“I thought they were all registered,” Anne said.
“They are. I told her she had the wrong neutroid, but she got mad. Went and got the sales receipt. It checked with her newt, and it was from O’Reilley’s pet shop—right place, wrong number. I just don’t get it.”
“Nothing to worry about, is it Terry?”
He looked at her peculiarly. “Ever think what might happen if someone started a black market in neutroids?”
They finished the meal in silence. After lunch he went out again to gather up the rest of the group. By four o’clock, he had gotten all that were to be had without the threat of a warrant. The screams and pleas and tears of the owners left him gloomily despising himself.
If Delmont’s falsification had been widespread, he might have to turn several of the thirty-five over to central lab for dissection and ultimate destruction. That would bring the murderous wrath of their owners down upon him. He began to understand why bio-inspectors were frequently shifted from one territory to another.
On the way home, he stopped in Sherman II to check on the missing number. It was the largest of the Sherman communities, covering fifty blocks of commercial buildings. He parked in the outskirts and took a sidewalk escalator toward O’Reilley’s address.
It was on a dingy sidestreet, reminiscent of past centuries, a street of small bars and bowling alleys and cigar stores. There was even a shop with three gold balls above the entrance, but the place was now an antique store. A light mist was falling when he stepped off the escalator and stood in front of the pet shop. A sign hung out over the sidewalk, announcing:
J. “Doggy” O’Reilley
Pets for sale
Dumb blondes and goldfish
Mutants for the childless
Buy a bundle of joy
Norris frowned at the sign and wandered inside. The place was warm and gloomy. He wrinkled his nose at the strong musk of animal odors. O’Reilley’s was not a shining example of cleanliness.
Somewhere a puppy was yapping, and a parrot croaked the lyrics of “A Chimp to Call My Own”, which Norris recognized as the theme song of a popular soap-opera about a lady evolvotron operator.
He paused briefly by a tank of silk-draped goldfish. The shop had a customer. An elderly lady was haggling with a wizened manager over the price of a half grown secondhand dog-F. She was shaking her last dog’s death certificate under his nose and demanding a guarantee of the dog’s alleged F-5 intelligence. The old man offered to swear on a Bible, but he demurred when it came to swearing on a ledger.
The dog was saying, “Don’ sell me, Dada. Don’ sell me.”
Norris smiled sardonically to himself. The nonhuman pets were smarter than the neutroids. A K-108 could speak a dozen words, and a K-99 never got farther than “mamma,” “pappa,” and “cookie.” Anthropos was afraid to make the quasi-humans too intelligent, lest sentimentalists proclaim them really human.
He wandered on toward the back of the building, pausing briefly by the cash register to inspect O’Reilley’s license, which hung in a dusty frame on the wall behind the counter. “James Fallon O’Reilley … authorized dealer in mutant animals … all non-predatory mammals including chimpanzee-K series … license expires .”
It seemed in order, although the expiration date was approaching. He started toward a bank of neutroid cages along the opposite wall, but O’Reilley was mincing across the floor to meet him. The customer had gone. The little manager wore an elfin professional smile, and his bald head bobbled in a welcoming nod.
“Good day, sir, good day! May I show you a dwarf kangaroo, or a—” He stopped and adjusted his spectacles. He blinked and peered as Norris flashed his badge. His smile waned.
“I’m Agent Norris, Mr. O’Reilley. Called you yesterday for that rundown on K-99 sales.”
O’Reilley looked suddenly nervous. “Oh, yes. Find ’em all?”
Norris shook his head. “No. That’s why I stopped by. There’s some mistake on—” he glanced at his list—“on K-99-LJZ-351. Let’s check it again.”
O’Reilley seemed to cringe. “No mistake. I gave you the buyer’s name.”
“She has a different number.”
“Can I help it if she traded with somebody?”
“She didn’t. She bought it here. I saw the receipt.”
“Then she traded with one of my other customers!” snapped the old man.
“Two of your customers have the same name—Adelia Schultz? Not likely. Let’s see your duplicate receipt book.”
O’Reilley’s wrinkled face set itself into a stubborn mask. “Doubt if it’s still around.”
Norris frowned. “Look, pop, I’ve had a rough day. I could start naming some things around here that need fixing—sanitary violations and such. Not to mention that sign—‘dumb blondes.’ They outlawed that one when they executed that shyster doctor for shooting K-108s full of growth hormones, trying to raise himself a harem to sell. Besides, you’re required to keep sales records until they’ve been microfilmed. There hasn’t been a microfilming since July.”
The wrinkled face twitched with frustrated anger. O’Reilley shuffled to the counter while Norris followed. He got a fat binder from under the register and started toward a wooden stairway.
“Where you going?” Norris called.
“Get my old glasses,” the manager grumbled. “Can’t see through these new things.”
“Leave the book here and I’ll check it,” Norris offered.
But O’Reilley was already limping quickly up the stairs. He seemed not to hear. He shut the door behind him, and Norris heard the lock click. The bio-agent waited. Again the thought of a black market troubled him. Unauthorized neutroids could mean lots of trouble.
Five minutes passed before the old man came down the stairs. He said nothing as he placed the book on the counter. Norris noticed that his hands were trembling as he shuffled through the pages.
“Let me look,” said the bio-agent.
O’Reilley stepped reluctantly aside. Norris had memorized the owner’s receipt
