A Borrowed Man (6 page)

“The screen? Yes, of course. But if you only do the easy parts, it takes a lot of fun out of flying. I like knowing that if the screen failed, I could do everything myself. I—well, sometimes I teach my students myself, Ern. The eds could do everything for me, all the teaching, but my job is to make them want to learn, and sometimes my own teaching helps. Then they know I know it—or that's how it seems to me. Since I've learned it, they can, too, and they should. Do you understand? Understand a little bit at least?”

I said, “We're like that, I believe. I mean people like me, people who belong to libraries or museums, or to you fully humans.” For a minute I shut up, trying to spit my foot out of my mouth. “Does it bother you when I call us ‘people'? If it does, I apologize.”

“Not in the slightest.” She stopped our flitter in front of the hangar, and its engine ceased to purr. “What are you getting at?”

“You fully humans have our books already, and our books are better than we are. Better than we can be, really. But what the books give you is one thing and what we can give you is another. You've got
A Christmas Carol
and
Oliver Twist
,
The Old Curiosity Shop,
and a lot more.
David Copperfield
and
Bleak House
and in fact just about everything Charles Dickens wrote. But you don't have Charles Dickens. You would spend a lot now if you could get his DNA and one scan, but if you were willing to spend a hundred times that much you still couldn't get them. You'd like to ask him how he really felt about Kate, and about that actress. How he had intended to finish
Edwin Drood
—and so would I.”

She grinned at me as she pulled up in front of the hangar. “You understand what I mean, or at least I think you do. I could make love to a joyboy. It would be warm and handsome and do everything I wanted, and it would tell me over and over how beautiful I am and how much it loved me. But they're not the same as a real lover.” She got out easily and skillfully, and I followed. “They're for women who can't get a real lover, or at least can't get one they like.”

I had heard of joyboys, and I nodded. “There must be a lot of those.”

“There are.” We got out in front of the hangar. “I'd put our flitter in here if it weren't locked, but it's sure to be. There may be a card in the house. Keep an eye out when we get inside.”

“I certainly will,” I promised. I pushed the button next to the door. “You have a card for the house, don't you, Colette?”

“To get us in? Of course. I wouldn't have come here without one.”

“Is it possible that your card might open this hangar, too?”

For a moment, she stared. “You know, I never thought of that. The hangar was hardly ever locked when all of us lived here.”

“I've never seen the interior of a hangar,” I told her. “I'd like to see it.”

“I'm not certain this will work.” She was rummaging in her shaping bag. “It won't open the fourth-floor doors, but it's worth a try.”

She waved her card at the lock, and the green light flashed; I pushed the button again, and the big hangar door slid smoothly upward.

“Well, I'll—you'll have to move, Ern. I want to taxi in.”

I did. There were two sleek flitters in the hangar already, one shiny black and the other bright yellow; both were quite a bit bigger than Colette's. Peeking through their windows I could see they had six seats instead of two, and I believe they may have had a longer range and that they could carry more baggage. How much money had it taken for a family to have three flitters? The black one for Colette's father, the yellow one for her brother, and the little red one for Colette? I did not know then and I do not know now, but it must have been a lot.

“Come on. I'm glad you find this interesting, but I want to show you the house.”

“And I want to see it.” I followed her out of the hangar and closed the door.

A broad, paved path led from the hangar to a rear door of the house. “This is the kitchen,” Colette said as she stepped inside. “The 'bot can fix us some lunch after we've seen the house.”

I remembered a great many kitchens, but I had never learned my way around a modern one. The room was wide and bright, with butter-yellow walls and a faint odor not so much suggestive of food as of vegetables and fruits laid out for sale. Somehow I had thought I would recognize the stove, the refrigerator, and so forth, which shows you just how dumb I can be.

Colette wanted to know whether I was hungry, and I shook my head.

“I doubt that you'll find anything in here,” she said, “and the 'bot will whip up something when we want to eat.” I did not reply, and she added, “You can look around if you want to.”

I said I might do that later, but right now I wanted to see her father's study. I did not tell her how badly I wanted to see it, but it was a lot.

“And the safe, I'll bet. It's in there.”

I nodded and kept my mouth shut.

“We can go this way or that way.” Colette pointed to the doors. “This way's the formal dining room. It's two floors high, with skylights, very impressive. It seats…” She paused to consider. “Twenty-two, I believe. That was where we entertained two or three times a year.”

I nodded to show I understood.

“The other way's the sunroom. That's where the family ate, mostly. It's long and kind of narrow. An artist told me once the proportions were off, but I like it. All windows on one side—it faces south—and a long wall on the other with framed family pictures. You can tap them and get a lecture, and sometimes the people will start talking. You know the kind of thing, I'm sure.”

“Not intimately,” I told her.

“Which way do you want to go?”

“The sunroom, of course.”

She nodded and led the way. It was long, bright, and cheerful, as she had hinted, with a small table for meals—four chairs—and other chairs with side tables scattered around for reading or conversation. Here was Colette's father, unsmiling, with a bony, unhandsome face and intelligent eyes.

Here was Colette herself, smiling, beautiful, and athletic, in a bra that would have let her fence or play softball, a university skirt, and low-heeled high-laced shoes that might have served for almost any sport. Girls actually look sexier when you cannot see the whole breast.

Close beside her, Cob—Conrad Coldbrook, Junior—handsome, but oddly reflective of his father.

And here all four, even Colette's mother, her shoulder gripped by her husband's right hand; his left was on Cob's shoulder. For a moment I thought that none of the rest was touching another member of the family; then I saw that Colette and her brother were unobtrusively holding hands.

“I'm glad you like the pictures,” Colette told me. “May I show you the lift tube now? It will take us to the fourth floor and Father's lab.”

I followed obediently.

“Two doors, you see,” she said after opening one for us. “One on each side. If you went out that one, you'd be in the formal dining room.” She added, “Fourth floor!” and the door through which we had entered closed swiftly and silently behind us before we began to rise.

 

5

O
N
THE
F
OURTH
F
LOOR

We flew up to the fourth floor in the lift tube. “This whole floor was my father's place,” Colette told me. “If he was going to be away for any length of time, he disabled the lift tube—reprogrammed it or something. When he was gone, it wouldn't take you higher than the third floor. Of course we could still climb the stairs, but all the doors on this floor would be locked.”

Looking around the laboratory, I said, “This isn't the only place up here, in that case.”

“You must've seen the other doors on the landing. Cob and I were always curious about them, but—well—Father never spoke of them; and we had learned very early that it was dangerous to ask him questions.”

I nodded to show I understood. “Three doors. There could be three suites up here, or one door might belong to a closet.”

“I've always assumed there were two more suites, that's all. Maybe there's nothing more important than brooms and mops in them, but why would Father keep unimportant things locked up?”

“You're right, of course.” Just to make certain, I asked, “You've never been in the other suites? Not in either of them?”

Colette shook her head.

“Not even when you went to look at this study after your brother's death? With both your father and your brother gone, there could be no valid reason not to.”

“But I didn't. I suppose that makes me guilty of something.”

“No, not at all. I'm just a little surprised.” I smiled, hoping to take the sting out of what I was saying. “Women have a reputation for curiosity.”

“Father didn't want us on this floor. Not ever. I felt unwelcome here then, and I feel the same way now.” Colette got quiet, beautiful white teeth gnawing at her crimson lower lip. “I was always a good girl, Ern. Well, nearly always until I started to … You know, womanhood. Breasts and curves and all that comes with them. You men mature slowly; it rushes on us like a storm, and I wasn't always good after it came. Can I tell you something about Cob?”

“Your brother?” I was itching to have a long look around the laboratory and explore those unknown rooms, but I nodded.

“This happened one time when Father was gone. He used to go away from time to time and be gone for a few days—for a week or more, sometimes. Mother may have known what he was doing on those trips, but Cob and I certainly didn't. Anyway, we took the lift tube as far as it would go and climbed the stairs to get to this floor. All the doors on this landing were locked. Neither of us had a card for any of them. I told you about that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“We went back down the stair, and Cob went into one of the guest rooms on that floor.” Colette paused. “That's what we called them then, even though there were never any guests. He opened a window and stuck out his head, looking up and all around. I tried to find out what he was doing, but he wouldn't tell me. Finally we went into another guest room, and he did the same thing. The third or fourth room was a corner room, with windows in two walls. He looked out them both, then he told me he was going to climb up. He said I didn't have to wait for him.”

Thinking of the gleaming walls I had seen from the flitter, I shuddered.

“Well, I waited for him anyway, walking up and down and wondering if he'd be killed. Cob and I were very close.”

I nodded.

“When he finally came back he was frightened. Badly frightened, although he tried to hide it. He wouldn't tell me what had frightened him, and eventually I decided he must have nearly fallen. I kept thinking that if he had gotten into one of the fourth-floor suites, he would have come down the stairs—that he could open the door from inside, so why not?”

Thinking aloud I said, “Wouldn't that depend on the lock?”

“Yes, but there aren't very many of that kind, and I don't believe I've ever seen one in this house.” Colette went back to the door by which we had come into the room. “Look at this one. If it's locked, you have to show a card to get in; but if you're inside, you can flip this and it will let you out, then lock behind you every time it's shut. That's why Cob propped it open.”

“So if your brother could get a window open, he could have gone into the suite beyond it, had a look around, and left through the door. That would certainly have been less risky than going through the window again and climbing back down to the third floor.”

“Exactly.”

“Now it would appear that you no longer believe it was merely the fear of a bad—quite possibly fatal—fall that frightened your poor brother so much. That was a simple, entirely reasonable explanation. May I ask why you abandoned it?”

“I told you he brought me up here and showed me the safe, and told me that he would engage someone to open it for us.”

I agreed that she had.

“Well, while I was up here I wanted to look in the other rooms. He said we couldn't, that they were locked. And I said that since he'd found a card for this room we could probably find one for them. He said he hadn't really found the card for this one, that it had been on Father's body, and a woman at the mortuary had given it to him.” Colette paused. “They had given us, given Cob and me, a big envelope marked ‘Conrad Coldbrook effects.' I asked him where that card was, and he said he'd put it away—that he'd left the safe open.” She gestured toward it. The thick metal door was wide open. “And he'd left the door of this room unlocked, too.”

I had glanced at the empty wall safe before; now I went to it and peered into its dark interior. Above the main space were two rather small black metal drawers. Neither one had a lock. I opened them both—both were entirely empty.

“Find anything?”

I turned back to Colette. “No, nothing. Surely it has occurred to you that the card that opened this door might open the doors of the other suites on this floor as well. From what you say, your father welcomed no visitors up here.”

“I suppose you're right. All of us carried cards for the downstairs doors. I mean, the same card opened all of them, and all of us had one.”

“The front door and the kitchen door, the one by which you and I entered the house.”

Colette nodded.

“Are there any other doors?”

“Yes, the side door. That's the shortest way in if you've parked in the garage.”

Thinking out loud again, I said, “Your card opened the hangar, too.”

“Right, and it will open the garage. I'd forgotten that. We didn't lock it much, but when somebody did our cards would open it.”