it wasn't that thetrail was cold. It just _wasn't_.
Of course, there were ways to get clues, he reflected. He thought ofhis father. His father would have gone to the scene of the crime, orquestioned some of the witnesses. But the scene of the crime wasanywhere and everywhere, and most of the witnesses didn't know theywere witnessing anything. Except for Her Majesty, of course--but he'dalready questioned her, and there hadn't been any clues he couldrecall in that conversation.
Malone stubbed out his cigar, lit another one absent-mindedly, andrescued his tie, which was working its slow way around to the side ofhis collar. There were, he remembered, three classic divisions of anycrime: method, motive and opportunity. Maybe thinking about thosewould lead somewhere.
As an afterthought, he got up, found a pencil and paper with thehotel's name stamped on them in gold and came back to the chair.Clearing the ashtray aside, he put the paper on the table and dividedthe paper into three vertical columns with the pencil. He headed thefirst one _Method_, the second _Motive_ and the third _Opportunity_.
He stared at the paper for a while, and decided with some trepidationto take the columns one by one. Under _Method_, he put down: "Littlebursts. Who knows cause?" Some more thought gave him another item, andhe set it down under the first one: "Psionic. Look for psionicpeople?"
That apparently was all there was to the first column. After a whilehe moved to number two, _Motive_. "Confuse things," he wrote withscarcely a second's reflection. But that didn't seem like enough. Afew minutes more gave him several other items, written down one underthe other. "Disrupt entire US. Set US up for invasion? Martians?Russians? CK: Is Russia having trble?" That seemed to exhaust thesubject and with some relief he went on. But the title of the nextcolumn nearly stopped him completely.
_Opportunity._ There wasn't anything he could put down under that one,Malone told himself, until he knew a great deal more about method. Asthings stood at present, the best entry under _Opportunity_ was alarge, tastefully done question mark. He made one, and then sat backto look at the entire list and see what help it gave him:
_Method_Little bursts. Who knows cause?Psionic. Look for psionic people?
_Motive_Confuse things.Disrupt entire US.Set US up for invasion?Martians?Russians?CK: Is Russia having trble?
_Opportunity_?
Somehow, it didn't seem to be much help, when he thought about it. Ithad a lot of information on it, but none of the information seemed tolead anywhere. It did seem to be established that the purpose was toconfuse or disrupt the United States, but this didn't seem to point toanybody except a Russian, an alien or a cosmic practical joker. Malonecould see no immediate way of deciding among the trio. However, hetold himself, there are other ways to start investigating a crime.There must be.
Psychological methods, for instance. People had little gray cells, heremembered from his childhood reading. Some of the more brainyfictional detectives never stooped to anything so low as an actualphysical clue. They concentrated solely on finding a pattern in thecrimes that indicated, infallibly, the psychology of the individual.Once his psychology had been identified, it was only a short step toactually catching him and putting him in jail until his psychologychanged for the better. Or, of course, until it disappeared entirelyand was buried, along with the rest of him, in a small wood box.
That wasn't Malone's affair. All he had to do was take the first fewsteps and actually find the man. And perhaps psychology and patternwas the place to start. Anyhow, he reflected, he didn't have any othermethod that looked even remotely likely to lead to anything exceptbrain-fag, disappointment, and catalepsy.
But he didn't have enough cases to find a pattern. There must, hethought, be a way to get some more. After a few seconds he thought ofit.
* * * * *
At first he thought of asking Room Service for all the local andout-of-state papers, but that, he quickly saw, was a little unwise.People didn't come to Las Vegas to catch up on the news; they came toget away from it. A man might read Las Vegas papers, and possibly evenhis home town's paper if he couldn't break himself of the pernicioushabit. But nobody on vacation would start reading papers fromeverywhere.
There was no sense in causing suspicion, Malone told himself. Instead,he reached for the phone and called the desk.
"Great Universal, good afternoon," a pleasant voice said in his ear.
Malone blinked. "What time _is_ it?" he said.
"A few minutes before six," the voice said. "In the evening, sir."
"Oh," Malone said. It was later than he'd thought; the list had takensome time. "This is Kenneth J. Malone," he went on, "in Room--" Hetried to remember the number of his room and failed. It seemed likefour or five days since he'd entered it. "Well, wherever I am," hesaid at last, "send up some kind of a car for me and have a taxiwaiting outside."
The voice sounded unperturbed. "Right away, sir," it said. "Will therebe anything else?"
"I guess not," Malone said. "Not now, anyhow." He hung up and stubbedout the latest in his series of cigars.
The hallway car arrived in a few minutes. It was manned by a muscularlittle man with beady eyes and thinning black hair. "You Malone?" hesaid when the FBI Agent opened the door.
"Kenneth J.," Malone said. "I called for a car."
"Right outside, Chief," the little man said in a gravelly voice. "Justhop in and off we go into the wild blue yonder. Right?"
"I guess so," Malone said helplessly. He followed the man outside,locked his door and climbed into a duplicate of the little car thathad taken him to his room in the first place.
"Step right in, Chief," the little man said. "We're off."
Malone, overcoming an immediate distaste for the chummy little fellow,climbed in and the car retreated down to the road. It started offsmoothly and they went back toward the lobby. The little man chattedincessantly and Malone tried not to listen. But there was nothing elseto do except watch the gun-toting "guides" as the car passed them, andthe sight was making him nervous.
"You want anything--special," the driver said, giving Malone a blow inthe ribs that was apparently meant to be subtle, "you just ask forMurray. Got it?"
"I've got it," Malone said wearily.
"You just pick up the little phone and you ask for Murray," the driversaid. "Maybe you want something a little out of the ordinary--get whatI mean?" Malone moved aside, but not fast enough, and Murray's stoneelbow caught him again. "Something special, extra-nice. For myfriends, pal. You want to be a friend of mine?"
Assurances that friendship with Murray was Malone's dearest ambitionin life managed to fend off further blows until the car pulled to astop in the lobby. "Cab's outside, Mr. Malone," Murray said. "Youremember me--hey?"
"I will never, never forget you," Malone said fervently, and got outin a hurry. He found the cab and the driver, a heavy-set man with aface that looked as if, somewhere along the line, it had run into aWaring Blendor and barely escaped, swiveled around to look at him ashe got in.
"Where to, Mac?" he asked sourly.
Malone shrugged. "Center of town," he said. "A nice big newsstand."
The cabbie blinked. "A what?" he said.
"Newsstand," Malone said pleasantly. "All right with you?"
"Everybody's a little crazy, I guess," the cabbie said. "But why do Ialways get the real nuts?" He started the cab with a savage jerk andMalone was carried along the road at dizzying speed. They managed tomake ten blocks before the cab squealed to a stop. Malone peered outand saw a nice selection of sawhorses piled up in the road, guarded bytwo men with guns. The men were dressed in police uniforms and thecabby, staring at them, uttered one brief and impolite word.
"What's going on?" Malone said.
"Roadblock," the cabbie said. "Thing's going to stay here until Hellfreezes over. Not that they need it. Hell, I passed it on the way inbut I figured they'd take it down pretty quick."
"Roadblock?" Malone said. "What for?"
The cabbie shrugged eloquently. "Who knows?" he
said. "You askquestions, you might get answers you don't like. I don't askquestions, I live longer."
"But--"
The cops, meanwhile, had advanced toward the car. One of them lookedin. "Who's the passenger?" he said.
The cabbie swore again. "You want me to take loyalty oaths frompeople?" he said. "You want to ruin my business? I got a passenger,how do I know who he is? Maybe he's the Lone Ranger."
"Don't get funny," the cop said. His partner had gone around to