,” said Tyburn, trying to speak calmly, “half an hour after we heard 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 brief 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 whisky 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 whisky.
“But,” said Tyburn, staring at him, “You’re trying to bring a civilian to justice. And Kenebuck has you out-gunned and out-maneuvered—“