Dayworld by Philip José Farmer Read Free Book Online

Design was all the rage in the Bureau of Architecture. Its upper sides curved outward, ending in a flat top. This and one tapering end and the three-story penthouse made it resemble a twentieth-century aircraft carrier. The rooms on the outside wall at the top floor had windows in the floors so that the tenants could look straight down into the yard.
    Rootenbeak might be in one now, staring down at the organics.
    Caird tingled with excitement. It had been three months since he had been in on a hunt. And now he had two in one day.
    He asked the computer to clump all references to bananas in Rootenbeak’s file. This was flashed almost immediately on a strip. After reading it, he called Ruiz and asked her to ask Pallanguli if she knew the man who had snatched her bananas. The corporal did so with Caird watching and listening to the two. The dark woman’s expression changed a little and then was replaced by indignation.
    “No, I never saw the stiff before, and if I ever see him again I’ll put a banana in him where the sun don’t shine.”
    Ruiz had plugged in the woman’s ID before questioning her. Caird was running it off now after instructing the computer to expand and make orange any references to Rootenbeak. After a few seconds, a paragraph swelled and began flashing. Caird stopped its rollup to read it. Pallanguli had been Rootenbeak’s neighbor on the fourth floor of a Dominick Street apartment building three objective years ago.
    He sighed with exasperation. Pallanguli must know that that would be in her file, yet she had lied. Was she just stupid or perverse? It made no difference. She must be brought in for questioning. But he would have bet thirty credits that her story was made up. Rootenbeak had asked her for help and gotten it. Moreover, he had gotten two other minnies to give a false story. Instead of turning left and running south and then entering the building, he had turned right and gone ... where? Someplace close to but outside the police net.
    That is, unless he was subtle enough to calculate that the person in charge would think of this and so he had, instead, actually entered the building. No. There was too much danger of outsmarting himself.
    Caird would have called off the apartment search if he had been one hundred percent sure that he was right. He did ask for more personnel to widen the net and to send organics into nearby block buildings. He was told that he could get no more than ten people.
    Caird glanced at the strip with its flashing APPL ON HOLD! No time for that now. The application for permission for Ozma to have a child by him would have to be transmitted later.
    Another message appeared on a strip. It was from the commissioner-general’s secretary, asking him if he could move the luncheon date up to 11:30 A.M. He replied that he could. The strip displayed: RCVD & TRMD.
    His request for satellite data re the search for Rootenbeak came in then. Usually, he got it within ten minutes. Today, for unexplained reasons, the channels were clogged. Caird studied the pictures and then called the Hudson Park substation for more personnel. He wanted ten more foot organics but was told that none would be available for several hours or more.
    “Why not?”
    “I’m sorry, Inspector,” the sergeant said. “But we have a particularly gory murder on Carmine Street. Two victims, a woman and a child.”
    Caird was shocked. “That makes two murders in Manhattan this subyear, and the second month isn’t over yet. My God, there were only six all last subyear!”
    The sergeant nodded solemnly. “It’s become an epidemic. Social rot, sir, though the terrible heat is a contributing factor.”
    After Caird had quit talking to the sergeant, he sat and scowled. The organic force could have been much larger and he would not now be lacking personnel if every organic was not required to get a Doctor of Philosophy degree in criminology. But, no, every candidate had to pass a psychological test (which was also