Miss Pinch and Candy came in. They had on nightgowns and bathrobes. I flinched.
“I don’t really feel up to it,” I said.
“Just as well,” said Miss Pinch. “We wouldn’t let you do it anyway.”
Oh, Gods, maybe they thought I had a disease. I had better not tell them I was clean. But I had to know how come this strange shift? “Why?” I said.
“We might miscarry,” said Miss Pinch.
“Miscarry?” I said, blinking.
“Yes, we’re both pregnant,” said Miss Pinch.
Cold terror gripped me by the throat!
The whole room spun around me! I was totally disoriented! I wanted to tell them, no, no, you’re all mixed up. It was Heller who got girls pregnant.
“I’ve never been in Kansas!” I wailed.
But they were both gone. And all that night, I lay in the dark, spinning.
Now and then I would say to the walls, “I am Officer Gris. I am not a combat engineer. My name is not Heller. I am Officer Gris. Miss Pinch is not Maizie Spread. This is New York. My name is not Heller. . . .”
It was a very terrible and eerie experience.
PART FORTY-SEVEN
Chapter 10
Apparently, once the media had gotten its teeth into sex and scandal, Madison could just sit back and loaf.
I stole enough quarters out of Pinch’s purse to buy the morning papers.
WHIZ KID EXPELLED
FROM PURITY LEAGUE
PUBLICLY DENOUNCED
From her padded cell in her psychiatrist’s office, Agatha Prim today announced that the Whiz Kid, Wister, had been fired as Vice President in Charge of Intolerance and expelled from the WASP Purity League.
“Unlicensed lust can be tolerated only by professional psychiatrists,” she said.
It went on. It was in other papers. On TV news shots, clips were shown of the Whiz Kid’s nomination to post, the demonstrations which caused his pardon, and other bric-a-brac, ending finally with Agatha Prim being wheeled off for her next electric shock.
Radio spot ads were running every hour inviting the public to a mass meeting at the League headquarters to form a lynch mob.
A famous parson was also spot ad-ing to invite people to his sermon, “Low How the Sinners Fall.”
The government said that it was investigating to see if the Whiz Kid owed income tax.
The United Kingdom caused a total furor in the afternoon press by announcing it was debarring the Whiz Kid entry to England on moral grounds. This included Canada. That he had never been there, they said, was beside the point!
I turned on my viewers to see how Krak and Heller were taking this.
Krak’s I couldn’t tell much about. The viewer had a watery tinge. She was evidently still in her room and her eyes were wet from crying.
Heller was something else.
He was just entering the office of Multinational. Izzy rose from his desk and shooed other people out and closed the door. Heller sat down. He spread out the crumpled suit paper on Izzy’s desk: Heller must have recovered it from a trash bin, the way it looked.
“What the blast is this?” said Heller.
Izzy read it. “It’s a civil suit,” he said. “They evidently got service on you.”
“What,” said Heller, “is a civil suit? It sounds awful uncivil to me.”
“It means you have to appear and go to a jury trial,” said Izzy.
“But it’s a pack of lies!” said Heller. “I never even heard of any Maizie Spread. I don’t even know where Cornhole, Kansas, is.”
Izzy opened up one of the stack of newspapers he had on his desk. It contained a full-page photo of Maizie Spread lying in a haystack with her legs apart. Izzy turned the page so Heller could see it closely. The girl was fat and homely. “You’ve never seen her before?”
“Absolutely not,” said Heller.
“Well,” said Izzy, “that just means the legal system is up to its usual tricks. Anybody can sue anybody for anything in this country and usually does. There’s a whole segment of the population that makes its living just suing anybody for anything they can dream up. It’s pretty brutal. Way back, one millionaire named Howard Hughes—a very famous flier—ended his days in hiding just because people kept suing him. There’s thousands of people out there who don’t dare walk around in public because people they never heard of are trying to sue them and make them spend their whole lives and fortune sitting in courtrooms. And, of course, the press always backs it all up because it’s full of lies and such and makes good copy.”
“Look,” said Heller, “I want this cleaned up fast.”
“Oh, heavens. That is the one thing that won’t happen. This suit will go on for years and years. That’s the legal system.”
“It sounds illegal to me,” said Heller.
“You have to understand how it is,” said Izzy. “The lawyers want all trials as slow as possible. That way they can make millions out of them.”
“An honest lawyer could end this,” said Heller.
Izzy laughed hollowly. “You just don’t understand this legal system. The operative word is MONEY. The only way a lawyer can make a fortune is to sue people for millions and split the court award with his client. The courts award those millions, too. Now, the defense attorney of such a suit can only make money by dragging it out and bleeding his client white for fees.”
“Any honest government would stop such nonsense in a minute,” said Heller.
“Listen. The legislators and congressmen are mostly lawyers. They are the ones who make the laws that regulate the conduct of courts. So, of course, they will pass no real legislation that will cut the awards and fees to their colleagues: when they finish office, these same legislators will be right back there practicing law again and would be unable to become millionaires overnight with insane suits and crazy fees. No, you’ve fallen into the legal soup, Mr. Jet. Like quicksand or the New York sewage system. They’ve got service on you. You have to appear. And meanwhile the press wrecks your reputation and even if you win, it will be years from now and you will be out millions, maybe bankrupt.”
“Hey!” said Heller. “Nobody can live in a society like that!”
“Listen, Mr. Jet, only the bums win in a society like this. A spectacular, competent fellow like you hasn’t got a chance.”
“In another place I know,” said Heller, “anybody who tried a swindle like this suit would be sent to prison and the attorneys right along with her.”
“Well, that’s not here, Mr. Jet. And that’s why I never let you connect your name to any of these corporations. You’re a good guy. That’s why, when all this first began, I bought you a ticket for Brazil and told you about the place where they only have ants: not a lawyer in the lot. But now we’re into a legal mess and we have to have a lawyer.”
“We’ve got to do something,” said Heller.
“I’ll give this paper to Philup Bleedum of Bleedum, Bleedum & Drayne, one of the corporation attorneys,” said Izzy. “He can file an appearance and torts and writs and stuff. I won’t let you talk to him as I don’t want you any more depressed than you are. I’ll be sure to operate the device that can see the future on the market like mad because we will need millions just to defend this. And maybe five or six years from now, it will be over.”
“I can’t wait that long.”
“Oh, it probably really won’t be that long,” said Izzy. “Usually in such a suit, especially when it is false, vexatious and harassing, the defendant has to file personal bankruptcy long before it is over, as he cannot possibly pay his own attorney fees.”
“Izzy,” said Heller, “are you just being your usual pessimistic self?”
“Oy, Mr. Jet! I’m talking about the legal system. Knowing what I do about the ruination it is built around, I thought I was being optimistic! I didn’t mention possibly going to jail for contempt and losing the whole thing for not appearing in court.”
“This could wreck my whole mission,” said He
ller despondently.
“That’s all the legal system is designed to do,” said Izzy. “Enrich the lawyers and bums and ruin everybody else. But cheer up. An atomic war might intervene and settle everything.”
“With a legal system as insane as that, they deserve it,” said Heller and left.
That alarmed me a little bit. And then I realized that he hadn’t packed any atomic bombs I knew of in his suitcase.
But this interview had gotten me thinking.
Yes, I knew anybody on this planet could sue anybody for anything and often did.
Supposing Miss Pinch and Candy took it into their heads to sue me over their pregnancies? Double jeopardy.
I could see myself on the run, hiding out in wino hotels for years trying to avoid service of suits, sitting in musty courtrooms for months being worked over by attorneys like Dingaling, Chase & Ambo.
I was guilty as Hells. That made me cheer up a little bit. If I was really culpable, they would find me innocent, of course. Only the innocent were ever found guilty.
Then I saw that the Countess Krak was still in her room, crying as though her heart would break.
It cheered me enormously.
Little did I know the next horror coming my way.
I was about to get the anvil’s view of the hammer.
PART FORTY-EIGHT
Chapter 1
For three days Madison let the paternity suit boil along. The sex-and-outlaw theme really got its play. The farmer’s daughter, Maizie Spread, was on prime-time national TV, giving diagrams of where and how and about how many times and even offering to demonstrate. It was POPULAR!
Heller was walking around distractedly. The Countess Krak stayed in her room. Mission Earth had been brought to a HALT!
But there was a danger that activity on their part might start up again. I phoned Madison.
“We’ve got a hit,” said Madison. “When that suit gets into the courts, it can run for years. The climax will come when she claims he got other members of his gang to rape all the livestock, but that won’t be for weeks yet.”
“I noticed one of the papers let it drop to page three today,” I said.
“Yes, I know,” said Madison, “we’re using the Rockecenter lines to have the editor fired.”
“But what if the other papers start putting it on page three?” I said. I was learning to talk to Madison.
“We’ll fire the lot,” he said.
“But wait, you can’t fire all the editors in the country.”
“Yes, I can!” he said.
“No, you can’t,” I said.
“Yes, I can!” he said.
“Look,” I said. “If you did, you might not have any papers.”
“Yes, there’s that,” he said.
“So why don’t you deliver some mortal blow?” I said.
“Mortal blow? I resent that, Smith. All we’re doing is trying to help the fellow out: make him immortal. We want nothing to do with MORTAL blows! When we get through, he will be the most famous outlaw of all time. He will live forever in song and story. So don’t talk to me about anything mortal!” He was quite cross.
“You had an editor drop it to page three,” I said.
“Yes, there’s that,” he said. “But Smith, you’re not a pro, worse luck. Did you think I wasn’t going to climax it?”
“From the number of rolls in the hay I’ve seen described in press and on TV, I should have thought you were almost out of climaxes.”
“Oh, pish, pish, and tush, tush, Smith. I see that you are not only no pro at this business, you also don’t know the depths to which it can be pushed in this legal system. I thought you were here at this morning’s conference. I didn’t notice that you weren’t. So now I see why you’re wasting my time with phone calls that could be going to important people. I’m not going to go over the briefing again. Just look at tomorrow’s press. Goodbye.”
Nobody answered the phone when I rang back. He was probably just sitting there glaring at it and letting it ring. Or he was phoning some judge to tell him what to decide on some case.
I was wrong on both counts. When the next morning came, it was very obvious that Madison was, indeed, climaxing it. Banner headlines! The layouts made the paternity suit look like a notice for a church social. The story:
WHIZ KID SUED
BY DESERTED WIFE!
ADULTERY ALLEGED!
SEIZURE OF WHIZ KID
ASSETS ORDERED
Dingaling, Chase & Ambo this morning are filing suit against Whiz Kid Wister on behalf of Mrs. Toots Wister, née Switch, alleging the grounds of adultery with Maizie Spread.
Under community property laws of Kansas and New York, Dingaling, Chase & Ambo are ordering all the Whiz Kid’s assets frozen pending divorce settlement.
To a hushed assembly of all media, the tearful Mrs. Wister, in widow’s weeds, sobbed out her pitiful tale. “He abandoned me,” she said. “For a whole year I did not even know where he was. And now I find he was rolling in the hay with that Maizie Spread.”
I was so delighted, I cried out aloud and went prancing around the apartment. I was sure that this would do it.
I watched the viewers. Krak was still in her room. Heller was walking disconsolately in Central Park. Neither one of them showed any signs of having read the story or seen the blasting coverage this was getting on radio and TV.
Afternoon came. And Madison had not waited for another day. He was striking hot iron with hot iron. The editions carried full photo stories of the background of the marriage.
The girl, Toots Switch, had been a conductor’s niece. She was on a train with her uncle. The Whiz Kid and his outlaw gang had robbed the train. But in passing through the cars, looking for rich men to rob so he could give it to the poor Kansas farmers, the eye of the Whiz Kid had lighted on Toots Switch. No sooner seen than desired. Warned by the girl’s uncle that he would be violating the Mann Act if he raped the poor girl while they were crossing a state line, the Whiz Kid had flourished his drawn Colt revolvers and demanded a clergyman be found. One was located in the bar and then and there, under the leveled rifles of the gang, the marriage had been performed. The sexy details of its consummation while passing over the Missouri border would be released on the morrow.
Indeed, it was a masterstroke.
But Madison had probably neglected one thing: the real Whiz Kid!
Still seeing no sign that either Krak or Heller—who had now gone to his office—were aware of this new development, I rang up Dingaling, Chase & Ambo.
“Have you served the real Wister?” I demanded.
It was Dingaling himself. He said, “Our process server got cold feet. The last time he served Wister he saw the fellow carried a gun and almost drew it. So we are waiting to collect a backup team from Police Inspector ‘Bulldog’ Grafferty.”
“Listen,” I said, “I thought service could just be done by mail or something.”
“There are many ways,” said Dingaling. “The most common is to serve a member of the household. This is perfectly legal and sometimes the member of the household forgets to give the paper to the defendant and you win by default. But the place seems all locked up, the butler isn’t opening the door, and so we were going to get Grafferty to help.”
“You don’t need Grafferty,” I said. And I gave Dingaling some terse and precise directions.
Pinned to the viewers, I watched avidly.
About an hour later, there was a knock on the door of the Countess Krak’s room.
She lifted her tearful face off the bedspread. She said, “Go away.”
“It is I, ma’am,” came the butler’s voice. “There is a man at the door who says that he must see you personally.”
“Tell him to go away,” said the Countess Krak.
The butler’s voice, “I told him that through the intercom, ma’am, but he claims that you will see him. He said his name was Hisst.”
The Countess Krak sat up like she’d been shot.
“Lo
mbar Hisst?” she said.
“I think that was what he said his name was,” came the butler’s voice. “Shall I let him in, ma’am?”
“Good heavens,” said the Countess Krak, and Lords know what must have been swirling through her head. Then she said faintly, as I knew she would, “You better let him in.”