Chapter V

Hidden heat-coils melted the snow which managed to drift over the slidewalks despite their protective canopies, but the streets were covered with snow now more than a foot deep. McLeod felt it crunch underfoot as he left the slidewalks and headed for the mayor's house.

His breath exhaled in quick vapor-puffs against the cold, brittle air. His feet were heavy in the snow but dry. His were the only set of footsteps marring the white blanket which covered everything.

It occurred to him all at once that Mayor Spurgess would likely forego his evening walk because of the weather. Which necessitated another type of accident. Lantrel's men were both experienced and imaginative. You could write a book categorizing all the possibilities....

Wind whipped around corners and sprayed McLeod's face with snowflakes. He heard a voice calling far off in the fuzzy white dimness, but soon it was gone. Finally, he reached the mayor's house--a red-brick, white-columned Georgian structure massive and secure on a large corner lot. He crouched behind a leafless privet hedgerow in the driveway and waited, peering up occasionally at the cheery yellow squares of light that were the second story windows. His ear-crono whispered the time to him: twenty-two hundred hours.

The tell-tale footsteps he had left in the snow were fast disappearing as the flakes fell thicker. He slid his parabeam out through the jumper's trick sleeve and felt the cold knife momentarily into his bare arm. The feeling of warm security, so paradoxical under the circumstances, left him. If he foiled Lantrel's gunmen, Overman would learn of it. If he didn't foil them but tried--which seemed more likely--Overman would also hear.

Just what was he doing here, anyway?

He flexed his stiff muscles and was on the point of standing up when he saw three figures approaching down the street, vague as ghosts in the snow. There was still time. He could intercept them and say he had come to cover the story, something which was expected of him. He wondered what sort of accident they had planned.

He jogged toward them through the snow, met them still half a block from Spurgess' house. Two were young, possibly still in training. They were tall and looked like soldiers in their slick jumpers. They stared at him arrogantly. The third was shorter, heavier, of calculating eye. The expression of the first two faces said: _we're gunmen--whatever you are, we're better_. The third face said: _we'd as soon kill you as spit, but we don't kill except for hire or when provoked in the line of duty_.

"I'm from the paper," McLeod told them, whispering. "Here to cover the story."

The three faces stared back at him through the snow, crystalizing what he had felt all day but had not been able to explain. Those faces.

They had nothing against Mayor Spurgess. Perhaps they had never even seen him. If they didn't like him and had a reason and wanted to kill him, that wouldn't be so bad. That would be fine. But they were here to kill him because McLeod had signed the application along with Lantrel. They wanted to do the job and get back to warmer places and hot buttered rum or whatever they liked.

"He come out yet?" the older gunman asked.

"I don't think he will, not in this weather. What other plans have you got?"

"We'll just wait and see. We don't have to make the plans."

Had they been able to read McLeod's face as readily as he had read theirs? "I don't understand," he said. "You'll have to think of something else if he doesn't take his walk, won't you?"

"You say you were from the paper, guy?"

"Of course."

"Well, you're not making sense."

* * * * *

McLeod toyed with his parabeam, then watched as matching weapons leaped into the hands of the two younger gunmen.

"What paper, guy?" the older one drawled.

McLeod felt his heart flutter wildly and checked a strong impulse to laugh.

One of the young gunmen said, "I thought the big boy himself was covering this. Wainwright. I know what he looks like."

"Come on, guy. What paper?"

McLeod knew the mistake could be fatal. Somehow the _World_ had learned what the _Star-Times_ had planned for Mayor Spurgess. These men were _World_ gunmen, come to thwart Lantrel's men. Perhaps they could, but McLeod might die in the process.

"Listen," he said desperately. "The other day, Weaver Wainwright made me a proposition."

"Who _are_ you?"

"Darius McLeod. Hold on, damn it! If you freeze me now, you'll be making a mistake. Wainwright wanted me to work for the _World_. That's why I'm here, don't you understand? I can tell you exactly what the _Star-Times_ is going to do."

"We already know, McLeod. You're skating where the signs say not to, guy. I guess you know that."

"Won't Wainwright be here? Ask him."

"Don't know if he will or not."

One of the younger gunmen had circled around behind McLeod. The other one stood facing him, pointing the parabeam at his chest. The older man seemed to be enjoying himself.

"I don't want Spurgess killed," McLeod said. "That's the truth. I came here to prevent it myself."

"Can you tell me why?"

"No--yes. Because I want to accept Wainwright's proposition. The _World_ said I was going to die. Wainwright offered me life."

"We know that you're going to die."

McLeod sucked in his breath. This same wholesome trio had probably received the application for his own death, had probably studied his habit file. "Not before next week," McLeod said.

"Now, I don't know. It's a gift horse, guy. They won't hold up our checks for a couple of hours either way."

"No, but you'll spend the rest of your life as a gunman if you cross Wainwright."

The voice behind McLeod's back seemed bodiless and as cold as the falling snow. "What's wrong with that?"

"You wouldn't understand," McLeod said without turning. "He would." He would win his life the moment he won over the shorter man. His two companions did not matter. "Look. The Gunman Editor on the _World_ is near retirement, isn't he? You look like you've been around, but you won't be considered for the job if Wainwright bears a grudge."

"He's pretty smooth," the young gunman with the parabeam said.

"Why do you think I'm here at all?" McLeod insisted. "I didn't know you were coming. I came to prevent this thing myself."

* * * * *

The man behind McLeod muttered a curse and said, "You came here for the same reason you always go out on an assignment. To get the story."

But the older man said, "Have you any proof?"

"Only Wainwright. Ask him when he gets here."

"_If_ he decides to come," said the man with the parabeam.

"And if he doesn't?" McLeod demanded. "Are you going to take a chance and--"

"It wouldn't be taking a chance at all," the older man told McLeod. "We could freeze you and box you and ask Wainwright about it later."

"You fool! I haven't told Wainwright one way or the other yet."

"Then we could unfreeze you and let him decide. Go ahead, George."

McLeod could never hope to freeze all three of them before they froze him. Their actions were cut from the same Kantian categorical imperative he had expected of himself and all newspapermen--until today. He felt sorry for himself because it no longer applied, but that hardly helped.

"Someone's coming," the voice behind McLeod said. He started to turn and got three quarters of the way around when the parabeam hit him.

After that, it was almost like watching a melodrama on television. He could watch the action unfold. His sympathies might be directed first one way, then another, but he had no part in the play. He was a statue, standing upright as the snow drifted down and coated him with white. His body-heat didn't escape the insulined jumper to melt it and in a few moments he was an incredibly manlike snowman with a human face. The last thing he wanted to do was stand there, frozen, and watch.

He stood and watched.

Half a dozen figures were clustered close by the white columns at the front of Mayor Spurgess' house. Then, as if they were puppets and all their strings had been pulled at once, they darted behind the columns.

The _World_ gunmen were caught in the open and knew it. Parabeams hissed as they fell toward the ground and the snow's protection. Only the shorter, heavier man tried to get up, waddling three or four yards on his knees before a parabeam caught him too and froze him.

Two figures detached themselves from the white columns and ran across the snow toward McLeod, parabeams ready.

"Hey, he looks familiar."

"That's Darius McLeod, stupid. Familiar, the man says. They probably caught him and froze him."

A beam sucked the sleep from McLeod's limbs and he was soon massaging his arms together. After two freezes in as many evenings, he'd really have a parabeam hangover in the morning.

"What about those three people, Mr. McLeod?" the man who had unfroze him asked.

"A natural," the other one said. "Here's our accident. Assault and robbery and accidental death. We even have the assailants. Strip these people of their _World_ identification. I'll be right back--with the mayor."

* * * * *

Newshounds might trick and maim and kill one another, McLeod knew, but never frame other newspapermen for civil crime. You had to keep the public happy with all newspaper people. The police, of course, never investigated very thoroughly these days, since that would be poaching on newspaper territory. They handled traffic very well, though.

There was a commotion in front of the mayor's house, where only one of the gunmen was visible. Presently the door opened. There was loud talking, much pointing. The gunman's voice was pleading, the mayor's was indignant. Finally, the mayor ducked inside and McLeod hoped he would stay there. Soon he emerged, however, dressed in a jumper. He ran along at the heels of the gunman and neared McLeod just as the other man had finished removing identification cards from the three still figures.

"McLeod, is that you? I knew I could depend on you. You have no idea how much better I'm able to relax now. No, sir. If you said I don't have to worry, I don't have to. What's going on out here? He said you wanted to see me but couldn't move from the spot. Something I can do? What's wrong with them?"

There were not three figures in the snow, but four. "Take a look," the man with Mayor Spurgess said.

The mayor waited for McLeod to answer him, then shrugged and crouched. It was exactly as if he were still under the parabeam, McLeod realized. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do.

The _Star-Times_ gunmen had sized up the situation too well. The three men from the _World_ were as good as dead now, which would make it close to impossible for McLeod to turn on the _Star-Times_ and expect help from Wainwright, even if that were what he wanted. He had better play along. It was still a show on television and he could only watch. But now he knew the outcome.

The fourth still figure on the snow suddenly erupted into violent motion. A leg snaked out, an arm--the mayor grunted and fell, staring mutely at McLeod, surprised, offended and outrageously indignant the moment before he died. A knife flashed quickly, expertly, gleaming for a split second before it disappeared through the mayor's jumper.

The standing gunman twirled his parabeam to full intensity and sprayed the _World_ men with what was now lethal radiation, halting involuntary actions such as blinking--and breathing.

The gunman smiled at McLeod. "Well, you have your story now. We'd better get out of here while you phone for the police."

McLeod had his story, all right. He felt sick. He would call the police and then go write his story about how Mayor Spurgess had chased three unidentified vandals from his house, only to be stabbed to death while protecting his family. McLeod who was visiting the mayor on business, had naturally joined in the chase, in time to overtake and kill the unidentified vandals but not in time to save His Honor's life.

The police investigation, if any, would fail to uncover anything.

"Thanks a lot," McLeod said.

"Don't mention it." The two gunmen ran to join their companions and soon disappeared through the snow.

In tomorrow's _Star-Times_, McLeod would be a hero.