He bent close to look at the signature. It was Gauguin.
I know painting values: one does when he is interested largely in cash. If that painting were an original, it was worth a fortune!
I hastily played back what he had first said. I knew my own reaction would have been to steal it. Maybe I would include that in my planning. I must know what his own intentions were with regard to it.
He had said, “The boat people!” Ah. One of the Atalanta races he and Krak had talked about.
He had moved on to a second Gauguin.
A new voice penetrated the room. “No, no, no!” It was Chief Madame Sesso. Her mustache was bristling. She was wagging a finger at him, very disapproving. “No! Young-a boys should-a not-a look at-a dirty pictures! You not-a goin’ to do-a nasty things-a here! If-a the young-a signore, he’s-a want to look at-a the naked women, he’s-a goin’ to-a do-a it right!”
She fixed him in place with a finger, grabbed the phone and spoke an avalanche of Italian into it. She slammed it down. “Right away, you gonna get me-a in-a bad trouble if-a it ever gotta out I taught-a you to look at-a dirty pictures! Mama mia! What would-a the customers theenk!”
There was a running patter of footsteps. A small woman burst into the room in a near panic!
She had a short nose, beautiful teeth, raven black hair, high, firm breasts. She was a golden brown. She had European stockings and a chemise on and was holding a silk robe about her. She was obviously a Polynesian!
Luscious!
“Wot ees eet?”
“I catch-a this-a young signore, he’s-a look at the dirty pictures on th’ wall. Now, Minette, you go right-a now and you jump in-a his bed. Quick-quick!”
“No, no,” said Heller. “I just want to look!”
“Aha!” said Minette. “A voyeur.”
“No, no,” said Heller. “There are some people in . . . in my native land that look exactly like you. I just wanted to look. . . .”
“Aha, you zee, Madame Sesso,” said Minette. “A voyeur! He get hees keeks by the look, so!”
Madame Sesso walked sternly up to her. “So you-a let-a the young signore look!” And she snatched at the robe. It came half off, baring Minette’s firm, uplifted breast. Like a golden melon!
But Minette stepped back. “Madame Sesso. You air crooel! Zee business she is nothing, nothing. For t’ree week, I have no man. Zee bed ees empty. I go half mad. All zee girls, zey talk about thees boy. Eef I do zee strip, I go wil’ for heem, Madame Sesso.”
Madame Sesso was upon her. Her hand seized the shoulder of the silk robe and gave it a yank. It flew up to block Heller’s vision. “You-a will do-a the strip right-a now!” bawled Madame Sesso.
Heller was trying to get the silk robe off his face.
“Aw right!” shrieked Minette. “I go get zee grass skirt, I go get zee flowerz een my hair. Zen I do zee strip. But only on zee one condeetion zat afterwards he . . .”
The picture went into streaks! The sound became a roar!
I could not see what was going on! I could hear only that roar!
What a shock!
Interference of some sort!
It was the first interference I had seen on this system.
The equipment had failed!
I checked power. All fine. I turned up gain. I only got more roar. It was not the quiet blackness when he was asleep.
I wondered for a moment if it were an emotional overload in the subject.
I tried to think of everything I could, made all the guesses of which I was capable. Finally, I dug out the instruction book. I had never read all of it.
Finally, on the next to the last page, I found an entry:
WARNING
As the equipment is used in a carbonoxygen body, it must, of necessity, be hypersensitive to the carbon atom and molecule wave configuration.
The only known disturbance of the double-wave pattern employed can come from carbon spectrum emitters. These are extremely rare devices but the spy should be warned to stay at least a hundred feet from such an energy emission source if present in the culture where the spy is being employed.
And that was all it said. And as Heller did not know he was being employed, one could not, of course, warn him.
But warn him of what? What in Hells was a carbon spectrum emitter? It was one of the few times I was sorry I had not done something to stay awake in Academy classes. There must be one now within a hundred feet of Heller! But on an electronically primitive planet like Earth?
Whatever it was, it had me boxed! I turned down the gain. I looked at the jagged mess on the screen. Haggardly, I slumped over the equipment, helpless.
It was midnight where I was. The days of strain were telling on me.
I went through the secret door into my bedroom. I made the cook get up and fix me some hot soup. At length, I dropped into a restless sleep.
Suddenly, I woke up. It was the silent hours of the night. Silence! The small ragged roar from my secret room was missing.
I sprang through the back of the closet.
And there was a picture as nice as you please!
Heller was sitting there in his suite, watching TV! I looked at my watch. It must be about seven in the evening there. The news was on.
What had happened to or with Minette?
Had she gotten her way?
Had Heller let her do a striptease and then taken her to bed as she had demanded?
I did not know. I could not tell.
A Hispanic-looking newscaster was going on and on about murders, and then he said, “New York motorists exiting from the Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel, today were entertained by a massive fireball, rising into the sky. The telephone company was besieged by callers wanting to know if World War III had begun.” He laughed lightly. “They were reassured to find that it was only the Acme Car Painting Company blowing up. Inventories showed thousands of gallons of stored paint were on the premises. The origin of the blaze was labeled arson by the insurance underwriters, as a hundred-thousand-dollar policy had recently been taken out. Eleven bodies, none of whom have been identified, were found in the vicinity.” The newscaster smiled. “But that is life on the Jersey side.” I surmised this must be a Manhattan channel!
Wait, what was that? A shadow? No, a black hand and arm close to Heller’s face! Coming in from Heller’s left! He wasn’t focused on it. It held some sort of implement!
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!
PART SEVENTEEN
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 the 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 rigamarole. 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 turbane
d 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.