Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison

shouldering the equipment case.
    Shirl came out as Steve was leaving. “We have a lead now, Miss Greene,” Andy told her. “I found a window in the basement that has been pried open. If there are any fingerprints on the glass or frame and they match the ones found on the jimmy, it will be fairly strong evidence that whoever did the killing broke into the building that way. And we’ll compare the jimmy marks with the ones on the door here. Do you mind if I sit down?”
    “No,” she said, “of course not.”
    The chair was soft and the murmuring air-conditioner made the room an island of comfort in the steaming heat of the city. He leaned back and some of the tension and fatigue drained away; the door announcer buzzed.
    “Excuse me,” Shirl said and went to answer it. There was a murmur of voices in the hallway behind him as he flipped the pages in his notepad. The plastic cover was buckled on one of the sheets and some of the lettering was fading, so he went over it again with his stylo, pressing hard so that it was sharp and black.
    “You get outta here, you dirty whore!”
    The words were screamed in a hoarse voice, rising shrilly like a scraped fingernail on glass. Andy climbed to his feet and jammed the notepad into his side pocket. “What’s going on out there?” he called.
    Shirl came in, flushed and angry, followed by a thin gray-haired woman. The woman stopped when she saw Andy and pointed a trembling finger at him. “My brother dead and not even buried yet and this one is carrying on with another man …”
    “I’m a police officer,” Andy said, showing her his buzzer. “Who are you?”
    She drew herself up, a slight movement that did nothing to increase her height; years of bad posture and indifferent diet hadrounded her shoulders and hollowed her chest. Scrawny arms dangled from the sleeves of the much worn, mud-colored house-dress. Her face, filmed now with sweat, was more gray than white, the skin of a Photophobic city dweller; the only coloring in it appeared to be the grime of the streets. When she spoke her lips opened in a narrow slit, delivered the words like metal stampings from a press, then closed instantly afterward lest they deliver one item more than was needed. Only the watery blue eyes held any motion or life, and they twitched with anger.
    “I’m Mary Haggerty, poor Michael’s sister and only living relation by blood. I’ve come to take care of Michael’s things, he’s left them all to me in his will, the lawyer told me that, and I have to take care of them. That whore’ll have to get out, she’s taken enough from him….”
    “Just a minute.” Andy broke into the shrill babble of words and her mouth snapped shut while she breathed rapidly through flared righteous nostrils. “Nothing can be touched or taken from this apartment without police permission, so you don’t have to worry about your possessions.”
    “You can’t say that with her here,” she squawled and turned on Shirl. “She’ll steal and sell everything that’s not nailed down. My good brother …”
    “Your good brother!” Shirl shouted. “You hated his guts and he hated yours, and you never came near this place as long as he was alive.”
    “Shut up!” Andy broke in, coming between the two women. He turned to Mary Haggerty. “You can go now. The police will let you know when the things in this apartment are available.”
    She was shocked. “But—you can’t do that. I have my rights. You can’t leave that whore here alone.”
    Andy’s patience was cracking. “Watch your language, Mrs. Haggerty. You’ve used that word enough. Don’t forget what
your
brother did for a living.”
    Her face went white and she took a half step backward. “My brother was in business, a businessman,” she said weakly.
    “Your brother was in the rackets, and that means girls among other things.” Without her anger to hold her erect she slumped, deflated, thin and bony; the only round thing in her body was her