Read Online And Now the News by Theodore Sturgeon - Free Book Online

afford to let the spell deepen.
    He watched her while she watched the sea, or the mountains, or the boats—or was it the men and their nets, the men and their rippling backs?—and he thought, who is she? She had come off a cruise ship three months before, because she liked Jamaica. She would stayindefinitely, leave when it seemed a good idea—tomorrow, next week, or never.
    She apparently had unlimited credit. Her clothes told nothing about her but that she had exquisite taste, and that she shopped wherever she found excellence. He knew she spoke Dutch and Spanish, and her English was accented by no accent at all. Her passport was Swiss, which might mean anything. When pressed for information about herself, she used an ancient, woman’s weapon—an abrupt, courteous, smiling silence which was like a slap in the face.
    â€œYou’re hypnotized,” he said abruptly.
    She drew her attention in to herself, turned and looked at him and away. When she did that, he felt the heat, as from the opening and closing of an oven door.
    â€œI am,” she admitted. “Jamaica is so—
old
. The old buildings, the old society, decayed and polished. I met a man at Constant Spring last evening who quite naturally clicked his heels when he bowed. And yet, just back a little from the coast, it’s savage. Wild growth and rot, breeding and steaming and killing itself, and breeding and growing again.”
    â€œYou like that.” It was not a question.
    She knew, and did not answer. She looked at her drink, lifted it, tilted it so that the liquid beaded up on the edge. Not a drop spilled on her steady hand. “Any news on the Half-Way Tree affair?”
    â€œHow did you know I’d been thinking of it? No, nothing new. I was going to ask you—”
    â€œYes?” Her eyes were so wide apart that he sometimes thought they were set on the sides of her head rather than in front. That, and her sharply pointed teeth, and the breadth and strength of her, were what was so strongly animal, for all her impregnable dignity.
    â€œForgive me—one shouldn’t make analytical comments. You are not like other people, Brunhilde. You don’t think like other people. I—shall I be frank?”
    â€œOf course.” Was she laughing?
    â€œI can’t say I always like the way your mind works. It—”
    â€œIt’s too direct?” She did laugh, now, like wind through a cello. “I’ve heard it before. Too direct … there are things I want, and thingsI like, and I get them. There are things I have no use for, and I avoid them.” She looked again at the boats.
    Cotrell hung manfully to what he wanted to say. “I need a new point of view on the Half-Way Tree murder. I would like you to help me.”
    â€œWell,” she breathed. After a moment she said, “Jeff, I’m hardly flattered. I’ve heard a great deal about you. You took in at least four extremely important foreign agents during the war. It was you who broke up the Panamanian drug ring. You have a reputation for cracking cases without any but routine help. And now you ask me to look at a thing like this—a simple murder, a month old, of a crossroads Chinese shopkeeper who was killed by a black hill boy for a few shillings. It’s not worth bothering with, Jeff.”
    â€œIt’s murder.”
    â€œMurder!” she said scornfully. “It was killing, and the jungle’s full of it. From what you’ve told me about the case, it’s quite simple. The boy Stanton—”
    â€œStanley.”
    â€œWhatever—the boy had motive and opportunity and can’t account for his time. Try him and hang him then, mark up another successful case, and go on with your important work. There are a hundred thousand illiterate hill-runners here. One won’t be missed.”
    â€œStanley could have done it,” said Cotrell carefully, “but