Free The Other Teddy Roosevelts by Mike Resnick Page B

dozen source books to a table and began taking notes, researching the legend as meticulously as he researched ornithology or naval strategy. He created two columns. The first contained suppositions that three or more sources held in common. When he couldn’t find at least three, or when they were contradicted by another source, they were moved to the second column.
    By late afternoon he had only two items remaining in the first column. Sooner or later every other “fact”, every supposition, had come into conflict with some other legend’s or purported history’s facts and suppositions.
    It wasn’t much to go on, but he decided he couldn’t wait. Demosthenes wasn’t going to stop killing, but once he delivered O’Brien—and that was if he delivered O’Brien; he knew that no payment would made—there was every chance that Roosevelt would never see him again.
    It would take perhaps half an hour to prepare, but although the sun was low in the sky, he didn’t really expect to see Demosthenes before midnight. His three other appearances had always been between midnight and dawn.
    Roosevelt stopped by the apartment to have dinner with Edith. Then he finished his preparations, told Edith that he would probably be spending the night at the office, promised to find a cot and not sleep in his chair, and finally took his leave of her, after selecting a book to read, and stuffing a pile of personal correspondence that required answers into a leather case.
    He reached the office at about 8:00 PM, told the policemen on duty to pass the word that if Demosthenes showed up, even if he was carrying a corpse, not to try to stop him. They looked at him as if he’d been drinking, but he was the Commissioner of Police and finally they all agreed.
    Roosevelt entered his office, sat down at his desk, immediately pulled out and destroyed all existing copies of the photo of himself with Baldy and Eye-Patch. After all, he reasoned, they’d done their duty, even if no one had foreseen the consequences. An avid letterwriter, he spent the next three hours catching up on his correspondence. Then he picked up a copy of F. C. Selous’ latest African memoir and began reading it. He was soon so caught up in it that he didn’t realize he was no longer alone until he heard the thud of a body being dropped to the floor.
    “O’Brien,” announced Demosthenes, gesturing toward the pale corpse.
    “Why do you keep bringing them to me?” asked Roosevelt. “Our agreement has been abrogated.”
    “I am bound by a different moral code than you.”
    “Clearly,” said Roosevelt, barely glancing at the body. “I’d like you to tell me something.”
    “If I can.”
    “Did you kill Pericles and Sophocles too, or is this a recent aberration?”
    A cold smile crossed the tall man’s face. “Ah! You know! But of course you would. You are not like the others, Mr. Roosevelt.”
    “I most certainly am,” said Roosevelt. “I am a man. It is you who are not like the others, Demosthenes.”
    “They are sheep.”
    “Or cattle?” suggested Roosevelt. “You have relatives that live on cattle, do you not?”
    Another smile. “You have done your homework, Mr. Roosevelt.”
    “Yes, I have. Enough that I find it difficult to believe you ever suggested that the warrior who runs away will live to fight another day.”
    “A misattribution,” said Demosthenes with a shrug. “I do not retreat—ever.”
    “I don’t doubt it.”
    “It nevertheless would have been good advice for you,” said Demosthenes. “I intuit that you think you know enough to harm me. Do not believe everything you believe you have learned. For example, it is said that a vampire may not cross over water, and yet I crossed the Atlantic Ocean to find fresh feeding grounds. They say the sunlight will kill me, yet I have walked down Fifth Avenue at high noon. They say I cannot enter a building without being invited, but you know that no one has invited me here.”
    “All that is