Complete Short Fiction, page 462
“Go on!” scoffed Morrison. “Not you. You can’t even spell.”
“So help me,” said Carler, “I was in for four years. And just because I misspelled your name once—”
“Okay, okay. What does non-Aristotelian mean? Say—Wonderingly—, “it sounded right that time.”
“It’s got something to do with semantics,” said Carler.
“With what?” Morrison was outraged by the introduction of another word that he didn’t know.
Carler spelled it for him. “Has to do with the meaning of meaning,” he said. “I remember they were going to introduce it into the English and Psychology classes the year after I left college.”
“You mean there’s actually something in this business?” Morrison was disturbed.
Carler said, “Lots of colleges teach it now. What’s the gag?” Morrison considered it inadvisable to tell the truth so he said, “Remember that Colton woman murder, five years ago. You were on it.”
“Yes. I always figured Tristrov did it. We hear about these hot-blooded Latins, but what about the hot-headed Slavs. I think he killed her for throwing him over.”
The second reporter, Tom James, piped up. “My own feeling was that the police should have accepted the suicide theory. The way Tristrov described it, that woman was ridden by guilt, remorse, and shame. Don’t underestimate true feelings like that.”
Morrison groaned, “Everybody understands human behavior on the basis of some personal philosophy. No wonder crime goes merrily along. Goodbye.”
Twenty minutes later, as he climbed towards Glen Oak Crescent, Morrison felt his car presently shift into low gear. The street wound steeply upward, finally, grudgingly leveled off. But before he reached the top, a sadness came over Morrison. He recognized the district. It had been built up about twelve years before. It had been an expensive, exclusive development then, and prices had been going up ever since.
Boy, oh, boy, had he ever let himself into the pit. Well, he’d just have to act casual.
The house he wanted was a long-fronted, two-story structure on a deep lot, A young man was backing a brown Cadillac out of an archway at one end of the house. As Morrison parked his own car and climbed out, the big machine came fowling along backward. It turned onto the street, and wheeled toward where the detective lieutenant was standing.
Morrison had a sudden idea that this was his man, and the possibility that he might miss making contact galvanized him. He waved, the driver saw him, drew up at the curb opposite, leaned over, peered through the turned-down window, and said, “Why, hello, Lieutenant Morrison. My name is Nicer. Do you want to see me?”
Morrison was caught off guard. “How in blazes do you—” he began. He stopped, startled. He had been about to ask the how-do-you-know-who-I-am question. He clamped his teeth together. Sherlock Holmes stuff, eh? And he in the role of the mystified, admiring, dumb cop.
He stood, inwardly smoldering at the narrowness of his escape. But after a moment he shrugged. The truth was, he had nothing to lose and he was curious.
“All right, how do you know my name?”
A pair of sardonic gray eyes and a middle-thirties face grinned at him. “I’ll tell you after I’ve solved your case. I can tell you the cards were heavily stacked in my favor.”
He opened the door of the car. “I’m on my way down to the boulevard for a minute. Would you care to come along? We can talk en route.”
—An engaging guy, perhaps a little over-confident. But there was a stern look around his eyes. No kid, this.
Morrison climbed in. Then, when they were moving, “Look, Mr. Nicer, what’s all this non-Aristota—?” He stopped, defeated.
Nicer grinned at him. “That damned word,” he said, “is pronounced NON-arlStoTELian. It derives from Aristotle, the famous Greek philosopher of long ago. It means not like Aristotle.”
Morrison couldn’t remember what Aristotle was famous for, and so naturally had no idea what non-Aristotle would be. And, particularly, he wanted to know what would a non-Aristotle-type detective do that was different.
Nicer explained that there were many non-Aristotelian systems, but a non-Aristotelian detective would be one who used the seven levels of logic as defined by General Semantics, adhering strictly to a line of reasoning that derived from Korzybski’s Ladder of Abstraction.
“For example,” said Nicer, “a criminal is a person who would have a poor method of making the referent fit the territory.”
Morrison considered that unhappily. He was an old-style detective with a high school education and a number of special courses. He was perfectly aware that in today’s big city police departments, someone like him coming in new would get nowhere. He was not outdated. With his formidable experience, that was not a factor. But along with Codreau, and other aging experts, his type would eventually be retired out of existence.
—What in . . . was a referent, anyway? Reluctantly, he asked the question.
“It’s a map,” said Nicer, “But in the GS—general semantic—meaning, it’s in the person’s mind. A map, as you know, is an abstraction, a sketch, a summary, a synopsis of a real geographical area, a real object, a creature, or a genuine process in Nature. It is never the area, object, creature, or process. A photograph of a man, however good a likeness, gives only a partial picture of the reality.”
Morrison was minded to say, “So what? I’ve known that ail my life.” But he didn’t say it. If a hundred or more universities were teaching stuff like that now, the unfavorable reaction of Detective Lieutenant Myron Morrison was unimportant He shifted in the seat, saw that they were on the main boulevard, hesitated, and then asked the vital question, “What has that got to do with finding a murderer?”
Nicer said, “Viewed semantically, every situation is different. So tell me the exact case that you have in mind—”
Since he had taken the trouble to come, Morrison gave the details of the Colton murder correctly.
By the time the account was finished, Nicer was pulling into a parking lot behind a drug store. He got out. “Be right back,” he said.
During the eight minutes that he had to wait, Morrison thought I suppose I could say that this is what a professional gets when he comes to an amateur. But truth was, he was interested. He thought There’s no way out for Nicer.
Incredibly, the younger man had talked himself into the pit . . . He’s got to come through.
Nicer emerged from the store with a package, climbed into the car, started it, and drove back the way he had come. At this point, he asked one question about the Colton case: “Did any of the principals in this matter ever, that you know of, physically assault either a man or a woman for any reason?” Morrison told him yes, told him who.
When he had the answer, Nicer was silent. The car wound up the steep hill. Abruptly, he apologized and explained, “I was just going over the facts again as you gave them to me, and there’s no question; the-map-is-not-the-territory aspect of non-Aristotelian logic fits this particular murder.”
He finished, “No question, there’s your murderer.”
Morrison hadn’t vaguely expected a solution on the basis of reasoning alone. He had taken it for granted they would revisit the five-year-old scenes, see again Colton, Tristrov and wife as they now were, and the other people. The surprise was so complete that his mind seemed to careen. “Huh!” he said, “you’re kidding.”
He remembered the facile analyses of the two reporters, of Codreau, and of, frankly, himself. He thought gloomily Everybody’s an armchair detective these days.
Before he could speak, the handsome young man said, with a faint, sympathetic smile, “what you’re listening to is non-Aristotelian reasoning.”
He thereupon enlarged upon his previously stated concept, to the effect that human beings operated on mental maps based on a preconceived emotional rigidity. People became disturbed when the life situation did not fit their mental map. Hence, in a murder, a non-Aristotelian detective must decide which element, or combination of elements, of general semantic logic applied—in this instance, the map-territory concept—and then discover whose mental map was sufficiently at variance with reality to cause him to react with the infinite violent intent of a person who was then capable of snuffing out the life of another living person.
“Yes,” groped Morrison, “but Tristrov hit his wife because she left him. He went to her sister’s, where she was staying, and beat her up, but good. When we picked him up, he was crying like a baby. He said he’d promised her he’d never misbehave again. But when she wouldn’t listen, he just lost control of himself and started to hit her because she had made him feel so bad. I kind’ve felt sorry for him, because you know the world isn’t like women think—”
He stopped. “Hey,” he said slowly, “you mean his map was that she ought to forgive him, and when her response didn’t fit his map, he—”
“Exactly,” said Philip Nicer. “He went berserk and tried to beat her brains out Please understand me, not all men who hit women reach the point of murder, but since a murder occurred in that frame—” He broke off, “Well, here we are back at your car.”
He drew up behind Morrison’s Chevy. Morrison climbed heavily out of the Cadillac and stood towering beside it. He was thinking hard; it was the most convincing analysis to date. He said, “All right, let’s say Tristrov did it. But how can we pin it on him? He’d laugh at us if we pulled him in.”
The man in the car smiled grimly. “Once you have your teeth into a case, I’ve always found that you can reason backwards by ordinary logic. Now, think. The alibi situation in that murder is so great it can’t just have happened. Tristov had to make preparations. So I’ll simply point out that when Tristrov cosigned his friend’s note, that was the key act. I’ll wager he expected that the man would be satisfied with the cosigning. But put yourself in that man’s place; suddenly you realize that you have been cunningly made an accessory to a murder. End of friendship, right? And so—”
“Tristov had to pay off the note!” Morrison said explosively. “If that checks out, Mister, then—” he finished plaintively, “but why did he kill Mrs. Colton?”
“You’ll have to ask him that when you question him,” said Nicer. “I think he’ll confess because, remember, when he was confronted with having been seen kissing Mrs. Colton, he admitted having been her lover, which he needn’t have done. So he can lose his head . . . My own belief would be that Mrs. Colton intended to tell her husband about the affair and ask his forgiveness which, of course, would ruin Tristrov across the board. That happened anyway, but the resultant confusion saved him until now. That’s it, Lieutenant. The credit, if any, is all yours. Call me any time during the next month. I’m on leave from the European branch of Military Intelligence, and I’d like to see what other aspects of non-Aristotelian logic show up in major crimes—like to see it in a practice environment where, hopefully, I don’t get killed if I’m wrong.”
“What about—your knowing my name?”
Nicer grinned. “Military Intelligence has a picture gallery of all sergeant-up police officers in the metropolitan area. I looked over the photos of the men in this district. Told you it was stacked.”
It was next day. Inspector Codreau was waiting for Morrison when he came in. “That bank phoned while you were out,” he said. “Tristov paid off that note. I’m having him brought in for questioning . . .”
1979
FEMWORLD: before the revolution
A great writer’s nightmare vision of Women’s lib gone mad!
PETER GRAYSON, Ph.D., physicist, vice-president of Haskett Manufacturing Laboratories, Inc., heard the peculiar tiny clicking sound twice in rapid order.
Ping . . . ping.
The print he was reading blurred.
Grayson shook his head impatiently and drew the contract closer to his glasses. Spots danced over the page. He sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw the problem.
In each lens of his spectacles, there was a crack horizontally across the “glass” exactly at pupil level.
He was startled. Both lenses broken within a half-second of each other. Being statistically oriented, he considered the probability of simultaneous breakage. The figures that leaped to his mind were astronomical, and of course impossible. He gave it up.
Silently, now, he removed the derelict spectacles, and laid them on the desk. Next, he searched in one of the drawers, and found a spool of transparent tape—naturally, manufactured by Haskett Laboratories. Obviously, he would use it only until he could obtain a new pair.
He replaced the tape in the desk, the glasses on his nose—as the door opened and Miss Haskett walked in.
It was her usual vital entrance. She smiled, and said, “Do you have a moment, Doctor Grayson?” Her repertoire gone, she sank onto a chair and waited with an air of death.
Grayson studied the owner of the Haskett Laboratories from behind his glasses and an astonishing thought passed through his mind. He ought to feel guilty about Miss Haskett. Her lonely life cried out wordlessly for love and affection. And who should answer that call but the man she had confirmed as chief scientist when she had inherited the business from her late aunt? Theirs was an office relationship. But it had involved most of her adult life.
Grayson cleared his throat, uneasy at the thoughts he was having. He was so intent on that he didn’t notice the incongruity of what he did next.
He said, “Uh, Miss Haskett.”
What he did not realize was the assertiveness of his tone. As if he were the employer, and she the employee. And she was evidently not thinking either, or was daydreaming. For she said in an absent tone: “Yes, Doctor?”
“What’s the name of the eye specialist we use for our male staff?”
“Burr. Doctor Burr.”
His thought shifted back to Miss Haskett. “What do you do in your spare time?” he asked.
“Oh—various things.” She seemed alert, suddenly.
“Do you read?”
“Sometimes.”
“Go to the movies?”
“Occasionally.”
Grayson hesitated. An awareness was coming about what he was doing: Asking personal questions of his employer. He had not done that in all their previous association. He was startled.
Inside him, the withdrawal process was beginning.
At this point the woman volunteered, “I live in a condominium complex.”
Grayson was startled by the import of the information. “Alone?” he asked.
Color came into her cheeks. She straightened. Then: “Alone,” she said firmly. And did not look at him.
Grayson was silent. She had deliberately roused herself out of thirty-eight years of shyness to tell him that she had the facilities for an affair.
Grayson sighed. He was married, however drably. And he couldn’t take the risk of his analysis being wrong. It would be ridiculous if he lost his job or got his face slapped, or—worst of all—was hauled before an Utt commissioner.
Thinking of that, shaken by that, he said urgently: “Miss Haskett, I seem to have damaged my spectacles. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that for a male nothing is more important. So if you’ll just hold what you were going to tell me—”
Haskett stood up. “It can wait.” Suddenly brisk, vital again, she added, “Why don’t I have Miss Broman call Dr. Burr, and make an appointment?”
“Uh, thank you.” He spoke absent-mindedly because he was watching Miss Haskett as she went to the door. It occurred to him for the first time in their long business life that she had an excellent figure.
As the door closed, he realized that he had a forbidden male-type feeling; and that he should be experiencing strong guilt reactions.
But what he actually felt was a fear of being found out.
Trembling, he sat there in his private office in the scientific administrative section of Haskett Laboratories and began to feel better, because he decided that he was not really in danger. The dialogue of Miss Haskett and himself was gone into that voiceless universe of all the forgotten—because unrecorded—conversations between people.
She lives alone with her servants, he thought. So she will never mention it.
And I won’t.
His anxiety began to fade.
His momentary lapse was behind him, receding further into the past with each instant.
He suspected what had happened had to do with the cracked lens of his spectacles.
The possibility was genuinely amazing to Grayson. Could it be that the Utt females were right? . . . On their arrival on earth forty years before, the matriarchal Utt had surveyed the human condition, and had diagnosed that the problems of mankind were all traceable to the male.
From the height of total superiority, their female rulers decreed that every male must take a certain drug at puberty. This drug rendered the male nearsighted.
Whereupon, qualified professionals, following Utt specifications, fitted men with spectacles. Something must have been in them. Because the lens, it was said, barred tiny portions of the visible spectrum from stimulating the male optic nerve.
Aside from requiring that all property be owned by women, plus certain transport limitations, and that women were not allowed to take scientific training—an unexplained restriction—that was the only direct Utt female interference in human affairs.
What bothered Grayson was that he had secretly dismissed the Utt analysis. He rejected, in short, the Utt concept that men were the villains of earth’s tormented history. It all seemed far-fetched—made up.
Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure.
He was still thinking about it when Miss Haskett knocked and entered. An unfortunate thing occurred. She gave him information about his appointment. But Grayson heard only the sound, none of the words.
He was intently observing the fact she was a good-looking woman. Absorbed, he watched her leaving the room. It was only after she was gone that he wondered, what did she say?
He was alarmed. The situation which he had thought solved, had had an unsuspected aftereffect. It could—it seemed—repeat with each visual contact.
