Chapter 3: Missing a Husband
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"Please," she said, "Please. You could find Rusty - if Dad wanted you to." That didn't work either. I nodded and asked: "When did he go?" "One afternoon a month back. He just flew away in his car without saying a word. They found the car in a private garage somewhere." "They?" She got cunning. Her whole body seemed to relax. Then she smiled at me winningly. "He didn't tell you then." Her voice was almost gleeful, as if she had outsmarted me. Maybe she had. "He told me about Mr Regan, yes. That's not what he wanted to see me about. Is that what you've been trying to get me to say?" "I'm sure I don't care what you say." I stood up again. "Then I'll be running along." I went over to the tall white door I had come in at. When I looked back she had her lip between her teeth and was worrying it like a Martian ratter at the fringe of a rug. I went out, down the staircase to the hall, and the butler drifted out of somewhere to open the door for me. "You made a mistake," I said, "Mrs Regan didn't want to see me." He inclined his silver head and said politely, "I'm sorry, sir. I make many mistakes." He closed the door against my back. I stood on the step breathing cigarette smoke and looking down a succession of terraces with flowerbeds and sculpted trees to the high iron fence with gilt spears which hemmed in the estate. A winding driveway dropped down between retaining walls to the open iron gates. Beyond the fence the hill sloped for several miles to the base of the dome. Beyond the transparent enclosure I could just barely see the rings of Saturn and the glinting structures of the gas planet mining operations from which the Sternwoods had made their money. Most of the pumping stations were idle, mothballed, and invisible at this distance. But a few were still producing, flaring, firing magnetic containment vessels each containing a few grams of antimatter to the power stations. The Sternwoods, having moving inside the habitat, no longer risked containment failures or targeting errors, but they could still look out of their front door and see what had made them rich. If they wanted to. I don't suppose they would want to. I walked down a brick path from terrace to terrace, followed along inside the fence and so out of the gates to where I had left my rickshaw under a palm tree on the street. Thunder was crackling around the dome now and the sky above was purple-black. It was going to rain hard. The air had the damp foretaste of rain. I put the top up on the carriage before we started down-town. She had lovely tits, and legs too. I would say that for her. They were a couple of pretty smooth citizens, she and her father. He was probably just trying me out; the job he had given me was a lawyer's job. Even if Arthur Gwynne Geiger, Rare Media and Antique Books, turned out to be a blackmailer, it was still a lawyer's job. Unless there was a lot more to it than met the eye. At a casual glance I thought I might have a lot of fun finding out. As we rode downtown, I did a little superficial research on the networks, searching for Famous First Edition Books. Half an hour of it made me need my lunch.
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Part 2