A fork!
Somebody was feeding him something as he watched TV!
The hand vanished and my sound was blurred by crunchy chewing.
There was somebody with him! Minette?
Had she won after all?
The newscaster was droning on about some celebrities that had been mugged. It was quite a list.
Heller turned his head slightly to the right. Wait! What was that? Something white over to the right of the TV!
In his peripheral vision, I managed to make it out. Two pairs of white feet! One in slippers with lace puffs, the other set bare!
And there was a low murmur over to his right. I had missed it in amongst the news. I hastily replayed the auxiliary screen, turning up its gain. Two girls' voices! Was one Minette?
I made one out amongst the news overplay. A middle-western accent. "... and honey, let me tell you, he was
very, very good! I think he was the best..."
Then the other girl's murmur. Was this Minette? I turned the gain higher and changed the tone controls. "... well, I really thought it was quite impossible to have that many orgasms in one ..." An English accent! These were two entirely different girls!
The newscaster was continuing. He went through some stock-exchange data. Then he said, "A Treasury Department spokesman stated this afternoon that the New Jersey BAFT chief, Oozopopolis, and several other revenooers are missing. Shortages in their accounts were denied although it is well known that Oozopopolis had extensive banking connections in the Bahamas. Airports on this side of the river are being watched." He chuckled again. "But that's life in Jersey, isn't it, folks."
Heller leaned forward and pushed a button to turn it off. The automatic gain control made my screen go more normal. He turned to his left. Sitting across the side table from him was a gorgeous, slinky, high-yellow girl! She had on next to nothing! A flimsy scarf was draped over her shoulders, her breasts clearly visible through it.
Where was Minette?
What was this girl doing here?
She was laughing, her beautiful teeth flashing. "And so, honey, you better believe him. Stay away from that Jersey side. Just cuddle around here." She made a sensuous movement with her breasts. She pushed a fork into a huge Caesar salad in a crystal bowl. She brushed the mouthful against her lips and then pushed it seductively across the table to him. "When you is done eating, pretty boy, would you like me to demonstrate how it's done in Harlem?" She laughed a low, seductive laugh. Utterly tantalizing! Then her eyes went hot. "In fac', I think that's
enough supper." She put down the fork and began to stand up.
She only had on that flimsy scarf.
She was wearing nothing else!
She reached out her hand....
The interference hit again!
I moaned. I waited for it to die down.
It didn't.
After a couple of minutes, very upset, I went back to my sleeping room and lay down in my bed.
Flesh can only stand so much!
After a little, I got hold of my spinning wits and emotions.
One thing was very plain. There was interference. It came on and off.
He had probably unpacked his baggage and put it in several of the many cubicles and closets. If I were patient, no matter how long it took, I could piece out exactly where he must have put the platen.
I would still carry out my plan!
Chapter 4
In the other room, the equipment stopped buzzing. Led by a dreadful fascination, I tottered back in to see what was going on now.
Heller was just stepping out of the elevator into the lobby.
I looked at my watch. It must be wrong. I have trouble with time conversion from one part of a planet to another but I couldn't be that wrong. Only ten minutes
ago, I had seen the slinky high-yellow girl standing up in invitation. Yet here was Heller in the lobby.
Let's see. It would have taken him a few minutes to dress. Say a minute to come down in the elevator...
Well, let's say he was awfully fast.
It was early evening in New York. There were quite a few people in the lobby, mostly in Western business suits but with the multihued faces of many lands. Prosperous looking, debonair men about town from deserts and mountains and villages on stilts—the typical UN crowd. They were piled up a bit at the desk, making appointments, sitting about until they heard their number called or sauntering around trying to work up a new appetite.
I realized Heller was putting in the agreed-upon lobby appearance to discourage certain visitors. I could see in a reflecting mirror that he did not yet have his new clothes—he was wearing his plain blue suit. At least he didn't have his baseball cap on. But when he walked on bare floor, I could tell he still wore those baseball shoes.
He sat down in a chair where he could be seen from the door and where he could see the office entrance of the "Host." Almost at once, a houseman entered the lobby from the street. He was carrying a pile of magazines and newspapers. He walked straight to Heller, gave him the pile. Heller handed him a twenty-dollar bill and waved away the change.
Wait! Heller must have called him from his suite! So subtract that, too, from the ten minutes! What had happened with that slinky high-yellow girl?
Casting an eye now and then on the street entrance and the manager's door, Heller settled down to read. Ah, I would have a clue as to what his plans were by analyzing what he was reading.
Racing magazines!
The American Hot Rod, Racing Today, The Blowout, Hot Stock Cars. He leafed through them but, knowing Heller, he was reading every page. Sneaky. But I had learned his habits. When he was really interested, he would pause and stare at a page and think about it.
He halted his leafing. The magazine had a picture of an old Pontiac sedan. The article was "Out of the Pit to Glory."
Of course! Heller the speedophile! Heller the stopwatch-oriented lunatic. Heller, an obvious case of velocity dementia in its last stages of progressive terminalization!
But wait. As he paused, his eye was on a figure and stayed on the figure. The last sentence of the article read:
"And so, for the pittance of $225,000 in expenses, we were able to cover the entire stock-car circuit for one whole season and wound up with all bills paid, which is glory enough for anybody!"
His eyes kept straying back to that "$225,000."
He watched the crowd for a while. Not much of a throng as the UN wasn't in session. One of the tuxedoed security guards drifted over beside his chair and said, out of the corner of his mouth, "Watch out for that deputy delegate from Maysabongo. He just came in, there. The one with the opera cloak and top hat. He carries a kris up his sleeve. Must be two feet long. Runs amok now and then." The guard drifted away.
Heller yawned, a sure sign of tension. He opened a newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. He wandered through it. He paused on a page of box ads featuring real estate
offerings. He examined the "ex-urban" ones—those way past the suburbs and out of town entirely. They had them for Bucks County, Pennsylvania, for Vermont and for various counties in Connecticut. All ideal for the executive weekend. He began to stare at one. It said:
OWN YOUR OWN FEUDAL FIEFDOM BE A MONARCH OF ALL YOU SURVEY
Vast estate going for peanuts
FIVE WHOLE ACRES, NO BUILDINGS
UNTOUCHED WILDERNESS OF CONNECTICUT
ONLY $300,000
His eye was stuck on the $300,000.
He opened the paper to other sections. He looked over "Commodity Markets" with all their vast rows of figures for the various futures for the day. He inspected the stock market with all its tangles of incomprehensible abbreviations.
A movement over at the "Host" door. A huge, dark-complected man in a turban came out with Vantagio. They stood on the lobby side of the door, completing their discussion. I hastily turned up my gain.
It was in English. The turbaned one was thanking Vantagio for straightening out t
he bill. Then, he looked around and saw Heller.
"New face," said the turbaned giant.
"Oh, that youngster," said Vantagio. "It's in confidence. His father is a very important man, a Moslem. Married an American movie actress. That's the son. He's going to go to college and his father insisted he live here. We couldn't say no. Would have caused endless diplomatic repercussions had we refused."
"Ah," said the turbaned one. "I can clear up that
puzzle for you. You have to understand the Mohammedan religion. You see," he continued learnedly, "in the Middle East, it is tradition that the children, including boys, are raised in, and have to live in, the harem. And this whorehouse is probably as close as his father could come to a harem in the United States. Quite natural, really."
"Well, thank you for clearing up my confusion," said Vantagio, the master of political science.
"I'll just go over and greet him in his native tongue," said the turbaned giant. "Make him feel at home."
Here he came! He stopped in front of Heller. He went through the elaborate hand ritual of the Arab greeting. He said something that sounded like "Aliekoom sala'am." And then a long rigmarole. Arabic!
Yikes! Heller didn't speak Arabic!
Heller rose. With elaborate politeness, he copied the hand motions and bow exactly. Then he said, "I am dreadfully sorry but I am forbidden to speak my native tongue while I am in the United States. But I am doing fine and I truly hope you have a nice evening."
They both bowed.
The turbaned giant went back to Vantagio. "A well-brought-up youth, obviously raised in a harem like I said. I can tell by his accent. But I will keep your secret, Vantagio, especially since he is the son of the Aga Khan."
Leaving Vantagio, the huge turbaned man went promptly over to a little group by the door and whispered to them. Their eyes flicked covertly toward Heller. The secret was being well kept. By everybody.
A half an hour passed and Heller's perusal of the papers had exhausted them. He was sitting there quietly when the deputy delegate from Maysabongo came out of
the elevator and rushed over to the desk. He slammed his top hat down on the counter.
"Where is that pig Stuffumo?" he demanded of the clerk.
The clerk looked anxiously around. There were no security guards in the lobby at the moment.
"I demand it! I demand you tell me!" The deputy delegate was gripping the clerk's coat.
Heller stood up. The fool. He had been told the man had a kris in his sleeve! A kris is the wickedest short sword there is! And I didn't have that platen!
"Harlotta was not there!" snarled the deputy delegate. "She is with Stuffumo! I know it!"
The elevator door opened and a very fat brown man in a business suit walked out.
"Stuffumo!" screamed the deputy delegate. "Enemy of the people! Capitalistic warmonger! Death to aggressors!"
He raced across the room. The clerk was madly pushing buzzers. Stuffumo flinched, tried to get back into the elevator.
The deputy delegate whipped the kris out of his sleeve, two feet of wavy steel!
He made a slash through the air. The blade whistled!
The top of Stuffumo's waistcoat gapped!
The deputy delegate drew back the blade to strike again.
Suddenly, Heller was in front of him!
The blade swished as it began the second slash.
Heller caught the man's wrist!
He pushed his thumb into the back of the man's hand. The blade fell.
Heller caught it by the handle before it hit the floor.
Two security guards were there. Heller waved them
back. Heller gently pushed the deputy delegate and Stuffumo into a corner of the elevator.
"What room is Harlotta in?" said Heller, hand poised over the elevator buttons.
Both Stuffumo and the deputy delegate stared at him. Heller was hefting the kris. "Come, come," he said. "At least tell me what floor. We can find her."
"What do you mean to do?" said the deputy delegate.
"Why," said Heller, "she has caused two important men embarrassment. She'll have to be killed, of course." And he hefted the kris.
"No!" cried Stuffumo. "Not Harlotta!"
"NO!" cried the deputy delegate. "Not my darling Harlotta!"
"But I am sure it is house rules," said Heller. "She could have caused you both to kill each other. It isn't permitted!"
"Please," said Stuffumo.
"Please don't," said the deputy delegate.
"I'm afraid there's no other way," said Heller.
"Oh, yes, there is!" cried the deputy delegate, triumphantly. "We can have a conference about it!"
"Correct!" said Stuffumo. "The proper solution to all international disputes!"
The two promptly sat down in the corner of the elevator, facing each other.
"First, the agenda!" said the deputy delegate firmly.
Heller pushed the out-of-operation button and walked out, leaving them in the elevator.
One of the Italian security guards said, "Thank you, kid. That was good knife work. But you should pay attention when I tip you off. They have diplomatic immunity, you know, and can't be arrested for anything, no matter what they do. But law-abiding Americans like you and
me can be. We usually don't stick around when that one arrives. Maybe he'll be good now."
Vantagio came out. Heller handed him the kris.
The two ex-combatants walked out of the elevator. "We have come to an accord," said Stuffumo. "Bilateral occupation of territory."
"I will have Harlotta Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He will have her Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays," said the deputy delegate.
"We have to spend Sunday with our wives," added Stuffumo.
"Vantagio," said the deputy delegate, "may we borrow your office for the formal ratification and signing of the treaty?"
Heller watched them until they vanished into Vantagio's office. He yawned. He gathered up his papers, entered the elevator and exited at the top floor.
As he passed down the hall to his room, a nearby door opened and a girl rushed out. She had on a silk robe but it wasn't tied and her forward motion blew it back and exposed everything she had. She was a beautiful brunette!
"Oh, there you are, pretty boy. Business is too slack tonight. Some of the girls say you have something beautifully new." She looked at him seductively, stroking his arm. "Please, pretty please, can I come in with you and we..."
My screen flashed out. The interference roared.
But I had a lot of other things to puzzle over. He was interested in his usual hobby, speed. He was interested in an executive retreat in the wilderness. I felt I should be able to piece it together.
But even though I labored into the Turkish dawn, I could not figure out how you would run a racing car in a tree-infested wilderness. Or why.
Chapter 5
It was three in the afternoon in Turkey when I arose. Not really thinking, still numb with sleep, I walked into my secret office and, like a fool, looked into the view-screen.
I nearly fainted!
I was staring twenty stories straight down!
I felt like I was going to fall!
The people were small spots in the street below; the cars were toys!
The strain I had been under was telling. The shock was too much. I pulled my eyes away and shuddered into a chair. After a few minutes, I got control of my stomach and dared take another look.
What in Hells was he up to?
He was on a cupola that crowned the Gracious Palms. Fifteen feet below him, firmly on the asphalt roof, a whore in a green jump suit was steadying a line up to him.
He was rigging a TV antenna kit! That's what it read on the top of the box he was steadying on his knees:
HANDY JIM-DANDY FULLY-AUTOMATIC
INSTALL-IT-YOURSELF RADIO-CONTROLLED
REMOTE TV ANTENNA WITH SIGNAL BOOSTER
He had inset the fe
et into the concrete top of the cupola. He was now adjusting the booster. He glanced
around and it was visible that several nearby buildings had them. He must have had it sent out for the day before.
Oho! So he was having signal trouble, too! But wait, this must mean that the TV wasn't working when my equipment wasn't working, so those girls in his room weren't there to watch TV!
He completed the upper installation and then, box under his arm, he started down a line.
I had him. Code break! It was a spacer safety line! He was carrying Voltarian gear in his suitcases!
He was working with a stapler, fastening the TV cable to the stone as he descended.
He got to the bottom and turned toward the woman. There she was, a New York whore, holding a spacer safety line manufactured in Industrial City, Voltar! I watched like a hawk. Did she realize it? Everything depended on that! I could simply order him off the mission and court-martialed!
"Here's your clothesline, honey," she said. "Now, what do I do?"
He took it, gave it the snap that causes it to come loose at the top and caught it in coils around his wrist as it fell—a typical show-off spacer gesture: I don't know how they do it.
"You just uncoil this reel, Martha. Just walk along and I'll fasten it down as we go."
"Okay, dearie," she said. And along they went. She had a stick through the reel and Heller was snubbing it under the parapet with the stapler.
Then, I realized something else. Heller must know where the interference was coming from. The roof he was laying the cable on was about three hundred and fifty feet long, perhaps double the building width. The antenna was outside the interference zone. I tried to plot
from this where and what the interference might be, for I was not only very curious about what he did in that suite, I also had to know where he could have hidden the platen. I got all tangled up.
The girl had come to the far end of the roof. "Now what do I do, pretty boy?"
"You go down to my room and open the double doors and stand on the balcony and steady the safety line again."
She ran off. Heller tied the reel to the safety line and then paid it out so that it landed on his balcony below. The girl came out on the balcony and got the reel.