Future Crimes Part 14

"He was afraid of you .. . my father was afraid of you. If you take that kind of concentration into everything you doA then he had reason to be. Did you work that hard at stealing Ferrence from him?"

Ferrence Transportation. A company that Operated short-distance air shuttles between major cities, a steady but unspectacular earner.

"He had the same chance at a takeover as I did," Kimmel said with a shrug.

"He spent eleven years acquiring Ferrence stock-a little here, a little there. Eleven years, Kimmel. And you came along and stole it right out from under his nose. I don't know how you did it and I don't even care. But, Kimmel, you took something my father wanted only because he wanted it."

"Bulls.h.i.+t."

"Is it? You'd never dabbled in transportation before and you haven't expanded since. The one thing that made Ferrence attractive was my father's interest in it. You sent my father into a depression he never recovered from, and you did it out of spite. Just spite.

Nothing else."

Kimmel made a sound of exasperation.

"Your sainted father played dirty himself often enough." He waved toward the stage.

"Where do you think the money for your expensive toys came from?

Probably from some company he stole from me."

"So the two of you just kept sticking it to each other."

The other man showed his teeth.

"As often and as hard as we could."

Now it was Gil's turn to sound exasperated.

"Wouldn't it have solved a h.e.l.luva lot of problems if you'd just formed a partners.h.i.+p?"

Kimmel threw his head back and laughed in open delight.

"My G.o.d, I didn't know they still made 'em that naive! Don't you understand, you young idiot? It was what kept both of us going." He snorted.

"A.

partners.h.i.+p!"

Gil reddened.

"Then why did you pay Milo to kill him?"

Two feminine voices raised in immediate protest.

Milo shouted: "I don't even know this man! I never saw him before tonight!"

Kimmel just raised his arms in a gesture of hopelessness and headed toward the costume room.

LaB oz went down to the edge of the stage and spoke to Gil.

"You're going to get yourself sued if you go on saying things like that."

Gil shook his head.

"The question had to be asked."

"But why now? Why wait a whole year?"

Gil nodded toward Shalimar.

"This is the first time the councilwoman has left the Andamans since he died. And since she's a contributor .. ."

She stared at him.

"What a presumptuous puppy you are."

"I wish / were in the Andamans," Milo proclaimed in understandable ill temper.

"You truly are impossible, Gil. You insist I come here and then you accuse me of murder--I must say that's not my idea of a good time.

When's the next funicular due?"

"Relax, Milo. We're almost finished."

Shalimar gestured toward LaB oz

"What about your Horatio? Is he next?"

LaB oz doesn't perform,"- Gil said.

"He had nothing to do with my father's death."

"And all the rest of us did," Phoebe said neutrally, slowly getting to her feet.

"So you saved me until last, Gil. How flattering."

"Have you had time to make your choice?"

"It's obvious, isn't it? The gravedigger scene. The only appropriate conclusion to a death day party. Besides, that's what this play-acting is all about, isn't it?

You're digging someone's grave?"

A silence followed.

"When you're ready," Gil finally said.

"No costume," Phoebe announced.

"Just the auditory feed." LaB oz fitted the b.u.t.ton in her ear, and she took her place center stage.

"Start."

A graveyard flicked into view. The gravedigger sang a little song.

Phoebe: "Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that 'a sings in grave-making?" Phoebe didn't move at all, ignoring the stage directions murmuring in her ear and speaking all her lines from the spot where she'd positioned herself. The holo figures in the scene moved across her, spoke to an empty place in the stage.

"Alas, poor Daddy! I knew him, Gil," Phoebe was saying.

"A fellow of no jest whatsoever."

In the wings, LaB oz felt a chill. Kimmel, now changed back into his own clothes, said, "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure."