I don't know what I expected. A slammed door, probably. But she stood there staring at me. She then put her finger in her mouth and thought about it.
I said, "Utanc, I love you dearly. But if you could just see fit to let me cancel your credit cards and return some of the more valuable purchases, I might be able to weather this somehow."
"O Master," she said, "I am so sorry to hear that I was bought by someone of limited means. However, I share the blame."
My spirits lifted. She did care after all!
She said, "I should have had you looked up in Dunn and Bradstreet before I stepped onto the auction block. I did not, so I am remiss."
It was touching. Of course, as a wild desert girl, she lacked facilities to establish credit ratings.
"I don't suppose," she continued, thoughtfully tapping her teeth, "that capitalistic law allows a pauperized slave girl to sell her master. No, it would be too decadent for that." She frowned prettily and began to weave a lock of her raven black hair. "Certainly, there must be something we can do."
I had an inspiration. I suddenly realized that the basis of all her upset with me was unsatisfied sex. She had always wound up unhappy after a bout. Freud cannot be wrong. She was simply frustrated! But now! Now, after Prahd's great work...
"Utanc," I said. "Why don't you come to my room tonight? I have a beautiful surprise for you!"
"A surprise?" she said suspiciously.
"A big one," I said. "And very nice."
"Hmm," she said. Then, "Master, if I come to your room tonight—just that and nothing more implied —will you let me keep all the things I bought and my credit cards?"
I did a very rapid calculation. There was no doubt whatever in my mind that once she found what I had now, all thought of jewelry and credit cards would vanish. Freud cannot be wrong. Sex is the basis of every tiny impulse, everything in fact. If I could just get her in my room for one hour, after that she would be totally content to live with me the rest of her life in poverty if need be.
I put all my chips on Freud. "Utanc, if you just come to my room tonight and lie down with me upon my bed for just five minutes, you may keep your jewelry and your credit cards."
She nodded. "Nine o'clock. I will be there." She closed her door.
I did a little dance.
I had it solved!
In well under five minutes, all thought of jewelry and credit cards would be gone forever from that pretty head. After that, I would simply ship the offending items back to Tiffany's and rip, rip, tear up the treacherous cards. She would even laugh gaily as I did it! Wonderful, wonderful psychology! Bless Freud!
Chapter 2
I was at once all bouncing enthusiasm. I had to get all these clothes stowed and my room straightened up and I wasted no time.
Problem: I didn't really have enough closet space. Something would have to go. In one secret closet a lot of the space was taken up with hypnohelmets in their big cartons. I sealed them up, just like new, and with a few assorted threats, got them into the Chevy station wagon and made Karagoz take them to Prahd for storage in the new warehouses. That gave me barely enough room, and by means of a lot of cramming and parking things on top of things, I got the job done.
New problem. It was only 4:00 P.M. Five hours to kill!
Heller. Raht had said he had turned on the 831 Relayer. I had better check it out.
I went in the secret office, pushed aside the bogus gold bars and boxes that still littered the floor. I turned on the wall electric fire, mindful of the taxi driver's advice to take care of myself. I got the receiver and viewer out of my baggage, put them on their former low bench and turned them on.
Victory!
There he was in his Empire State Building office.
I couldn't quite make it out, though. I was getting various views of the floor.
Then, finally, his voice. "There it is." He fished a rubber ball out from a dark corner under his desk and, straightening up in his chair, put it on the blotter.
The cat leaped up on the desk, moved over to a point about three feet from the ball and sat down.
Heller rolled the ball at the cat. The cat, with an expert paw, rolled the ball back at Heller. Back and forth, back and forth.
Kind of pathetic. We really had him slowed down. He had nothing better to do than play ball with a cat!
All of a sudden the cat hit the ball a terrific lick and sent it bounding off the desk. This time Heller caught it. "You got to watch that strength, cat. Don't be such a showoff. Somebody will get the idea you're an extraterrestrial and they'll get you for a Code break. Here, chase it for a while!"
Heller tossed the ball the length of the room. The cat was after it like a shot.
Just before the ball hit the wall, the door opened!
The cat ignored the rebounding ball and squared away to the door.
"You missed me." It was Bang-Bang.
The cat saw who it was and said, "Yeow?"
Bang-Bang came across the room. "You got to teach that cat how to shoot better." The cat was following him, eyes on a bag Bang-Bang was carrying. "No, it's not ice cream," Bang-Bang informed it. He threw the bag on the desk.
"There's your photographs you had taken, Jet. And here's a bottle of stuff the man said would float off the emulsion."
"Any questions?" said Jet.
"Hell, no. I told them it was just my G-2 class and they said they were always glad to help a student with his homework."
The cat was satisfying himself the package did not contain ice cream. It was quite obvious he did not believe Bang-Bang.
"Jet," said Bang-Bang. "While I was waiting for this stuff, I thunk up a great plan. I got to do something. I'm scared to go near the family. I can't leave my job or I'll wind up back in Sing Sing. But I got it all worked out."
Heller waved to a chair. The cat sat down to listen.
"It goes like this," said Bang-Bang. "I get the license plates of all publishers' cars in the country. Then I simply put bombs in them and BANGO! they're in Purgatory and we're in clover."
Heller said, "Sounds kind of extensive."
"Well, how about this one? I plant bombs under the TV network buildings-NBC, CBS and ABC. This phony Whiz Kid is bound to show up in one and BLOWIE, he's in Purgatory and we're in clover."
"Then the reporters would mob me."
"Jet, I begin to suspect that you do not have the soul of a good demolition man."
I snorted. Heller, as a combat engineer, had probably blown up more buildings and forts than Bang-Bang had ever heard of. I was astonished to hear Heller answer, "I bow to the expert. However, I somehow don't think any of those is the right target."
I chilled. It was obvious Heller was talking about
ME! Had he really found out? Then I thought it might be Madison he meant. Better Madison than me any time. I waited breathlessly for Heller to say more. He didn't and it dawned on me that he just plain didn't know. I relaxed.
Bang-Bang got up. "Then," he said, "I am left with the final solution."
"And that is?" said Heller.
"Go get a drink of Scotch," said Bang-Bang. "Come on, cat. Your boss won't miss you for an hour and I hate to drink alone."
He departed with the cat trotting after him.
Heller got busy. He propped open a G-2 manual on identification. He emptied the sack of photographs on the desk. They all seemed to be pictures of Heller but somehow he looked different ages. He got a tray and poured some water and fluid in it. Then he went to a safe and got out stacks of I.D.'s. Hey, these were all the passports and social security cards and driver's licenses he had been taking off gangsters and Silva. He spread them out. My Gods, I hadn't realized how many there had been!
Ten at the garage. The two snipers I had hired– Bang-Bang must have picked their pockets! One from the Midtown Air Terminal. Five CIA-sourced ones he'd taken off Silva.
There were others he hadn't taken the I.D. from: the three at the Gracious Palms, two more at the terminal and, of course, Silva's own.
I did a hasty calculation. Heller had wasted nineteen of Faustino's men. They knew it: no wonder they were terrified of him. He had slaughtered eight hoodlums in Van Cortlandt Park. He had wrecked but not killed Torpedo Fiaccola and two Turk wrestlers. And he had blown up ten IRS agents if, by stretch of the imagination, you could call IRS agents human.
Forty men!
They had been after his blood and it was in self-defense. But what might happen if he took it into his head to go hunting people!
He was dangerous!
Oh, I better make awfully sure he did not get out of control! And I had better be awfully careful myself! I sometimes forgot that I was dealing with the top combat engineer of the Voltar Fleet. That was the trouble with him. He was deceptive with all those gentlemanly officer ways and pretenses of decency and even religion.
But never mind. Rockecenter knew his business. Bury knew his business. And thank the Gods, Madison was an expert with a weapon more powerful than I had ever imagined existed—PR.
And we had him stopped. We had him pinned down.
He was fooling with those passports and driver's licenses now. He would put a photograph of himself looking older into the tray of fluid. The thin emulsion of the photograph would begin to separate from the paper backing. Then, using a couple pairs of small tongs, he would slide the emulsion over onto the actual passport picture. Then using a dampened ball of something, he would press the new emulsion down in place so that even the embossing of the seal would come through.
After a while he had eighteen passports. All he had to do was change his own hair color and draw in some age lines on his own face to agree with the age stated, and he could use them himself!
He now went to work on the driver's licenses. This was a little trickier as the small color pictures were tinier. He also had to remove the whole license from its lamination in some cases. He would pick up the emulsion from the color picture, put it aside and then put one of himself in its place. He finished them by running them as a batch through a portable lamination machine he had set up.
Eighteen sets of I.D. But of what possible use were they to him? Names like Cecchino, Serpente, Laccio, Rapitore... All mobster names. They would be known and show up on police computers. And everybody would know by this time that Inganno John Scroccone, Faustino's chief accountant, was dead. Only those five CIA passports might be of some use and I would bet anything they would trace back as a CIA operative cover. And of a dead operative—Gunsalmo Silva.
Then I began to laugh. I understood what this was all about. He was pinned to the name Wister, of course, by college and friends. But Madison had driven him under cover. Heller couldn't even register in a motel without some clerk thinking he was the Whiz Kid! We were really wrecking him!
Oh, that made me feel good. I had Heller on the run. He was living in a little tiny room beside his office. He was probably even going to lose that soon. He was undoubtedly low on cash. He had lost the support of Babe and the family. He would probably soon lose Izzy.
A beautiful vision! Heller, broke, adrift as a bum in New York. It had all begun with the brilliance of Lombar. It had been pushed on through by the brilliance of Rockecenter. And with Madison as a hatchet man, the Heller tree was cut down.
He didn't have a prayer!
That would teach him the stupidity of trying to benefit a planet!
Planets and populations exist to be milked by the power elite. Unless one understood that thoroughly, one could do a lot of stupid things like help people.
The Gods put the riffraff there as prey for superior men like Hisst and Rockecenter. And there was very short shrift for anyone who thought otherwise.
I hugged myself with glee.
Then, at length, I threw a blanket over the viewer.
I had more important things to do than watch the painful demise of a (bleeped) fool Royal officer with silly notions you could help a world.
Chapter 3
At 9:00 P.M., aglow with anticipation, I lay in the bed in my room. All the lights were out, just the way she always wanted it. But there was a big difference: I had taken off all my clothes and, like you wrap a present, had thrown a single sheet over myself.
Was she going to be surprised! Wow! I was making a big thing out of it, of course, but such splendid moments don't come often in a lifetime.
I heard a slight sound at the door. Then a groping gave a tremor to the bed.
In a moment I felt her weight and warmth beside me. A gentle jasmine perfume filled the air. I began to quiver with excitement. "Darling," I whispered.
I put out my hand to encircle her. She was fully clothed as always at such moments.
She withdrew slightly. "What's this surprise?" she said.
I groped for and found her hand. I guided it under the sheet. I made the fingers touch my chest and then began to press her hand downwards.
"Feel this," I whispered, a little choked with passion. "Look what I've got for you."
I made her fingers connect with me.
"What the HELL?"
Oh, I knew she would be surprised!
Her fingers recoiled. Then they reached again, encircled my member.
"Hey!" she said. "What kind of a trick is this? A falsie? A dildo? Well, we'll see about THAT!"
Her fingers began to pluck all around the edges, then at the surrounding area. The fingernails were pretty sharp. She was trying to find if there was any strap to hold it on.
"No, no," I said hastily. "It's real!"
"We'll see about that!" she said grimly.
She wrapped her fingers around it, held on hard and gave it a mighty yank!
"OUCH!" I shrieked.
"By Allah the Merciful, it IS real!"