“There’s a deadfall!” she screamed, and in the same heartbeat someone said from inside the apt something about goddamned. and the door was slammed back on its hinges so fast she couldn’t see it go, it was here and it was there and Madison was standing in the openwith one hand over his head to catch the hundred-kilo deadfall barely descended in its grooves. Beyond him, a staring white-faced man coming out of the living room, holding a chair like a shield, whose jaw fell as he saw the intruder carefully raise the deadfall back to storage height and put over the catch to neutralize it.
“Do you know this person, Miss Clay?” Madison said in a bored kind of voice.
“Y-yes,” Lyla whispered, and had to draw another breath before she could finish the statement. “It’s a friend of Dan’s-my mackero’s. It’s Berry.”
“I.” Berry’s Adam’s apple bobbed on his lean throat; he was tall and stringy, and she was suddenly reminded of the policeman at the rapitrans terminal who had tried to trip Madison. “I came to take back my vuset!” he improvised. “I found I needed it after all. And when I saw the door was open I.” The words trailed away and he gave a shrug.
“Funny,” Madison said with a glance at Lyla. “I don’t see a vuset out there in the corridor. See a gang of other stuff, though. Yours?”
“Mine and Dan’s!” Lyla burst out before Berry could reply.
“Ah-hah.” Madison walked forward, brushing past Berry as though he didn’t exist, and peered into the living room. “It’s very kind of your friend, Miss Clay! I see he’s given you a working bed in place of the broken one out there on the landing, and the place looks all kind of neat and clean and tidy. Must be a relief to know you have friends like this, when you were expecting to come home and find everything had been smashed by kids, or pilfered, because the busies didn’t lock up behind them when they took you to the Ginsberg. Place looks fine!”
“You goddamned-!” Berry began, raising the chair as though to make a club of it instead of a shield. But Madison freed the hand steadying his bag long enough to jerk the thumb towards the deadfall which he had so casually caught and lifted, all one hundred kilograms of it, and the movement spoke clearer than words. Berry lowered the chair very slowly to the floor.
Sidling, all the blood drained from his face, he moved towards the door where Lyla stood like a marble statue. When he came within arm’s reach, he said tentatively, “It’s great to find that it wasn’t true about your being shut up in the Ginsberg-”
At that point she lost control and slapped his face; the noise was like a gunshot.
“Bitch!” he shouted, and his fist came up bound for the point of her jaw-and missed, because while it was still coming Madison had kicked him accurately at the base of the spine and lifted him bodily past Lyla, through the door and across the corridor to slump against the opposite wall, moaning.
Carefully he closed the door and turned to her.
“Is there anything out there you’d like brought back in?” he inquired.
“Leave it,” Lyla sighed. “I don’t-oh, yes. There’s two thousand to come back on the Lar! I don’t dare let him corner me on that, the bastard. The bastard! And I thought he was a friend of Dan’s! He must have heard Dan was dead and I’d been arrested and thought he’d grab the chance to move in-he’s been living with his girl in one room for months and this place does at least have a separate kitchen though it’s pretty crummy otherwise. What are you doing?”
Madison had his head bent close to the door, listening. A moment more, and he whipped it open, one hand poised to strike in precisely the right spot. Berry yelled as his wrist was seized and pressure applied on nerves which sprang his fingers open. A Punch key fell tinkling and Madison said ironically, “Good of you to return the key-I guess Miss Clay will be needing it.”