“Now do you want someone’s communication number?” said marvel-wit.
I had a foot and a half stack of closely packed print sheets. I put them under my arm. “You gave it to me,” I said. “And I do thank you. You have been so much help. You should be promoted.”
I had caught a supervisor looking over in that direction and my pleasant attitude to the girl said that everything was fine.
I left, jubilant. I had a full intelligence survey of the profession. And without a single trace or show of my identoplate.
Heller was going to be bugged and, by my extensive plan, neither he nor anyone else would know it except me. A bugged man is wholly at one’s mercy.
There was no bluebottle in sight. But my driver said, “You took long enough!”
“For a creature of impending wealth, you whine too much. Fly up in the sky to some blank spot and hover.”
“That’s paper. That ain’t money. You didn’t rob anybody.”
“Give it twenty-four hours,” I said. “Now get going before I bash your fenders myself!”
In the quiet of ten thousand feet above the lanes, I removed my disguise and sorted out my finds.
Professor Gyrant Slahb was my top authority choice. He was probably the dean of cellology in the western, opposite, hemisphere of Voltar. He was retired. He liked to keep his communications blocked from incoming. He had made a packet. The chances of anyone ever being able to contact him were remote.
Now for the bright new graduates. There were many candidates. I was looking for a solitary type who belonged to no clubs and had huge book bills and who had opened an office to an empty waiting room but who had had a brilliant prepractice hospital record. I found him.
He was named Prahd Bittlestiffender and he came from the eastern hemisphere of Voltar. He was twenty-five, unmarried and poor. The chances of him ever having met Professor Gyrant Slahb were nonexistent as Slahb had retired before Prahd got out of kindergarten. There was shortly going to be one cellologist less running around loose.
I fed all but the key tear-offs to the sunlit skies of Government City and ordered my driver to the Provocation Section.
As we skimmed along the brown wave crests of the River Wiel, my driver said, “I ain’t gonna accept no counterfeits!” He remembered the last sad times in the Blike Mountains.
I laughed at him. He said, “You’re acting strange today, Officer Gris.”
“I’m a new man,” I said. It did not seem to encourage him. But indeed, I felt like I was floating. All my skills and talents were in free play. Krak had gotten it and Heller was about to get it. They deserved every bit of what was coming and more!
We flew into the tunnel. I bounced up the steps. Raza Torr was his usual suspicious self. Something in his personality, no doubt. Paranoia?
His hand went into his drawer. Funny habit.
“How are the women treating you?” I said. Anything to ease the tension.
An escort bobbed up but Torr told him, “I’ll take care of this one.”
I led the way, happily and cheerfully. I went immediately to the clothes racks and began to inspect them. Raza Torr seemed quite interested. He made some unsuitable suggestions, holding out a garment used to bury people.
I found the first thing I wanted. It was the overgarment and pants of a type seen on Homeview when they want somebody to look like an old, wise scientist. I chose the proper, loose-flapped hat and then a cane.
I got an ordinary clothes carrying case and dumped my finds in. Then I went back to the racks and searched through until I found the everyday, casual uniform of Army Intelligence, badges and all: it is an ugly color—custard—but it can, because of its cut, look quite smart. It had a dagger hole in the back but not much blood. Nobody would notice. I found the cap. Then I went and got a Grade Thirteen locket, false stones, of course, but quite bright cherry red. I dumped these in the case.
I then went back to the clothes racks and got out a common civilian afternoon one-piece and its haberdashery and shoes.
“What the Hells are you doing, Gris?” demanded Raza Torr. “This some new personal murder spree?”
I ignored his tone. I was too cheerful. “It’s really official business,” I said. “Legally illegal as can be. I have an assignment to infiltrate and provoke the Retired Prostitutes Association to strike a blow for Prince Mortiiy over on Calabar.”
“You mean you’re leaving for Calabar?” He was fingering the clothes as though for quality. He opened the pockets of some of the garments I had chosen. I thought he was seeing if there was any money in them. How wrong I was!
I went over to their makeup section. I got me some false-skin, some spare teeth, a lot of wadding, some fake hair, some different colored eye-color shifters and some pats of powder of different shades. I brought those back and threw them in the case. Then I added, from another section, a portable scriber that is used for forging orders in the field.
He was tagging me now. As we went through the weapons section, I didn’t even pause. “What?” he said. “No dead bodies?”
“Not with your self-exploding guns,” I said. “Here’s what I want.”
It was the false identoplate section. I began to rake through its bins.
“Wait a minute. Those things key into the immediate arrest list.”
I smiled at him. I picked out one for Army Intelligence. It looked real good. Officer Timp Snahp. I put it in my pocket. “Now,” I said, “you are going to make me two counterfeits.”
“I can’t do that!” he wailed. “(Bleep) it, Gris! You make so many crazy mistakes you are liable to pull an investigation in on me!”
“Oh, Raza,” I said, mockingly sad. “A person in your position, talking about someone making mistakes. Tch. Tch.”
He went over to the machine himself and told the operator to leave. I gave him the names of Professor Gyrant Slahb and Prahd Bittlestiffender and all particulars. This identoplate maker at the Provocation Section is the exact same model of machine that they use in the Finance Department to make real ones. But it is ordinarily used just to make false ones.
I will say Raza Torr was doing a first-rate job. He finished up and then aged the plates in an aging buffer and spray. He said, “You’re dangerous, Gris. You can get executed for using a real counterfeit, even in the Provocation Section. There are limits.”
“Good,” I said, “let’s hit one.” I handed him the phony Army Intelligence identoplate. “Now make one with this same name but change the series number so it won’t trigger an arrest alarm. And promote ‘Officer Timp Snahp’ to Grade Thirteen and base him on Flisten. Right?”
“It won’t respond in the computers,” he protested.
“No, but it will rattle around for twenty-four hours because it won’t match up to anything. And who knows what Army Intelligence in Flisten is up to? Do it. Officer Timp Snahp might want to take somebody’s mistress out to dinner.”
His hands clenched so hard that he was in danger of breaking their bones. But he did need reminding now and then that blackmail isn’t something that is lightly held.
He was actually gritting his teeth as he did it. He made a mistake and had to get another blank.
When he was done, I did a final wander around, picked up an item or two I thought I might like. And then that was all.
I patted him consolingly on the shoulder. He needed soothing. “The originals are in a perfectly safe place. There’s not a soul that will find them unless something happens to me. You haven’t a thing to worry about. So don’t look so worried. Nothing is going to happen to me: those originals will never get mailed to the Commander of the Death Battalion.”
His hand had been gripping his beltgun. And as I spoke, it sprang clear of it convulsively. Color had drained from his face.
I patted him again. I took my loot and turned my back on him and left.
To Hells with Raza Torr. My game was Jettero Heller. He was right in my sights.
This was coming off as smooth as high-priced tup a
nd every bit as heady.
Heller was going on his mission and he was going to go on it at my total mercy and he was never going to come back!
PART NINE
Chapter 9
Physically bugging someone so that even he does not know it is not a simple project, particularly when that someone is knowledgeable about wavelengths. But Heller was stupid on the subject of espionage. Complicating the project was the fact that I was determined that not only Heller would remain ignorant of it: no one anywhere would know of it except myself. I wanted no intruders on my private line!
However, my considerable skill as an Apparatus officer could surmount the huge obstacles. In my present mood I was confident I could get it done.
What I needed now was a secret operating room. Hovering at ten thousand feet above the traffic lanes of Government City, I considered it. Then I remembered the Widow Tayl.
Early in my days with the Apparatus, I had been serving on the night watch desk, a routine posting for new officers. A call had come in from the Domestic Police Execution Center to the effect that they had a criminal who was begging to be put in contact with the Apparatus. They sometimes do this, hoping that, instead of being executed, they will be transferred to an Apparatus regiment under a false identity. Purely routine.
I had gone over, somewhat bored, to find a scrawny, quivering wretch in the Awaiting Execution cell block, groveling around, pleading not to be exterminated. He had been picked up while attempting to burglarize the residence of the Pausch Hills Chief of Police! It was such a stupid act that I didn’t think even the Apparatus would want him, but I interviewed him anyway. I told him he was too stupid and he tried to prove to me that he wasn’t: that he had done some smart things in his day. So I demanded that he convince me.
It seems that two or three years before he had been robbing an estate on the outskirts of Pausch Hills and, elbow-deep in the silverware, he found himself challenged by a small female holding a big gun. But to his amazement, she didn’t call the bluebottles. She seemed glad to see him. She even had him sit down and have some bubblebrew to quiet his nerves.
Apparently she had wanted to be a widow for a long time. Her husband was a retired and invalid industrialist and she was a young female who was the last of a long string of demised wives.
Rather than reside in a hospital where he belonged, her aged but filthy rich husband had caused to be built a small structure on the back edge of the property—actually, a complete hospital in miniature. And there he invalided along in company with a doctor and a communications system that ran all the staff of the main house. No one could move anywhere on the property without him knowing about it or supervising it from his sickbed.
The aged husband had another twenty years to go and his present wife wasn’t getting any younger. So she looked on this fresh-caught burglar as something sent from the heavens.
She wanted her husband murdered.
So they arranged that she would go on a visit to her mother’s, this scrawny burglar nut would enter the miniature hospital, make it look like a burglary, murder the husband convincingly and she would pay him five hundred credits.
It had all gone off as planned. But this stupid nut hadn’t counted on one thing: the Widow Tayl was a nymphomaniac. She had then tried to blackmail him in return for regular company in bed. He couldn’t stand her! He had run off to Flisten and had only now come back.
The stupid fool had gotten no blackmail evidence on her. He didn’t have any evidence now. So it was pretty useless.
I was clever, however. I had him write it all down in confession form. Then I went and got it stamped as a deathbed confession and told the guards to run him through the garbage shredder on schedule at dawn. He was too stupid even for the Apparatus.
It wasn’t enough to extort money with, but the paper was worth something. I didn’t even turn it in as, with his death, all his records were destroyed anyway. One idle day I had gone to see the Widow Tayl.
It was a nice, five-acre suburban estate with a large house up front and way back in some trees was this fully equipped miniature hospital. She was preserving it, a sign on the gate said, in memoriam to her dear departed spouse.
I should have been warned when a young man burst out the side door and sped away on his speedwheel when I, in uniform, knocked at the front.
The Widow Tayl heard me out, was glad to be reassured that I really was her friend, told me the place was always at my disposal and tried to get me into the bedroom. No fear there. Just lust. I stayed away from the place.
But now I had a use for it and shortly my driver landed in the back yard target. And there in the trees sat the miniature hospital. And there was the Widow Tayl, scantily dressed, by her swimming bath, deelighted! to see me.
She started to spring up.
The corner of her robe was caught under the chair leg.
The robe fluttered to the pool edge.
I turned brick red.
The Widow Tayl’s hand fished for the robe and got it back. A sybarite statue at the edge of the heart-shaped pool was leering as water poured from his mouth. He looked like he had seen all this before.
She had her robe back on now, laughing prettily as she adjusted it.
The Widow Tayl was not bad-looking: she was about thirty-five, a blonde with smoky blue eyes. Her lips were too slack. She had two big warts on her face. Under the robe her breasts could be seen as far too sagging, but there was nothing slack in the way her eyes were now devouring me.
She bade me sit down by the side of the heart-shaped pool and a servant who was smirking brought a tray of drinks.
I explained, while we sipped sparklewater, that I had been bribed—she would understand that—to perform a service for a Lord whose name must not be mentioned. He had a son who HATED women and there would be no heirs unless something was done. Oh, she surely could understand that something had to be done about that! And I explained that a secret doctor was going to perform a secret operation on this secret young man that would alter his attitude toward women. She thought this was an emphatically patriotic action and the place was, as always, at my disposal.
That wasn’t all that was at my disposal. We inspected the three rooms of the “hospital.”
We paused by the bed where her late husband had had his throat so expertly cut.
“You must lie down and see how soft it is,” said the Widow Tayl.
I felt my hair shoot up with alarm as I heard her continue. “You will never find a bed so serviceable!”
Her naked foot was hooked behind my heel as I tried to go backwards.
Tayl’s robe hit the floor.
My right boot hit the far wall and fell with a thud.
A standing lamp began to reel.
A table of instruments was shaking and every instrument on it clattered.
The lamp crashed on the floor.
The double window blew open inward with a terrific blast of wind.
The outer door looked solid. I got to it and put my hand on it to steady myself. I was totally shot.
The sybarite looked like he was laughing as he sprayed out water into the pool.
You have to be careful who you blackmail.
An hour later, flying away from the place, though jaded, I was still cheerful. I had my objective. It even had its potentials: supposing Heller got tangled with the Widow Tayl, Krak discovered it and killed Heller. Lovely thought.
The driver had not failed to notice my disarrayed clothes. He said, “Is that the route I’m going to get rich on? Or did you pay her in counterfeits?” My, he was insolent these days. Couldn’t he admit, even to himself, that my personal charm and good looks had anything to do with it? “But she looks like she’d grab anything,” he went on.
“Land near a bookstore!” I ordered. I had to keep my mind concentrated on this project. It was intricate.
In the bookstore I browsed around the technical section. I found a book by Professor Gyrant Slahb called Cells I Have Known and sure enough,
there was his picture on the back of it! I covertly tore it off the book, sauntered around a bit more and then we were aloft again, hovering.
I got out of the bag the things I needed and using the mirror, working back and forth between the picture and my face, applied the techniques of Apparatus school “Visual Deception 21-24, Advanced Age.” With the false wrinkle skin, it was easy. I turned to the driver and showed him my face and the picture. “How’s that?”
“Hey, that’s quite an improvement,” he said. He really was storing up some owed cuffs!
I shed my uniform and donned the “wise, old scientist” pants and overgarment. Very convincing.
I pulled out the portable scriber. They are handy rigs. They have a paper feed from the bottom and they use different types. I didn’t have to spend much time forging this contract: I would be dealing with somebody very unschooled in administration, who had no access to computer consoles.
The driver was shortly heading for Slum City. Some public-spirited, pompous (bleep) had once tried to build a whole hospital complex “for the poor.” It was a sprawling ruin, eighty acres in extent. All around its outskirts were small “professional buildings” where doctors completed ruining the cases the hospital had botched. There are lots of parking places, most of them empty, for who wants to get wrecked even at the low prices of Slum City? But there was enough traffic for it to obscure one more airbus.
We parked some distance away from the wanted address. I hobbled to it, heavily leaning on my cane.
The office of DR. PRAHD BITTLESTIFFENDER, as the sign said, was in the rattiest of a series of dilapidations. You had to go around fifty garbage cans, assorted dead animals and up three fire escapes to get to it—an obstacle course which patients would have to run: natural selection—it was easy to cure anyone who could make it to the office.
There was no waiting room. There was no nurse. There was just a brand-new diploma. Perfect. As I stepped further in, I thought the place was empty until a pile of newssheets moved on the couch. It was new Dr. Bittlestiffender. He also lived here!
I sank tiredly down on a stool. I really was a bit weary after the Widow Tayl. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the stool trying to tip over.