Time Travelers Strictly Cash by Spider Robinson Page B

into the pregnancy they had caught her using tobacco and canceled the contract. She fought, but they had photographs. And better lawyers, naturally. She had to repay the advance, and pay for the abortion, of course, and got socked for court costs besides.
    It didn’t make sense. To show clean lungs at the physical, she had to have been off cigarettes for at least three to six months. Why backslide, with so much at stake? Like the minor traumas, it felt more like an effect than a cause. Self-destructive behavior. I kept looking.
    Near the bottom I found something that looked promising. Both her parents had been killed in a car smash when she was eighteen. Their obituary was paper-clipped to her father’s will. It was one of the most extraordinary documents I’ve ever read. I could understand an angry father cutting off his only daughter without a dime. But what he had done was worse. Much worse.
    Dammit, it didn’t work either. So-there suicides don’t wait four years. And they don’t use such a garish method either. It devalues the tragedy. I decided it had to be either a very big and dangerous coke deal gone bad, or a very reptilian lover. No, not a coke deal. They’d never have left her in her own apartment to die the way she wanted to. It could not be murder: Even the most unscrupulous wire surgeon needs an awake, consenting subject to place the wire correctly.
    A lover, then. I realized, pleased with my sagacity, and irritated as hell. I didn’t know why. I chalked it up to my nose. It felt as though a large shark with rubber teeth was rhythmically biting it as hard as he could. I shoveled the papers back into the box, locked and replaced it, and went to the bathroom.
    Her medicine cabinet would have impressed a pharmacist. She had lots of allergies. It took me five minutes to find aspirin. I took four. I picked the largest shard of mirror out of the sink, propped it on the septic tank, and sat down backward on the toilet. My nose was visibly displaced to the right, and the swelling was just hitting its stride. There was a box of kleenex on the floor. I ripped it apart, took out all the tissues, and stuffed them into my mouth. Then I grabbed my nose with my right hand and tugged out and to the left, flushing the toilet simultaneously with my left hand. The flushing coincided with the scream, and my front teeth met through the kleenex. When I could see again the nose looked straight and my breathing was unimpaired. I gingerly washed my face, and then hands, and left. A moment later I returned; something had caught my eye. It was the glass-and-toothbrush holder. There was only one toothbrush in it. I looked through the medicine chest again and noticed this time that there was no shaving cream, no razor either manual or electric, no masculine toiletries of any kind. All the prescriptions were in her name and seemed perfectly legitimate.
    I went thoughtfully to the kitchen, mixed. myself a Preacher’s Downfall by moonlight, and took it to her bedroom. The bedside clock said five. I lit a match, moved the footlocker in front of an armchair, sat down, and put my feet up. I sipped my drink and listened to her snore and watched her breathe in the feeble light of the clock. I decided to run through all the possibilities, and as I was formulating the first one day-light smacked me hard in the nose.
    My hands went up reflexively, and I poured my drink on my head and hurt my nose more. I wake up hard in the best of times. She was still snoring. I nearly threw the empty glass at her.
    It was just past noon now; light came strongly through the heavy curtains, illuminating so much mess and disorder that I could not decide whether she had thrashed her bedroom herself or it had been tossed by a pro. I finally settled on the former: The armchair I’d slept on was intact. Or had the pro found what he wanted before he’d gotten that far?
    I gave it up and went to make myself breakfast.
    It took me an hour or two to clean up and air