Free The demolished man by Alfred Bester Page B

you any harm to
    let a little scandal rub off on you. Make you more human. Stay here & help. Got
    a hunch I can use another 1st. This one is going to be a Triple-A stinker."
    After the hall cleared, Powell examined the three men who remained with him. Jo
    ¼maine was a heavy-set man, thick, solid, with a shining bald head and a
    friendly blunt-featured face. Little Tate was nervous and twitchy... more so
    than usual.
    And the notorious Ben Reich. Powell was meeting him for the first time. Tall,
    broad-shouldered, determined, exuding a tremendous aura of charm and power.
    There was kindliness in that power, but it was corroded by the habit of tyranny.
    Reich's eyes were fine and keen, but his mouth seemed too small and sensitive
    and looked oddly like a scar. A magnetic man, with something vague inside him
    that was repellent.
    He smiled at Reich. Reich smiled, back. Spontaneously, they shook hands.
    "Do you take everybody off guard like this, Reich?"
    "The secret of my success," Reich grinned. He understood Powell's meaning. They
    were en rapport.
    "Well, don't let the other guests see you charm me. They'll suspect collusion."
    "Not you, they won't. You'll swindle them, Powell. You'll make 'em all feel
    they're in collusion with you."
    They smiled again. An unexpected chemotropism was drawing them together. It was
    dangerous. Powell tried to shake it off. He turned to ¼maine: "Now then, Jo?"
    "About the peeping, Linc..."
    "Keep it up on Reich's level," Powell interrupted. "We're not going to pull any
    fast ones."
    "Reich called me in to represent him. No TP, Linc. This has got to stay on the
    objective level. I'm here to see that it does. I'll have to be present at every
    examination."
    "You can't stop peeping, Jo. You've got no legal right. We can dig out all we
    can---"
    "Provided it's with the consent of the examinee. I'm here to tell you whether
    you've got that consent or not."
    Powell looked at Reich. "What happened?"
    "Don't you know?"
    "I'd like your version."
    Jo ¼maine snapped: "Why Reich's in particular?"
    "I'd like to know why he hollered so quick for a lawyer. Is he mixed up in this
    mess?"
    "I'm mixed up in plenty," Reich grinned. "You don't run Monarch without building
    a stock-pile of secrets that have got to be protected."
    "But murder isn't one of them?"
    "Get out of there, Linc!"
    "Stop throwing blocks, Jo. I'm just peeping around a little because I like the
    guy."
    "Well, like him on your own time... not mine."
    "Jo doesn't want me to love you," Powell smiled to Reich. "I wish you hadn't
    called a lawyer. It makes me suspicious."
    "Isn't that an occupational disease?" Reich laughed.
    "No." Dishonest Abe took over and answered smoothly. "You'd never believe it,
    but the occupational disease of detectives is Laterality. That's
    right-handedness or left-handedness. Most detectives suffer from strange changes
    of Laterality. I was naturally left-handed until the Parsons Case when I---"
    Abruptly, Powell choked off his lie. He took two steps away from his fascinated
    audience and sighed deeply. When he turned back to them. Dishonest Abe was gone.
     
    "I'll tell you about that another time," he said. "Tell me what happened after
    Maria and the guests saw the blood dripping down on your cuff."
    Reich glanced at the bloodstains on his cuff. "She yelled bloody murder and we
    all went tearing upstairs to the Orchid Suite."
    "How could you find your way in the dark?"
    "It was light. Maria yelled for lights."
    "You didn't have any trouble locating the suite with the light on, eh?"
    Reich smiled grimly. "I didn't locate the suite. It was secret. Maria had to
    lead the way."
    "There were guards there... knocked out or something?"
    "That's right. They looked dead."
    "Like stone, eh? They hadn't moved a muscle?"
    "How would I know?"
    "How indeed?" Powell looked hard at Reich.
    "What about D'Courtney?"
    "He looked dead too. Hell, he was dead."
    "And everybody was standing around staring?"
    "Some were in the rest of the