Mission: Earth "Death Quest" (26 page)

She turned off the record but in doing so turned on an FM radio station. It was pumping electronic pop music. You couldn't understand the words, so that was better.

"You must think," said Pinch, "that we're trying to

do you in, Inkswitch. This is not the case. It is a simple arrangement. You marry us and then we won't get fired if we have these babies. We can show that we are actually married. Be reasonable, Inkswitch."

I sat there, still stricken.

"I'll tell you what we will do," said Miss Pinch. "You have signed quite a few blank invoices. So the original money of yours is almost intact in that safe." She pointed to where it stood, covered now so as to look like a rock wreathed in sea foam. "You're always bleating around about money."

I flinched at this reference to goats.

Miss Pinch smiled thinly. "If you give us your word to go through with this without giving us any trouble at all, no matter what, I'll give you the combination to that safe, and also you can draw whatever you want from petty cash thereafter. I will simply bring it right home to you and drop it in your lap. That's around sixty-five thousand from the safe and unlimited drawing thereafter. How can you lose, Inkswitch?"

Inkswitch! It was not my real Earth name. I clutched at a straw and also at the funds necessary to make it possible for me to flee at the earliest opportunity. Still, marriage? I shuddered to the depths of my soul. I un-clutched.

She saw my hesitation. She said, "We don't want to use the alternative of suing you," she said.

The horror of Izzy's description of the legal system reclutched at my throat.

Words stuck in my voice pipe. I forced them out anyway. "All right."

"What?" said Miss Pinch.

I realized I had spoken in Voltarian and with a Fleet

accent, too! I choked and finally made it in English. "All right."

She smiled grimly. Candy clapped her hands.

The only trouble was, Candy did the hand clapping in rhythm to the song that had just come on. It was one of those rare modern songs where one could understand the lyrics. It said:

Ill and spinning, I got out of the front room and back to the rear. I closed the door to shut out the awful electronic music. But the drumbeats kept coming through like thuds of doom.

It was more by chance than design that I saw what happened at the condo. Heller's voice, "Dear?" The blanket had slipped off the viewer and I, sitting there, staring with dilated pupils, noticed that Heller was looking into Krak's room.

Boxes were thrown about but the place was otherwise cleaned out.

The butler was in the door, looking very unhappy.

"Where did she say she was going?" demanded

Heller.

"She didn't say, sir. Her maid packed for her and went with her. But she did not take the car. She called a fleet of cabs and they loaded her baggage and left."

"Didn't she leave any note?" said Heller.

"No, sir. She wasn't talking to anyone, sir. The maid even called the cabs."

"What cab company?"

"I don't know, sir. I'm terribly sorry, sir. She did make a phone call and at the time I thought it must be to you. Otherwise I would have phoned you myself. She seemed very crushed, sir. I thought perhaps there had been a death in the family."

"She made a call," said Heller. Then he snapped his fingers. "Mamie Boomp!"

He grabbed the phone. He punched the automatic button.

"President Mamie Boomp here," said the voice.

"This is Wister. I must contact Joy. She's gone."

Mamie's voice was sniffish. "I shouldn't be surprised."

"Look," pleaded Heller. "Please tell me where she is or where she will be. I am very worried."

"Young man, I get pretty tired of you good-time Charlies. You can push it on the short stretch but never on the long haul. I think you've horsed that poor girl around enough. Now go find yourself a floozy that's low enough for the likes of you and leave good women alone!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Heller.

"They never do," said Mamie. "All take and no give. Have you ever even handed over a diamond?"

"No," said Heller. "Miss B– – "

"I thought not," said Mamie. "Thought the promise of the little gold ring was enough. Even when you knew you couldn't hitch up to run double and knew it God (bleeped) well. The old story!"

"Miss Boomp," said Heller, "if you know where she is, for Gods' sakes, tell me. I'm out of my mind with worry."

"You were out of your mind to think you could pull a raw stunt like that and get away with it, sailor. She's better off without you. And just to keep you from run-nin' up the phone bill-since it's no pleasure at all to talk to a lying, two-timing cheat-I do not know where she is except that she has left you. And that is final. Don't call me again, you would-be bigamist!" She hung up.

Heller stood there. He turned to the butler. "This doesn't make any sense. No slightest idea what cab company?"

"No, sir. I didn't think it was important. Actually,

the staff thought she was going to her family somewhere. She has been crying lately. We thought someone was dying."

Heller turned to the phone. He called Central Airline reservations. He demanded to know if any reservation had been made on any airline for Miss Heavenly Joy Krackle. The answer was negative. He called charter aircraft clearance. No such name on any charter.

He called Twoey in New Jersey. No, Twoey knew nothing except she hadn't turned up for lessons lately so he could teach her more about pigs.

Heller called Izzy. Negative. He had Izzy ask Bang-Bang. Negative.

He said to the butler, "She wouldn't touch a train as she hates them and with all that baggage she couldn't take a bus. She must have gone to a hotel somewhere in this very city. Now, listen, think hard. Did anything happen just before she left?"

"Well, yes. A man came and insisted that he see her. And then the man ran away. Isn't that the paper there, sir? Under that box?"

The butler picked it up and Heller grabbed it.

He stared at the legal paper. He read it. He stared at it again. Then he crumpled it up with a savage closure of his hand.

"Blast them! I understand now," he said. He slumped down on the bottom of the bed. Then he said, "The poor kid. The people who keep this rotten legal system going should be killed. Oh, the poor kid." And he was crying.

After a horrible night, I awoke to more horror.

I had had constant nightmares in which I was Heller being sued by Meeley, my old landlady on Voltar, for counterfeiting a marriage to the dead mistress of the colonel of the Death Battalion who had been strangled by Torpedo.

Miss Pinch was standing there. She was dressed, most unlike her, in an organdy dress. She had laid out a black suit, the kind they bury people in on this planet. The old Jew must have been a storekeeper with foresight for including the outfit in my wardrobe.

Like an automaton, I got dressed. Somewhere far off I heard a crackle: it sounded like gunfire in volley, just like the final grave salute. Miss Pinch said it was just Candy opening and closing the fridge. I didn't believe her.

We went outside. A rental car, a Datsun, stood at the curb. Miss Pinch got behind the wheel. Candy came out wearing a black cape. I hadn't seen Miss Pinch put it on but she was wearing a black cape, too.

"Oh, we're all too solemn for a wedding day," said Candy and turned on the car radio. It was playing that dying song again.

Miss Pinch drove with expertise and speed. She seemed to know exactly where she was going and apparently had been there before. We tooled along on

expressways and soon were out of all skyscrapers and cluttered streets and on the Merritt Parkway.

I had the distinct impression I was being taken for a ride. But a Datsun isn't a long, black limousine: it bobs and buckets about. I was reassured, as the jolting kept me informed that I was still alive.

"Where are we going?" I said timidly from the back seat.

They didn't answer.

An hour and a half out of New York, we were looking for a parking spot. The signs said we were in

Hartford

Connecticut

Population 819,432 1/2

The Home of Colt

Patent Firearms

Now I knew why we had come there. I was going to be shot.

In no time at all we were marching into the city hall, following signs which said Danger Ahead and Marriage. It was no solace to be told the Danger Ahead signs referred to the traffic department. I knew what they referred to. A bunch of frightened men and gleeful women were standing in a queue.

In a quiet, deadly voice, Miss Pinch said, "All arrangements were done beforehand by a private detective."

"I thought private detectives came after marriage," I said.

"Be quiet. All papers are in order. All you have to do is say yes."

"Yes," I said.

"Not here, you dummy. When we get in front of the clerk."

The line of couples sped forward at an alarming rate.

Candy and Miss Pinch took off their black cloaks. Candy was dressed in a wedding gown! Miss Pinch was dressed as a bridesmaid.

With the suddenness of a natural cataclysm we were at the counter. A gray-headed clerk did not look up. Miss Pinch shoved the papers under his nose.

I looked for a direction to run.

There was none.

The clerk said, "DoyouCandyLicoricetakethismanto-beyourawfulweddedhusband?''

"Yes," Candy said.

"DoyouSultan Beytakethiswomantobeyourawfulwed-dedwife?"

A sharp instrument in the hands of Pinch prodded me. "Ow!" I said.

The clerk raised a gavel and brought it down on the desk with a sharp rap. He said in his rapid slur of a voice, "Bythepowersinvestedinmebythe Stateof Connecti-cutlherebysentenceyoutomarriage. Signthebook. Paythe-cashier."

Candy signed. Miss Pinch had my wrist clutched. Everything looked faint and faraway. I scribbled something.

Two witnesses who seemed to be on regular duty signed the book. Stamping machines banged. Copy machines roared.

Miss Pinch snapped her pocketbook shut.

We were out on the street.

They got in the Datsun.

"Turn your back," said Candy.

"And don't try to run away," said Pinch.

There was a scrambling in the Datsun.

"Get in," said Miss Pinch.

I turned around. The girls, right there in the parking lot with everybody looking except me, had swapped dresses.

Miss Pinch, now in the wedding gown, elrove griiriiy north.

Something was bothering me. I could not pinpoint what it was. There had been something just a bit odd about that ceremony.

We drove for thirty-five miles. A sign said we were in

Springfield

Massachusetts

Population 167,500 %

Another one said:

United States Armory

Small Arms

Home of the

Springfield and Garand Rifles

Now I was very certain I would be shot.

Shortly we were standing before a counter in the city hall. My vision was kind of blurred but I could have sworn it was the same man that had been in Hartford and I wondered how he could have made the trip faster than we did. But Datsuns are not very fast cars.

Miss Pinch in her wedding dress, although holding a bouquet, yet had a lock on my arm.

The clerk said, "DoyouAdoraPinchtakethismanto-beyourawfulweddedhusband? DoyouSultan Beytakethis-womantobeyourawfulweddedwife? Signthebook. Paythe-cashier. Next."

Somebody was pushing my hand to sign. All of a sudden I saw what I was writing:

Sultan Bey!

I was not writing "Inkswitch"! I was writing the name I really bore on Earth!

"Wait!" I screamed.

How could this be? Pinch didn't know that name. She thought my name was Inkswitch.

The clerk and everybody was looking.

"That's the wrong name!" I screamed.

They stared at me.

"He thought he was in Boston," said Pinch.

They all laughed.

With the sharp ends of the bouquet wires penetrating the flesh of my side, I was gotten back on the street.

"I thought I would be married in the name of Ink-switch!" I wailed.

"You've got a crooked streak in you," said Pinch. "If you wanted us to think your Fed cover name was your real name, you shouldn't babble some outlandish tongue that could be Turkish in your sleep and you shouldn't leave your most-used passport and birth certificate around. For convenience, we will continue to call you Inkswitch. But don't try to pull something like that again! You're very legally married, Sultan Bey."

Something inside me snapped. I began to babble. I heard myself saying, "My real name is Jettero Heller."

"Nonsense," said Candy, laughing. "Next you'll be telling us you're that other name you scream in your sleep, 'Officer Gris.'"

"No, Sultan Bey," said Mrs. Bey nee Pinch. "Make up your mind to it. You are our lawfully wedded husband, for better or for worse, and even though you aren't

much, we'll have to get used to it and so will you. Become accustomed to the fact that you are now probably the most married man on the entire eastern seaboard. The knots are irrevocably tied. Let's have some hamburgers and go home."