The Cat Who Walks Through Walls Read Online Free Page A

with which he threatened me.” Then I showed her my right forefinger, bare. “And this is the weapon I used to shoot him when he pointed this wallet at me.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Beloved, this is why criminologists place more faith in circumstantial evidence than they do in the testimony of eyewitnesses. You are the ideal eyewitness, intelligent, sincere, cooperative, and honest. You have reported a mixture of what you did see, what you thought you saw, what you failed to notice although it was in front of you, and what your logical mind fills in as necessities linking what you saw and what you thought you saw. This mixture is now all solidly in your mind as a true memory, a firsthand, eyewitness memory. But it didn’t happen.”
    “But, Richard, I did see—”
    “You saw that poor clown killed. You did not see him threatening me; you did not see me shoot him. Some third person shot him with an explosive dart. Since he was facing you and it hit him in the chest, that dart must have come right past you. Did you notice anyone standing?”
    “No. Oh, there were waiters moving around, and busmen, and the maître d’ and people getting up and sitting down. I mean I didn’t notice anyone in particular—certainly not anyone shooting a gun. What sort of a gun?”
    “Gwen, it might not look like a gun. A concealed assassin’s weapon capable of shooting a dart short range—It could look like anything as long as it had one dimension about fifteen centimeters long. A lady’s purse. A camera. Opera glasses. An endless list of innocent-appearing objects. This gets us nowhere as I had my back to the action and you saw nothing out of the way. The dart probably came from behind your back. So forget it. Let’s see who the victim was. Or whom he claimed to be.”
    I took out everything from all the pockets of that wallet, including a poorly-concealed “secret” pocket. This last held gold certificates issued by a Zurich bank, equivalent to about seventeen thousand crowns—his get-away money, it seemed likely.
    There was an ID of the sort the Golden Rule issues to each person arriving at the habitat’s hub. All it proves is that the “identified” person has a face, claims a name, has made statements as to nationality, age, place of birth, etc., and has deposited with the Company a return ticket or the equivalent in cash, as well as paying the breathing fee ninety days in advance—these latter two being all the Company cares about.
    I do not know as certainty that the Company would space a man who, through some slip, has neither a ticket away nor air money. They might let him sell his indentures. But I would not count on it. Eating vacuum is not something I care to risk.
    This Company ID stated that the holder was Enrico Schultz, age 32, citizen of Belize, born Ciudad Castro, occupation accountant. The picture with it was that of the poor slob who got himself killed through bracing me in too public a place…and for the steenth time I wondered why he hadn’t phoned me, then called on me in private. As “Dr. Ames” I am in the directory…and invoking “Walker Evans” would have got him a hearing, a private hearing.
    I showed it to Gwen. “Is that our boy?”
    “I think so. I’m not sure.”
    “I am sure. As I talked to him face to face for several minutes.”
    The oddest part about Schultz’s wallet was what it did not contain. In addition to the Swiss gold certificates it held eight hundred and thirty-one crowns and that Golden Rule ID.
    But that was all.
    No credit cards, no motor vehicle pilot’s license, no insurance cards, no union or guild card, no other identification cards, no membership cards, nit. Men’s wallets are like women’s purses; they accumulate junk—photos, clippings, shopping lists, et cetera without end; they need periodic housecleaning. But, in cleaning one out, one always leaves in place the dozen-odd items a modern man needs in order to get by. My friend Schultz had