Dark Benediction

“She didn’t. She bought it here. I saw the receipt.” Norris was beginning to become impatient, tried to suppress it.

“Then’she traded with one of my other customers!” O’Reilley insisted.

Norris snorted irritably. “You got two customers named Adelia Schultz?—Come on, pop, let’s look at the duplicate receipt. Now.”

“Doubt if it’s still around,” O’Reilley grumbled, refusing to budge.

Norris suddenly erupted. He turned away angrily and began pacing briskly around the shop, looking under cages, inspecting fixtures, probing into feeding troughs with a pencil, looking into feed bags, examining a dog-F’s wiry coat.

“Here there! What do you think you’re doing?” the owner demanded.

Norris began barking off check-points in a loud voice. “Dirty cat-cage… inadequate ventilation… food trough not clean… no water in the newt cages…”

“I water them twice a day!” O’Reilley raged.

“…mouldy rabbit-meal… no signs of disinfectant… What kind of a disease-trap are you running here?”

He came back to face O’Reilley who stood trembling with rage and cursing him with his eyes.

“Not to mention that sign outside,” Norris added casually. “’Dumb blondes’ they outlawed that one the year Kleyton got sent up for using hormones on K-108s, trying to grow himself a harem. Well?”

“Doubt if it’s still around,” O’Reilley repeated.

“Look, pop!” Norris snapped. “You’re required to keep sales receipts until they’re microfilmed. There hasn’t been a micro-filming for over a year.”

“Get out of my shop!”

“If I go, you won’t have a shop after tomorrow.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Yeah.”

For a moment, Norris thought the old man would attack him. But O’Reilley spat a sudden curse, scurried toward the counter, grabbed a fat book from beneath the cash register, then hurried away toward the stairs at the rear of the shop.

“Hey, pop! Where you going?”

“Get me glasses!”

“You’re wearing your glasses!” Norris started after him. “New ones. Can’t see through them.” O’Reilley bounded up-stairs.

“Leave the book here and I’ll check it!”

Norris stopped with his foot on the bottom step. O’Reilley slammed the door at the head of the stairs, locked it behind him. Grumbling suspiciously, the inspector went back to the counter to wait.

Five minutes passed. The door opened. O’Reilley came downstairs, looking less angry but decidedly nervous. He slammed the book on the counter, riffled its pages, found a place, muttered “Here it is, see for yourself,” and held it at a difficult angle.

“Give it here.”

O’Reilley reluctantly released it, began babbling about bureaucracy and tin-horn inspectors who acted like dictators and inspection codes that prescribed and circumscribed and prohibited. Norris ignored him and stared at the duplicate receipt.

“Adelia Schultz… received Chimpanzee-K-99-LJZ-35i on…”

It was the number on the list from Anthropos. It was the number of the animal he wanted for normalcy tests. But it was not the number of Mrs. Schultz’s neutroid, nor was it the number written on Mrs. Schultz’s copy of this very same invoice.

O’Reilley was still babbling at him. Norris held the book up to his eye, took aim at the bright doorway across the surface of the page. O’Reilley stopped babbling.

“Rub marks,” the inspector grunted. “Scrape marks on the paper.”

O’Reilley’s breathing sounded asthmatic. Norris lowered the book.

“Nice erasure job—for a carbon copy. Do it while you were upstairs?”

O’Reilley said nothing. Norris took a scrap of paper, folded his handkerchief over the point of his pocketknife blade, used the point to clean out the eraser dust from between the receipts, emptied the dust on the paper, folded it and put it in his pocket.

“Evidence.”

O’Reilley said nothing.

Norris tore out the erased receipt, pocketed it, put on his hat and started for the door.

“See you in court, O’Reilley.”

“Wait!”

He turned. “Okay—I’m waiting.”

“Let’s go sit down first,” the deflated oldster muttered weakly.

“Sure.”

They walked up the flight of stairs and entered a dingy parlor. He glanced around, sniffed at the smell of cabbage boiling and sweaty bedclothing. An orange-haired neutroid lay sleeping on a dirty rug in the corner. Norris stared down at it curiously. O’Reilley made a whining sound and slumped into a chair, his breath coming in little whiffs that suggested inward sobbing. Norris gazed at him expressionlessly for a moment, then went to kneel beside the newt.

“K-99-LJZ-35i,” he read aloud, peering at the sole of the tattooed foot. The newt stirred in its sleep at the sound of a strange voice. When Norris looked at O’Reilley again, the old man was staring at his feet, his forehead supported by a leathery old hand that shielded his eyes.

“Lots of good explanations, O’Reilley?”

“Ye’ve seen what ye’ve seen; now do what ye must. I’ll say nothing to ye.”