It was almost eight o’clock. Only a few minutes after the repairman had finished his job a key turned in the lock and Andy came in, tired and hot.
“Your chunk is really dragging,” Sol said.
“So would yours if you had a day like mine. Can’t you turn on a light, it’s black as soot in here.” He slumped to the chair by the window and dropped into it.
Sol switched on the small yellow bulb that hung in the middle of the room, then went to the refrigerator. “No Gibsons tonight, I’m rationing the vermouth until I can make some more. I got the coriander and orris root and the rest, but I have to dry some sage first, it’s no good without that.” He took out a frosted pitcher and closed the door. “But I put some water in to cool and cut it with some alky which will numb the tongue so you can’t taste the water, and will also help the nerves.”
“Lead me to it!” Andy sipped the drink and managed to produce a reluctant smile. “Sorry to take it out on you but I had one hell of a day and there’s more to come.” He sniffed the air. “What’s that cooking on the stove?”
“An experiment in home economics—and it was free for the taking on the Welfare cards. You may not have noticed but our food budget is shot to pieces since the last price increase.” He opened a canister and showed Andy the granular brown substance inside. “It is a new miracle ingredient supplied by our benevolent government and called ener-G—and how’s that for a loathsomely cute name? It contains vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates….”
“Everything except flavor?”
“That’s about the size of it. I put it in with the oatmeal. I doubt if it can do any harm because at this moment I am beginning to hate oatmeal. This ener-G stuff is the product of the newest wonder of science, the plankton whale.”
“The what?”
“I know you never open a book—but don’t you ever watch TV? They had an hour program on the thing. A conversion of an atomic submarine, cruises along just like a whale and sucks in plankton, all the microscopic sea things that you will be very surprised to find out the mighty whales live on. All three whales that’re left. The smallest life forms supporting the biggest, there’s a moral there someplace. Anyway—the plankton gets sucked in and hits a sieve and the water gets spit out and the plankton gets pressed into little dry bricks and stored in the sub until it is full up and can come back and unload. Then they futz around with the bricks of plankton and come up with ener-G.”
“Oh, Christ, I bet it tastes fishy.”
“No takers,” Sol sighed, then served up the oatmeal.
They ate in silence. The ener-G oatmeal wasn’t so bad as they had expected, but it wasn’t very good, either. As soon as he was finished Sol washed the taste of it out of his mouth with the alcohol-and-water mixture.
“What’s this you said about more work to come?” he asked. “They have you doing a double shift today?”
Andy went back to the window, there was a bit of air stirring the damp heat now that the sun had set. “Just about, I’m going on special duty for a while. You remember the murder case I told you about?”
“Big Mike, the gonif? Whoever chopped him did a service to the human race.”
“My feelings exactly. But he’s got political friends who are more interested in the case than we are. They have some connections, they pulled a few strings and the commissioner himself called the lieutenant and told him to get a man on the investigation full time and find the killer. It was my name on the report so I caught the assignment. And Grassy oh, he is a sweet bastard, he didn’t tell me about it until I was signing out. He gave me the job then and a strong suggestion that I get on to it tonight. Like now,” he said, standing and stretching.
“It’ll be a good deal, won’t it?” Sol asked, stroking his beard. “An independent position, your own boss, working your own hours, being covered with glory.”
“That isn’t what I’ll be covered with unless I come up with an answer pretty fast. Everyone is watching and they are putting on the pressure. Grassy told me I had to find the killer soonest or I would be back in uniform on a beat in Shiptown.”
Andy went into his room and unlocked the padlock on the bottom drawer of the dresser. He had extra rounds of ammunition here, some private papers and equipment, including his issue flashlight. It was the squeeze-generator type and it worked up a good beam when he tested it.
“Where to now?” Sol asked when he came out. “Going to stake out the joint?”
“It’s a good thing you’re not a cop, Sol. With your knowledge of criminal investigation crime would run rampant in the city—”