The Thief of Thoth

19

SHPERN HUFFERD lived in a ramshackle development between the Diomazian Sulphur Works and the Autophan Sewage Canal, a region that could with admirable accuracy be described as odoriferous. In this section of town none of the immense and immensely expensive illusion-display signs lit up the velvet darkness of night. The dilapidated rows of prefabricated hovels were drowned in purpureal gloom, an omnipresent pall broken only by the occasional, fitful and sputtering light in crude primary colors, of a few antediluvian and malfunctioning "neon signs" which blazoned forth such curt legends as JOE'S EATS; O'LEARY'S BAR & GRILL; WUN LONG PAN'S HAND LAUNDRY; MAXIE'S SODA-LUNCH; ZELIM QUANG'S ELITE OVO-SNAVE, and similar inscriptions.

Quicksilver left the slideway and perambulated the few remaining blocks to his goal by the time-tested expedient of shank's mare. His interchangeable followers vanished. The streets were fashioned entirely of antiquated qwikplast, much stained and splotched by age and neglect. Filthy water gurgled in noisome gutters. Sagging housefronts sagged at odd angles above the street, shadeless windows leering emptily like the vacant eyesockets of human skulls—a distinctly foetid and rundown neighborhood. That a once celebrated criminal of the calibre of Shpem Huflerd should have sunk so low as to inhabit a swinish hovel of such squalor as these ...

Sidestepping adroitly in order to avoid the rotting carcass of a starved housecat, Hautley found himself before Shpem Huflerd's address. According to the directory, the former criminal rented the first floor flat of the decayed two-story Living Home, a prefabricated hovel manufactured at a pittance by Prefabricated Hovels, Inc.

There were no lights in the bleared and grease-filmed window.

Nor did Hautley extract any reply when he sounded the buzzer. On the off chance that its mechanism might be inoperable, Hautley resorted to a manual signal and knocked, again eliciting a negative response.

Presumably, Shpern Hufferd was not at home.

Hautley glanced about him, taking in the ill-lit and dubious condition of the neighborhood. Directly across the street was another two-story building, its bottom level devoted to an establishment purveying doubtful liquors, the upper story seemingly residential in character. A few mangy local citizens lounged about under a buzzing street light, or slouched moistly in the gurgling gutters, seemingly victims to the inebriating beverages on sale in the street-level bar.

If Shpem Hufferd were out, there were no way of forming an accurate estimate as to the time of his arrival home. And Hautley distinctly did not wish to remain standing in front of his residence all night. For one thing, the neighborhood was clearly disreputable. For another, he did not wish to thaw attention to the fact that someone wished to interview the former associate of Dugan Motley.

The best idea would be to simply wait inside. Hautley bent to examine the lock. It was an antique electronic-key model, which could be opened only by the appropriate wave length to which it was attuned.

Hautley dipped one hand beneath his garments and withdrew a cunningly devised and miniature all-purpose electronic key from one of the innumerable pockets and pouches of his "business suit."

He pressed the tubelike end of this small device against the keyhole and spun the dockets. The instrument rapidly ran through several thousand frequencies in less than 1.07 seconds, eventually striking upon the precise frequency to which the lock was attuned.

The door iris dilated and Hautley stepped quickly into a pitch-black room, illuminated only by fitful flashes of neon through the grease-smeared windowpanes, through which the illuminated sign of the bar across the street shone as it flashed on and off.

Hautley felt certain none of the dilapidated loungers loitering about the street had noted his swift and unobtrusive entry into the flat.

Standing motionless in the dark room, he quested about with keen-honed and delicate senses. The air of the long-closed room was stifling. A variety of odors assaulted his nostrils with outrageous impact. There was the scent of a certain brand of rotgut brandy known as Ol' Space Marshall. Added to which was the overwhelming reek of boiled cabbage, a lingering taint of garlic, and more than a wisp of overripe garbage. Hautley's soul, that of an esthete shrank from malodorous ambush, and all but wilted before the barrage.

He turned from the door, reaching for a light switch, when, as it so very often does in Quicksilver's perilous line of work, the totally unexpected sneaked up and caught the galaxy's ace investigator flatfooted.

To be precise—lights flared, dazzling his eyes, and when his vision cleared he found himself staring directly down the cold grim throat of a General Nucleonics Mark IV coagulator pistol ...

A rasping voice sounded in his ears from behind the weapon. "One quiver of yer pinky finger, me line bucko, an' I'll zap ye down where ye stand, puttin' a foine big blood clot two seconds from yer black heart! Freeze now, blast ye, or—"

Needless to say, Quicksilver froze.