Stop Look and Dig | Page 2

leader of the squadron was a Lieutenant Williamson whom I'd never met before. But he knew all about me before the 'copter hit the ground. I could almost feel his sense of perception frisking me from the skin outward, going through my wallet and inspecting the Private Operator's license and my Weapon-Permit. I found out later that Williamson was a Rhine Scholar with a Bachelor's Degree in Perception, which put him head and shoulders over me. He came to the point at once.
"Any ideas about this, Hammond?"
I shook my head. "Nope," I replied. He looked at one of his men.
The other man nodded. "He's levelling," he said.
"Now look, Hammond," said the lieutenant pointedly, "You're clean and we know it. But hot papas don't go out for fun. Why was he trying to burn you?"
"I wouldn't know. I'm as blank as any perceptive when it comes to reading minds. I was hoping to collect him whole enough to ask questions, but he forced my hand." I looked to where some of the clean-up squad were tucking the corpse into a basket. "It was one of the few times I'd have happily swapped my perception for the ability to read a mind."
The lieutenant nodded unhappily. "Mind telling me why you were wandering around in this neighborhood? You don't belong here, you know."
"I was doing the job that most private eyes do. I was tailing a gent who was playing games off the reservation."
"You've gone into this guy's wallet, of course?"
I nodded. "Sure. He was Peter Rambaugh, age thirty, and----"
"Don't bother. I know the rest. I can add only one item that you may not know. Rampaugh was a paid hotboy, suspected of playing with Scarmann's mob."
"I've had no dealings with Scarmann, Lieutenant."

The Lieutenant nodded absently. It seemed to be a habit with him, probably to cover up his thinking-time. Finally he said, "Hammond, you're clean. As soon as I identified you I took a dig of your folder at headquarters. You're a bit rough and fast on that prehistoric cannon of yours, but----"
"You mean you can dig a folder at central files all the way from here?"
"I did."
Here was a real esper for you. I've got a range of about two blocks for good, solid, permanent things like buildings and street-car tracks, but unfamiliar things get foggy at about a half a block. I can dig lethal machinery coming in my direction for about a block and a half because I'm a bit sensitive about such things. I looked at Lieutenant Williamson and said, "With a range like yours, how come there's any crime in this town at all?"
He shook his head slowly. "Crime doesn't out until it's committed," he said. "You'll remember how fast we got here after you pulled the trigger. But you're clean, Hammond. Just come to the inquest and tell all."
"I can go?"
"You can go. But just to keep you out of any more trouble, I'll have one of the jetcopters drop you off at home. Mind?"
"Nope. But isn't that more than the police are used to doing?"
He eyed me amusedly. "If I were a mental," he said, "I could read your mind and know that you were forming the notion of calling on Scarmann and asking him what-for. But since I'm only a mind-blank esper, all I can do is to fall back on experience and guesswork. Do I make myself clear?"
Lieutenant Williamson's guess-work and experience were us good as mental sensitivity, but I didn't think it wise to admit that I had been considering just exactly how to get to Scarmann. I was quickly and firmly convoyed home in a jetcopter but once I saw them take off I walked out of the apartment again.
I had more or less tacitly agreed not to go looking for Scarmann, but I had not mentioned taking a dig at the apartment of the dear departed, Peter Rambaugh.

Rambaugh's place was uptown and the front door was protected by an eight tumbler cylinder job that would have taxed the best of esper lockpicks. But there was a service entrance in back that was not locked and I took it. The elevator was a self-service job, and Rambaugh's back door was locked on a snaplatch that a playful kitten could have opened. I dug the place for a few minutes and found it clean, so I went in and took a more careful look.
The desk was not particularly interesting. Just papers and letters and unpaid bills. The dresser in the bedroom was the same, excepting for the bottom drawer. That was filled with a fine collection of needle-rays and stunguns and one big force blaster that could blow a hole in a brick wall. None of them had their serial numbers intact.
But behind a reproduction of a Gainsborough painting was a wall