Soft come the dragons by Dean Koontz Read Free Book Online Page B

face slipped away and was replaced by another hung above shoulders that were covered in plain brown business suit. "Homicide, here," the new face said. "Go on."
    "I—have a murder to report."
    "Go on."
    "I—"
    "Well?
    "I want to report it in person. I have evidence."
    "The com-screen is fine. We handle all our homicides over the com—"
    "In person," Ti persisted. He knew the sort of run-around he could get by phone. His own editor, Creol, gave the run-around to almost everyone who called Enterstat to speak to Ti.
    "Look, Mr.— You haven't reported your name. The informer's name .should always be the first statement. What's your name?"
    "Timothy of Enterstat."
    The detectives eyebrows went up. "And you won't report over the com-screen?"
    "No."
    "We'll send a man around. Your address is in central files?"
    "Yes."
    "Be there in fifteen minutes."
    When the police dealt with the wealthy, the treatment was somewhat different than when they dealt with the comfortable or the poor. Ti knew it, did not like it, but was nevertheless glad of it now. If he wanted to be sure this case got solved, he was convinced that he must launch it himself. And since it was easier for them to come to him,-he had had to make them do just that.
    Fifteen minutes later, almost to the second, the doorbell rang. He sent a servo to turn the latch knob and pull the portal wide. A thin man with a pencil mustache stepped through into the living room. The servo closed the door behind him. He looked at Ti a moment, tried to conceal his shock—shock though he was certain to know the mutant's nature—and took off his fur hat. "Detective Modigliani," he said in tight, compressed words, each syllable like the quick crack of a rifle shot.
    "Glad to meet you, Detective. Come in. Sit down."
    The thin man crossed the room and took a seat while Ti drifted into one of his own special cup-chairs and shut down his grav plates. "This is most unusual," Modigliani said.
    "It's an unusual case."
    "Perhaps you could explain it?"
    Ti hesitated only a moment, then launched into his story. When he had finished, the detective sat with his hands folded in his lap and twisted his mouth as if trying to get at his mustache and nibble on it. "Quite extraordinary. And you say you have film?"
    "Yes."
    The detective scowled. "You have invaded privacy, you know"
    "What?"
    Modigliani stood and paced to the wall, turned dramatically. "Privacy, sir. It's an invasion of privacy to photograph someone through the Mindlink impressions."
    "But I was corralling evidence!"
    "That's the job of the police, don't you think?"
    "I happen to know," Ti said, flipping on his systems and rising from his chair, "that Klaus Margle was arrested nine times and yet never served a prison sentence."
    "What are you suggesting?"
    He almost spat out the accusations that were most assuredly true, but he held his tongue just long enough to calm himself. "Nothing. Nothing. But—well, have a look at the films, why don't you?"
    "Yes. I would like to see those,"
    Ti led the way into the library where he set up the projector and pulled down the wall screen. "Hit the lights, will you?"
    Modigliani hit the lights. There was darkness.
    The projector hummed, and suddenly the screen was filled with images. Roiling smoke clouds, to begin with. Then, coming through these were three men with breathers' clamped in their teeth, with plugs in their nostrils. The picture zoomed in on the lead man, and there was Klaus Margle, larger than life!
    But just his face. As the picture progressed, Ti discovered his error: he had been so anxious to get good shots of Margie's face that he had missed most of the other action. He had trained the cameras on the heads of the invaders, missing nearly everything else that they did. There was no sound, either. The threatening face of Klaus Margle leaning into the camera at the end lacked force when his words were nonexistent.
    The film stuttered, slipped, and was gone.
    "It's not much," Modigliani