Diligent searching had unearthed him a battered old disposable catalytic lighter, with a faint final glow left in the hot mesh on which he managed to ignite his joint.
Ariadne said, “Is this true, or did she-?”
“Make it up? No, it’s true. I was just talking to a precinct captain a moment ago, telling him what I thought of busies who act like his teamsmen do. You see, they were too occupied to answer the call right away, and they finally got around to it at six or so this morning. Broke down the door and stormed in. By which time she’d spent the night lying beside a dead body, too scared to go out of the apt even as far as the comweb because the Gottschalk took her only gun with him.”
“And they committed her?”
“They were going to arrest her, for Christ’s sake! Susof murder! Until it occurred to one of the thickto look for a weapon she could have cut him open with, and found that the trail of blood led back into the corridor. By that time, though, she must have been out of her skull, pretty well, so they shipped her here. I just told the captain he’d be better off charging the Gottschalk with stealing her gun, and to have the comorder withdrawn fast. But it was just shouting to relieve my feelings, I’m afraid.”
Ariadne gave a depressed nod. “You wouldn’t catch any police force in the country offending a Gottschalk, would you? They’re too scared of being stuck with out-of-fashion weaponry. So what did you do with her?”
“Oh, I gave orders that she wasn’t to be enrolled as a patient, just given emergency therapy at the dispenand allowed to rest a while. Then I said to send her up here and have a word with me before she leaves-if she can leave. I’m not sure yet whether the comorder hadn’t been processed, even though it was one of the very late ones this morning, and if it has, of course, we’ll have to find a guardian for her.”
“Is she under twenty-one?”
“By about three months.”
“Well. she has parents, probably, or relatives of some kind?”
“Kids that age sometimes don’t care to have their family brought into a mess like this one,” Reedeth pointed out. He checked his watch. “Anyhow, she should be here in another few minutes, and I can ask her. Do you want to drop by yourself?”
“Hmmm.” Ariadne glanced at something out of sight. “I guess I ought to, but I don’t see that I can spare the time. We ate into our overload capacity this morning, with all these arrestees, and Dr. Mogshack asked me to nominate fifty green patients for early disand give us a bit of leeway.”
“Well! I never thought I’d see the day when he was letting patients go before he had to!”
Ariadne’s face turned into a stony mask. “That’s not funny, Jim,” she said.
“No. No, I guess not. Pot on an empty stomach talkI’m sorry. But you will bear Harry Madison in mind for that discharge list, won’t you?”
“Yes, of course-I earmarked him right away. But the computations are still unfavorable. I wish to God we could discharge him direct to one of the knee enclaves-Newark, say. But that’s over a state line, and.” She shrugged. “Anyhow,” she added, brightening a little, “it does offer a very handy solution to the Celia Flamen problem.”
“Does it?”
She looked at him blankly. “Well, naturally!”
“Penalty for premature discharge?”
“I’m going to try and persuade him to waive it, of course. After all, he did say yesterday that he wanted his wife out of the Ginsberg as soon as possible.”
“Oh. Yes, that’s quite neat.” Reedeth nodded ap”And is he going to play?”
“I don’t know yet. I left messages for him at home, at his office and in care of Holocosmic, but I haven’t had an answer. Come to think of it, I might as well try again while the discharge list is being comped. Anything else?”
“Apart from saying how about tonight?”
“I’m going to be too tired at this rate,” she sighed, and cut the connection.