Part 25 (1/2)

”Well, six months going, and a couple of months waiting on reports from other planets, and six months coming, and so on, it wasn't until the _Peenemunde_ got in from Terra, the last time, that I got final confirmation. Dr. Watson, you'll recall.”

”Who, you perceived, had been in Afghanistan,” I mentioned, trying to salvage something. Showing off. The one I was trying to impress was Walt Boyd.

”You caught that? Careless of me,” Bish chided himself. ”What he gave me was a report that they had finally located a man who had been a staff surgeon at this hospital on Baldur at the time. He's now doing a stretch for another piece of malpractice he was unlucky enough to get caught at later. We will not admit making deals with any criminals, in jail or out, but he is willing to testify, and is on his way to Terra now. He can identify pictures of Anton Gerrit as those of the man he operated on fourteen years ago, and his testimony and Ernestine Coyon's fingerprints will identify Ravick as that man. With all the Colonial Constabulary and Army Intelligence people got on Gerrit on Loki, simple identification will be enough. Gerrit was proven guilty long ago, and it won't be any trouble, now, to prove that Ravick is Gerrit.”

”Why didn't you arrest him as soon as you got the word from your friend from Afghanistan?” I wanted to know.

”Good question; I've been asking myself that,” Bish said, a trifle wryly. ”If I had, the _Javelin_ wouldn't have been bombed, that wax wouldn't have been burned, and Tom Kivelson wouldn't have been injured. What I did was send my friend, who is a Colonial Constabulary detective, to Gimli, the next planet out. There's a Navy base there, and always at least a couple of destroyers available. He's coming back with one of them to pick Gerrit up and take him to Terra. They ought to be in in about two hundred and fifty hours. I thought it would be safer all around to let Gerrit run loose till then. There's no place he could go.

”What I didn't realize, at the time, was what a human H-bomb this man Murell would turn into. Then everything blew up at once. Finally, I was left with the choice of helping Gerrit escape from Hunters' Hall or having him lynched before I could arrest him.” He turned to Kivelson. ”In the light of what you knew, I don't blame you for calling me a dirty traitor.”

”But how did I know...” Kivelson began.

”That's right. You weren't supposed to. That was before you found out.

You ought to have heard what Gerrit and Belsher--as far as I know, that is his real name--called me after they found out, when they got out of that jeep and Captain Courtland's men snapped the handcuffs on them. It even shocked a hardened sinner like me.”

There was a lot more of it. Bish had managed to get into Hunters' Hall just about the time Al Devis and his companion were starting the fire Ravick--Gerrit--had ordered for a diversion. The whole gang was going to crash out as soon as the fire had attracted everybody away. Bish led them out onto the Second Level Down, sleep-ga.s.sed the lone man in the jeep, and took them to the s.p.a.ceport, where the police were waiting for them.

As soon as I'd gotten everything, I called the _Times_. I'd had my radio on all the time, and it had been coming in perfectly. Dad, I was happy to observe, was every bit as flabbergasted as I had been at who and what Bish Ware was. He might throw my campaign to reform Bish up at me later on, but at the moment he wasn't disposed to, and I was praising Allah silently that I hadn't had a chance to mention the detective agency idea to him. That would have been a little too much.

”What are they doing about Belsher and Hallstock?” he asked.

”Belsher goes back to Terra with Ravick. Gerrit, I mean. That's where he collected his cut on the tallow-wax, so that is where he'd have to be tried. Bish is convinced that somebody in Kapstaad Chemical must have been involved, too. Hallstock is strictly a local matter.”

”That's about what I thought. With all this interstellar back-and-forth, it'll be a long time before we'll be able to write thirty under the story.”

”Well, we can put thirty under the Steve Ravick story,” I said.

Then it hit me. The Steve Ravick story was finished; that is, the local story of racketeer rule in the Hunters' Co-operative. But the Anton Gerrit story was something else. That was Federation-wide news; the end of a fifteen-year manhunt for the most wanted criminal in the known Galaxy. And who had that story, right in his hot little hand?

Walter Boyd, the ace--and only--reporter for the mighty Port Sandor _Times_.

”Yes,” I continued. ”The Ravick story's finished. But we still have the Anton Gerrit story, and I'm going to work on it right now.”

20

FINALE

They had Tom Kivelson in a private room at the hospital; he was sitting up in a chair, with a lot of pneumatic cus.h.i.+ons around him, and a lunch tray on his lap. He looked white and thin. He could move one arm completely, but the bandages they had loaded him with seemed to have left the other free only at the elbow. He was concentrating on his lunch, and must have thought I was one of the nurses, or a doctor, or something of the sort.

”Are you going to let me have a cigarette and a cup of coffee, when I'm through with this?” he asked.

”Well, I don't have any coffee, but you can have one of my cigarettes,” I said.

Then he looked up and gave a whoop. ”Walt! How'd you get in here? I thought they weren't going to let anybody in to see me till this afternoon.”

”Power of the press,” I told him. ”Bluff, blarney, and blackmail. How are they treating you?”

”Awful. Look what they gave me for lunch. I thought we were on short rations down on Hermann Reuch's Land. How's Father?”