Eros at Zenith: Book 2 of Tales of the Velvet Comet Read online

  “She's also a very frightened one,” added Crane. “And not without cause.”

  “Why should you say that, Mr. Crane?”

  “Because a patron was killed in an area that patrons theoretically can't gain access to. That means your security system has been breached, and she's in charge of it.”

  “Then shouldn't you be talking to her instead of me?”

  “I plan to,” he said ominously. “In the meantime, I thought I ought to meet the person in charge of the ship.”

  “Well, now that you're here,” she said, walking to the bar, “can I fix you a drink?”

  He shook his head. “I don't drink.”

  She sighed. “I suppose you disapprove of prostitution and gambling, too.”

  “I haven't given it any thought.”

  “That's just as bad,” she said with a chuckle. “If enough people don't think about it, we're out of business.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “You don't seem very upset about what's happened up here.”

  “Of course I am,” replied the Black Pearl. “But I've got 509 very wealthy, very demanding prima donnas on board who'll be even more upset if I stop tending to their comforts.” She stared at him. “Or have I got 510?”

  “I'm not sure I understand you,” said Crane.

  “If your understanding is that faulty, you're never going to catch our killer, Mr. Crane,” said the Black Pearl. “You're here to complain because the Dragon Lady wasn't at the airlock to meet you.”

  “Am I?”

  She nodded. “It's the only subject that seems to interest you so far.”

  “There are others,” he said. “For one thing, I'll need a place to stay until this case, is over.”

  “In the Home?”

  “I'd prefer one of the suites in the Resort,” said Crane.

  “They're very expensive.”

  “Vainmill will pay for it. And arrange to have all my meals billed to Vainmill.”

  “You certainly like your comfort.”

  “Yes, I do. Have you any objection?”

  “Not at all,” she replied. “I approve whole-heartedly of people who like their comfort. Will you be wanting a companion for your suite?”

  “I hadn't given it any thought,” he responded.

  “Ah, that's right: you don't think about such things. Well, if you get lonely, let us know.” She walked over to a couch. “Do you mind if I sit down, Mr. Crane?”

  “Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug, looking away as she lowered herself to the couch and readjusted her outfit.

  “Don't be embarrassed,” she said. “These are just my working clothes. I can get a robe if my outfit distracts you.”

  “How you people choose to dress is a matter of complete indifference to me,” said Crane.

  “How disappointing,” she replied with mock regret.

  “Now,” he said, seating himself opposite her and returning to his subject with a single-minded intensity, “about your Security Chief.”

  “All right, Mr. Crane,” sighed the Black Pearl. “What about my Security Chief ?”

  “Her failure to meet me was more than a breach of etiquette. It shows a blatant disregard for my authority, and I want to determine whether or not it represents an unwillingness on her part to accept Vainmill's decision to send me here.”

  “Mr. Crane, I appreciate your concern, but there is a murderer walking the decks of the Comet. Wouldn't you be better advised to go searching for him instead of sitting here arguing about protocol?”

  “I'll catch him, never fear,” said Crane. “I just want to make sure we understand each other before I begin my investigation.”

  “I think we understand each other very well,” she responded easily. “You're concerned with social graces and I'm concerned with apprehending a killer. Given our respective professions, doesn't that seem a little backward to you?”

  “Do you plan to answer my question or not?” he demanded.

  “You haven't asked one. Look,” she said reasonably, “I'm not the enemy, Mr. Crane. Neither is the Dragon Lady. We are both fully prepared to give you whatever assistance you require. The enemy is out there”—she nodded her head toward the door—“quite possibly preparing to kill again.”

  Crane stared at her for a moment. “I realize that people find me abrasive and demanding...” he began.

  “You left out tyrannical,” she noted dryly.

  “And tyrannical,” he acknowledged. “I can't do anything about the abrasiveness, and I freely admit to being demanding. I'm dedicated to my work, and I expect my subordinates to be just as dedicated. I will not tolerate laziness, disobedience, or insubordination. As long as everyone keeps that in mind, I can be a reasonably pleasant person to get along with.”

  “Then we both have the same goal,” she answered. “You won't tolerate sloppy work in hunting down the murderer, and I won't tolerate a continued threat to my patrons. I see no reason why we can't work together.” She paused. “I just hope you're as good a detective as Vainmill seems to think you are.”

  “Better,” he said unselfconsciously. “And I'm more than a detective; I'm a damage control expert.”

  “Do we need one?”

  “If the patrons find out what's happened, you're going to need a dozen of them,” he replied. “How many people know about it so far?”

  “Not counting the doctors who might have examined the body, there are just four of us,” said the Black Pearl. “The maintenance man who found the body, the Dragon Lady, the security woman who helped her move it, and myself.”

  “Five,” he corrected her. “You're forgetting Oglevie.”

  “That's right,” she said, nodding her head. “And he's so eminently forgettable, too. How is Uriah Heep this morning?”

  He frowned. “Uriah...?”

  She smiled. “Don't worry about it. It's just my pet name for him. I suppose the Dragon Lady had to tell him so that he wouldn't be so surprised that he repeated it at the top of his lungs when you mentioned it to him.”

  “I take it you don't think too much of Mr. Oglevie?” noted Crane.

  “As a matter of fact, I try not to think of him at all,” she replied. “Still, he's the Dragon Lady's second in command.”

  “Really? I wouldn't have guessed it from his manner.”

  “There are no end of things you wouldn't guess from his manner,” she said. She shot him a quick glance. “I see the wheels starting to turn, Mr. Crane. Forget it. Paxton Oglevie wouldn't have the intestinal fortitude to kill one of the insects he so closely resembles.”

  “Then why have you gone out of your way to give me an unflattering picture of him?” he asked her.

  “Because you're probably going to have to spend some time in his company, and I felt you should be forewarned. After all, that's what friends are for—and you and I are going to be friends, Mr. Crane.”

  “Are we?”

  She nodded firmly. “Absolutely—unless you can think of some reason why we should be enemies.”

  “None.”

  “Then it's settled.” She looked across at him, studying his face. “You know,” she remarked after a moment, “you might be an attractive man if you would just smile occasionally.”

  “I'm not in a funny business,” he said.

  “Neither am I, when you get right down to it,” she replied. “Yet I smile all the time.”

  “I'll smile when I catch the murderer.”

  “Just how difficult do you expect that to be?” she asked seriously.

  “Well,” he said, “we've got a closed environment here, and a reasonably thorough security system. I'll check out the body and the area where the murder occurred, begin comparing alibis against the record, have the computer put together a history of the victim, and with a little hard work and a little luck I ought to be able to clear this thing up before too long.”

  He was right about the methodology, but wrong about the result.

  Chapter 2

  Crane
found his way back to the foyer with no difficulty, then took the escalator down to the tramway entrance. A small titanium gate barred his way, and he waited for the computer to check his retinagram.

  “I'm sorry, sir,” said a voice. “But the tramway is for use by Comet personnel only.”

  “Who is this?” demanded Crane.

  “Security guard Enoch Lyman, sir,” was the response.

  “I assume you're not in my immediate vicinity?”

  “That is correct.”

  “My name is Andrew Jackson Crane, I work for the Vainmill Syndicate, and I'm here on official business. You can check me out with either Paxton Oglevie or the Black Pearl.”

  “One moment, please.” There was a brief period of silence. “Mr. Oglevie has confirmed your identity, Mr. Crane. If you will step up to the computer once again, I will program it to recognize and respond to your retinagram.”

  Crane did as he was told, standing in front of the computer's scanning lens.

  “All right, sir,” said Lyman's voice. “You will have access to the tramway and the Home for the duration of your stay here.”

  The gate slid back, and Crane stepped through to a small platform, where he boarded the enclosed tramcar. He commanded it to start, felt a slight pressure due to the rapid acceleration, and got off when it stopped at the airlock some 80 seconds later.

  He took an escalator to the main level, found that it bypassed the airlock and let him off inside the Mall, and was shortly riding a slidewalk to the hospital.

  There was a rather small woman waiting for him outside the hospital door. She wore an austerely-tailored burgundy gown, sleeveless and high-collared, on which a dragon had been embroidered in metallic gold thread. It spiralled around her body, and the head seemed to insinuate its way over her left shoulder and come to rest across her breasts, glaring at the world with jeweled eyes.

  The woman herself had very short black hair that was touched with gray. She had managed to accumulate a few excess pounds over the years, but Crane could tell at a glance that she had once been quite beautiful. There was a hint of the Oriental about her face, though each of her features seemed Caucasian.

  Except for a small platinum-and-ruby ring she wore no jewelry of any kind, and kept her make-up to a minimum.

  “You're the Dragon Lady?” Crane asked.

  “And you must be Mr. Crane.”

  “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.

  “Now, that's a cordial greeting,” she replied dryly.

  “It's better than the one you gave me,” said Crane.

  “Where were you?”

  “Busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Tightening the security in the Resort. We can assume that none of the patrons are in any danger, but we can't know it.”

  He considered her answer for a moment.

  “All right,” he said at last. “I approve.”

  “Thank you,” she replied with a hint of irony.

  “I thought all Security personnel wore green uniforms,” he noted.

  “All except me.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “It's part of the illusion,” she explained.

  “I don't follow you.”

  “When you came through the airlock, Mr. Crane, you stepped into a fantasy world. Aboard the Velvet Comet the mask is more important than the face. I am the Dragon Lady; therefore I dress like the Dragon Lady. This is my public persona.”

  “And no one else in Security has a mask?” he inquired wryly.

  “Their mask is a green uniform,” she replied with a smile. “Mine isn't. It's one of the nice things about being Chief of Security.” She gestured toward the door. “Shall we go inside?”

  He nodded and followed her into the hospital. It was a small but efficient complex, with private facilities for treating up to 30 patients, two operating theaters, a pair of physical therapy rooms, a low-gravity ward for heart patients, and a number of diagnostic centers. The walls gleamed a cheerful yellow, the floor was tan and polished, the atmosphere seemed expensive and formal. The overall impression Crane got was one of luxurious efficiency. He couldn't imagine that the standard cuisine here differed markedly from that of the Resort, or that the prostitutes weren't encouraged to stop by the sickbay now and then to give a patient some special therapy.

  “The hospital doesn't have a mortuary, so we put him in here,” said the Dragon Lady, stopping by a door bearing an OBSERVATION WARD notation.

  “Nobody saw you bring him in?”

  She shook her head. “There were only two patients here at the time. One was sound asleep, and the other was in surgery.”

  “How about the patrons in the Mall?” asked Crane.

  “There's a service area below the tramway level. We brought him here on a truck lift, and took him in through the service entrance.”

  “Well, at least somebody did something right,” he commented.

  “How thoughtful of you to notice,” she replied.

  She recited a six-digit code, and a moment later the door slid back. The ward contained four beds, each capable of being tied into a bank of life support systems. Three of the beds were empty; the fourth contained a nude male body.

  Crane sniffed the air and made a face: even the filtration system couldn't totally mask the odor.

  “How long has he been dead?” he asked.

  “The one doctor who's been allowed to see him estimates that he died between 64 and 72 hours before we brought him here. We'll have a more accurate idea after the autopsy.”

  “And his name is Edward Infante?”

  “That's right.”

  “Have you run a computer check on him?”

  “Of course. All the information is back at my office, though I can call it up on one of the hospital's computers if you'd like to see it.”

  “Later,” answered Crane. “Unless there's something in it that might tell us who would want to kill him.”

  “Not at first reading.”

  Crane had been walking around the bed, looking at the body. Finally he stopped and placed his hands on his hips.

  “Where the hell is the wound?”

  “Just behind the ear,” she replied.

  He rolled the body onto its side. “Not big enough for a knife,” he commented, staring at the single puncture mark. “It looks like something about the size of an old-fashioned knitting needle. How deep is it?”

  “About eleven centimeters, according to the doctor.”

  “That'd do it,” he muttered. “Nice and neat. And dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?” repeated the Dragon Lady sardonically. “It was deadly.”

  “Dangerous to the killer,” replied Crane, examining the wound. “Do it right and you kill instantly; do it wrong and you've got a flesh wound or else you break off the point of your weapon against the skull, and your victim starts screaming bloody murder.” He looked up. “Well, that narrows down our list of suspects.”

  “To someone who would be skilled enough to hit the right spot on the first try?” suggested the Dragon Lady.

  He shook his head. “You'll never pull that kind of information out of your personnel files.”

  “Then I don't follow you.”

  “There are surer ways to kill a man,” he said. “Why do you suppose our killer chose this method?”

  “Guns and laser weapons can be traced.”

  “Of course,” he said impatiently. “But why not slit his throat or stab him in the heart? Even if you botch it, he's still going to die in a couple of minutes.”

  “He'd have time to scream for help,” said the Dragon Lady.

  Crane looked irritated. “You're not thinking. I already told you: he'd have time to scream for help no matter how you screwed it up.”

  “If you know something I don't know, Mr. Crane,” she said, “why don't you just tell me what it is? I've been up for almost 24 hours, and I'm in no mood for guessing games.”

  Crane stared at her coldly for a
moment, then shrugged. “This wasn't a lucky blow,” he said at last. “The killer knew exactly what he was doing. To the untrained eye, everything back there looks like bone; if you don't know anatomy, you're a hundred times more likely to stab someone from the front, where everything looks soft—or if you have to stab from behind, you go for the middle of the back and hope to hit a vital organ. And since our killer knew what he was doing, he also knew he was taking a chance. A quarter of an inch up or down and he's blown it. So why would he go for the most difficult kill?”

  “You're asking questions again.”

  “Because there's no blood,” he explained. “You stab a man from in front and you're more likely to kill him, but you're going to get spattered with his blood in the process. This way is clean.”

  “So you think the killer couldn't afford to get blood on himself ?”

  “I know it,” answered Crane. “So that narrows down our list of suspects to people who had to appear in public right after the murder, people who didn't have a chance to change their clothing.”

  “You're wrong,” said the Dragon Lady firmly.

  “The hell I am.”

  “Everyone appears in public when they get off the tram,” she pointed out. “After all, it only goes to the Resort, the Mall, and the Home. There are people and security cameras in all three locations.”

  Crane shook his head impatiently. “The killer was carrying his weapon, and he had figured out how to beat the tramway's security system, which means that this was a premeditated murder—and that means he could easily have hidden some clothing in the tunnel if he'd wanted to. It took you a couple of days to find the body; there was no reason to assume that you'd find a fresh change of clothes any sooner. No, he had to kill him in this manner because he only had a couple of minutes, tops, before he was due to appear elsewhere.”

  “That still doesn't help much,” remarked the Dragon Lady. “During the eight-hour period when the murder occurred, the computer says that more than 200 people took the tram; I already checked it out. You'd have to pinpoint the time almost to the minute before your conclusion will be of any use to us.”

  “I will,” he said emphatically.

  “How? Even the autopsy can't help that much.”