Stop Look and Dig | Page 6

bungler.
So if Steve Hammond believed that he could go free with a whole hand
by planning to rub out a man named Scarmann, that would be Steve
Hammond's crime, not theirs.
They didn't take any chances, even though I knew that they could read
my mind well enough to know that I would go through with their nasty
little scheme. They hustled Martha into the kitchen, chair and all, and
one of them stood there with my paring knife touching her soft throat
enough to indent the skin but not enough to draw blood. The other rat
untaped me and stood me on my feet.
I hurt all over from the pasting I'd taken, so I took a boiling shower and
dressed leisurely. The guy handed me my forty-five, all loaded, as I
came out of the bathroom. The other bird hadn't moved a muscle out in
the kitchen. His knife was still pressing against Martha's throat. He was
still standing pat when I passed out of esper range on the street below.

In pre-Rhine days, a citizen in my pinch would holler for the cops
because he couldn't be sure that the crooks would keep their end of the
bargain. But Rhine training has produced a real "Honor Among
Thieves" so that organized crime can run as fast as organized justice. If
I kept my end and they didn't keep theirs, the word would get around
from their own dirty minds that they couldn't keep a bargain. Well, I
was going to keep mine for the same reason, even though I am not a
thief.
That's the way it's done these days. You get a good esper like me to
knock off a sharp mental operator like Scarmann.
The trouble was that I didn't really want Scarmann, I wanted that pair
of mental sadists up in my apartment who were holding a knife against
Martha's throat. I wanted them, and I wanted Martha Franklin's skin to

be happily whole. And if I crossed them now, the only guys that
wouldn't play ball with me in the future would be the crooks. Them I
could do without.
So if they figured that an esper could take a mental like Scarmann, why
couldn't an esper take the pair of them?
All I had to do was to think of something else until I could get my
hands on their throats. Sure, they'd follow my mind as soon as they felt
my mental waves within range, but if I could really find something
interesting enough to occupy my attention--and maybe theirs as
well--they could not identify me.
So I went back into the lobby of my apartment and dug into the
mailbox of another party, thus identifying myself as the man in three
eight four. Then I punched the elevator button for the Fourth and leaned
back against the elevator and let my mind wander up through the
apartments above.

I violated all the laws against Esping Toms as the elevator oozed
upwards. Eventually my sense of perception wandered through my own
apartment and I located her lying on the bed, fully dressed. She'd
probably been freed lest some esper cop get to wondering why there
was a woman taped to a chair in a bachelor's kitchen. I shut my mind
like a clam, but I couldn't withdraw my perception too fast. I let it ooze
back there like the eyes of a lecherous old man at a burleycue.
I left the elevator at the Fourth and walked up the stairs by reflex, while
my mind was positively radiating waves of vulgarity.
My mind managed to identify her as "The girl on the bed" without
thinking any name. She was a good looking strawberry blonde with a
slender waist and a high bosom and long, slender legs. She was
wearing a pair of Dornier shoes with three inch heels that did things to
her ankles. Her nylons were size eight and one half, medium length, in
that dark shade that always gives me ideas. Her dress was a simple

thing that did not have a store label on it, and so I dug the stitches for a
bit and decided that it had been hand made. Someone was a fine
dress-maker because it fitted her slender body perfectly. Her petticoat
was store type. It was simple and fitted, too, but it had a label from
Forresters in the hem. Her bra was a Graceform, size thirty two,
medium cup, but the girl on the bed did not have much need for
molding, shaping, uplifting, padding or pretense. She was all her and
she filled it right to the brim. I let my perception dawdle on the slender
ankles, the lissome waist, and the rounded hips.
My door key came out by