Well, there was not much need to look any further. But I did.
He had gone off the highway again and come to the old lady’s house. He had put the van in the garage. He had taken off his blue coveralls. He had put on his spikes. That showed he was expecting trouble, perhaps thinking we would ambush him.
The blind old lady came out belatedly. She was carrying a shotgun. Very significant. He had tipped her off he might be pursued and have to fight a gun battle.
She said, “Oh, it’s you, the young man.” She offered him a cup of coffee. He apologized for disturbing her so late and she said, “That’s all right.”
He put on a leather taxi driver’s hat, got in the old orange cab and drove away.
Only one more thing happened and was happening right this minute. He had stopped at a shore seafood restaurant and was eating two lobsters broiled in butter. Very significant. They say a condemned man is always fed a last meal. Even though he was having his late, it showed that he knew he had been condemned.
I sat back.
The conclusion, based on these collective actions of his, showed without a shadow of a doubt that Heller knew we had come there to kill him.
It must be puzzling to him why we had not done so. Yes. The way he was worrying away at a lobster claw, trying to get the meat out, showed he was under strain.
He had been alerted to my real intentions.
That meant I would have to be very careful and plan in a much more deadly way.
Tonight we had failed to do more than alert Heller.
Now I had real problems.
A wary Heller would be much more dangerous. Therefore, I had to be much more cunning.
Certainly, I could not let him go on. If he actually succeeded in this mission, Lombar would be ruined. If he didn’t succeed, Earth would be ruined.
It made my head ache.
I desperately needed to untangle all this.
But how?
PART TWENTY-THREE
Chapter 1
The next day, although I should have known better, I went from my secret office through the tunnel to the hangar. My object was actually to see if the secret alarm system was going to work.
What I intended was to carry out a drill. Now that Heller suspected we had been there to kill him, we had better be prepared in case he attacked us.
Faht Bey was in the hangar. I told him I wanted a drill. He argued with me, saying it would interrupt everybody’s work. I was just trying to explain to him that we were now in danger from Heller when Captain Stabb, seeing us shaking our fists at each other, came over.
I thought the Antimanco was going to take sides and defend me. But he was in a very sour mood. He paid no attention to what we were talking about.
Captain Stabb said, “I’m facing a mutiny!”
Faht Bey didn’t want anything to do with mutinies and he cut out of there at what speed his fat hulk was capable of, leaving me to face Stabb.
“You’re a good officer, Gris, if there is any such thing as a good officer. But you can’t hold tidbits up in front of a crew and then tell them they can’t have them. That ain’t right. You as good as promised them they could kill that Royal officer and no questions asked, and then you call it off, just like that. It’s ruined morale, that’s what it’s done. And besides, it isn’t fair.”
“What can I do?” I said.
“They’re standing up for their rights. If they don’t get them, I can’t answer for it. So you better agree to their demands.”
“What are their rights?”
“To go pirating, of course.”
“Look,” I said. “Be reasonable. Those assassin pilots get nervous when you take the tug out.”
“Oh, that thing,” said Stabb, dismissing the tug with a flick of his thick hand. “It ain’t armed. It won’t carry loot. Who’s talking about that tug?” He beckoned.
I followed him to a recess in the main hangar. It was really a storeroom where decades of junk and crates had accumulated.
Stabb steered over to one side of the vast hill of debris. He pointed at some very large, age-discolored cases. There were an awful lot of them.
“You know what that is?”
I hadn’t the faintest idea.
“That’s a ‘line-jumper.’ Now, I been busy while certain others neglected their duty and I looked up how it came to get here. It was totally dismantled, crated and freighted here from Voltar. And,” he added impressively, “it ain’t never been assembled.”
“What,” I said, “is a ‘line-jumper’?”
“It’s a blazing wonder, that’s what it is. They were developed by the Voltarian Army. They use them. They can pick up a hundred-ton piece of artillery, jump the enemy lines and set it and its ammunition down way back of the enemy lines and bomb them from the rear.”
I was all adrift. We had no enemy lines to jump, no artillery to move.
“I think,” said Stabb, “that somebody in your Apparatus office, maybe even your chief, had one of those bright ideas that officers get sometimes and figured this could be used to shift huge quantities of drugs across borders on this planet. So they got one from the Army and shipped it down here in pieces.”
“Sounds like the very thing,” I said, looking at the discolored cases with new respect.
“Yeah,” said Stabb, “but like a lot of officers’ ideas that get men killed and foul up operations, it wouldn’t work. It lifts its cargo on traction beams and carries it. The cargo is totally exposed and can be picked up by the most primitive radar. It only operates in atmosphere—there’s minimal pressure protection in the flight deck—and it can’t go up very high. So they never assembled it.”
“Then it’s worthless,” I said.
“Oh, no,” said Captain Stabb. “It’s just about the greatest pirate tool you ever heard of. It could pick up a whole village on its tractor beams and fly off with it. You could pick up a whole bank, loot it at ten thousand feet and just drop the rubbish. If it ain’t carrying cargo, it is undetectable. So it ain’t worthless. It’s priceless!”
He patted a box. “I could even devise a curtain to cover cargo and it could be used to run guns to revolutionaries. There’s a fortune in this thing! But no officer ever asked no bright, dedicated subofficer what could be done with it. The Army sprayed the artillery with absorbo-coat. I don’t think the Apparatus knew that. It wasn’t in the directions. Experience is what counts in the long run. Not book learning.”
I had a marvelous inspiration on how to end this mutiny. “How long will it take to assemble this thing?”
“Well, it’s all dismantled down to the last plate and adhesion joint. If we work hard in our time off from shooting dice and drinking—maybe a couple hours a day—it would only take us a few months.”
“Do it,” I said. “By all means, do it!”
“You’re a great fellow, Gris, even if you are an officer. We will show you we mean business, that we’re sincere. If we ever get it finished and operating, we’ll cut you in on a handsome share of the loot.” He clapped me on the back in good fellowship and rumbled off to tell his crew.
I was much relieved. I had certainly handled that mutiny in an expert way.
But Fate was not being kind, even so. I had no more than entered the tunnel which led back to my office than I was suddenly stopped by Faht Bey.
“There’s something I better report,” he said. I thought, oh Gods, I knew I shouldn’t have come into this place.
“We’re having to step up our heroin production,” said Faht Bey.
“Why? You’re already running at top speed!”
“I know,” said Faht Bey. “I hate to have to tell you this but there’s a twenty-five-pound bag unaccounted for.”
“So?” I said. (Bleep) these bookkeeping details.
“The security guard says it has been stolen by someone.”
“Oh, somebody just miscounted!”
“No,” said Faht Bey. “It has never happened before and this is the third time
in the past five days. Somebody is stealing heroin supplies and in quantity! And it’s happening right here inside the base.”
“Well, step up production,” I said impatiently. My Gods, I was in no mood for more problems.
“Just so you know,” he said, fastening a peculiar eye on me. “We’ll step up production.”
So I had also solved that.
That would teach me to move around the hangar! You had to be armed with more than a blastick! Too bad you just couldn’t throw a grenade at all these problems you met! All this thinking on top of all this grief was making my head ache.
PART TWENTY-THREE
Chapter 2
Now that Heller knew there was a plot against his life, I had to keep a very close eye on him. He might come over to the base and try to kill me.
But, as usual, the things he did didn’t make much sense.
In the ensuing days after he returned from Connecticut, Heller devoted a lot of time to studying. He was covering the mimeographed class lectures of his courses to date. He studied in his office at the Empire State Building; he probably even studied in his suite—but who could tell what he did in his suite, thanks to the interference. But what worried me most was his studying in the lobby of the Gracious Palms.
On an evening, he would sit half masked from the lobby by palm fronds but still in sight of the front door. Why he chose such a place to study, only Heller knew, for he was constantly interrupted.
He was affecting a black, silk-collared tuxedo in the lobby. The shirt had puffs of lace on the front of it and the silk cuffs were held in place with diamonds. How he got them, I don’t know, maybe he had them built, but he was wearing black, patent-leather baseball spikes!
He’d get started on a lecture on differential equations or some such silliness and he’d get no farther than a page when some diplomat or another would wander over and he’d get up and shake hands and pass the time of day. The UN was apparently just starting session and there were lots of customers, all of different shades and hues.
They didn’t say anything intelligent and for a bit I thought they must be talking in code. Things like “How are you, old boy?” from the diplomats and things like “Just ripping,” from Heller. Unintelligible. And some diplomat, with a lift of his eyebrows, would say, “Getting any yourself?” and Heller would say, “The important people have the priorities.” And they’d laugh in a sort of knowing way. Incomprehensible.
But one thing was clearly understood. He was too (bleeped) popular!
There was always a painting going on in the far corner of the lobby. Always a crowd around the artist, the girl standing, half clothed, provocatively. I wanted to get some better looks myself and Heller never even glanced in that direction! You can’t get much detail in peripheral vision.
About the only time I’d get a good look at the girl—and they were real stunners of every imaginable hue—was when one would leave the lobby. And then she had a robe on as the painting would be ended for the night. They’d stop by Heller before they got into the elevator and say, “It’s going well, Pretty Boy. I got South Africa to say yes.” Or something equally nonsensical. It was confusing. In the first place, the program called for a whore of the week and it had evidently been shifted to whore of the night! It was almost enough to give one jet lag. But he was obviously up to something, even though you couldn’t keep up with him.
But it was probably better that I didn’t get many looks at these girls. My own bed was empty, and although she would go out each day in her car, I saw nothing of Utanc. She had obviously erased my suffering self from her life. I did hear that the little boy was better but neither of those boys left Utanc’s room.
But for all his hobnobbing with diplomats and nosing in his lecture mimeographs and texts, Heller, (bleep) him, still found time to run around.
For three whole mornings he went through the silliest routine I have ever seen.
He would take a regular cab and ride somewhere. And after a bit Bang-Bang would drive up to where Heller had alighted and come over to him and say, “Nothing.” That was all.
Heller would get on a subway and ride to some station and get off. After a while, Bang-Bang would come up to him and say, “Nothing.” Then Heller would walk slowly past this building or that, stopping to look in shopwindows. And then Bang-Bang would come up and say, “Nothing.”
I finally worked it out that they were practicing some stupid G-2 idea of tailing. But Heller was always in his red baseball cap, easy to spot. He took no evasive actions. It was either G-2 or just some silly way of exercising.
After three days Heller quit doing that. Maybe he got tired of walking and riding. Maybe he was just seeing New York. Who could follow his inane actions?
Almost two weeks had gone by with this routine of study and lobby when he made a sudden shift.
He got up early one morning. He took a train to Newark and walked into the Jiffy-Spiffy Garage. Mike Mutazione pulled his head out of an engine and they staged an effusive greeting and then chattered of this and that including a persuasive pitch by Mike to get Heller to join the Catholic Church, and Heller’s defense, “How do you know my soul hasn’t already been saved?” Mike didn’t seem to have any textbook answer to that so they got down to business.
Heller wanted a garage to rent. And Mike told him sure, they had several nearby where they stored “hots” until they got their “faces lifted,” and Mike himself drove Heller around and they looked at them and Heller chose one that could be very securely locked. And he rented it.
Then they went back to the garage and there, over to one side, was Heller’s old Cadillac. It was making some progress but apparently the new engine was still being modified “for 190 miles per hour.” But Heller was not interested in the new engine. He wanted the old engine that had been taken out and was sitting on some blocks.
Heller did Mike a little sketch in his disgustingly precise and rapid way. He wanted the old engine and a radiator mounted on a trailer. He wanted a gas tank mounted on the trailer. And he wanted a brake drum put around the old engine’s crankshaft connection.
It baffled me. Why did anyone want an engine sitting on a trailer that wouldn’t run the trailer?
Mike said, “Hell, that’s easy. We got a trailer right over here that some (bleeped) fool stole. How can you change and sell a baggage trailer? You can have it. I got a couple guys idle. We can fix your rig this afternoon.”
So Heller gave him some money and told him to finish it and move it into the rented garage. Crazy. He not only was making a rig that wouldn’t run itself, he was also just putting it in a private garage! No wonder this Mike wanted to convert him to something. He was too insane the way he was.
Heller went out shopping after getting a couple addresses and he bought a huge tank of oxygen and a huge tank of hydrogen gas and had them delivered to the garage.
He went back to New York and went on with his usual routine that day, but the next morning, bright and early, he headed for Newark, carrying a huge bag of tools and whatever.
Heller went to the garage. There was the trailer and there were the oxygen and hydrogen bottles. He put on some white mechanic’s coveralls and got to work.
He left the garage doors open. He put a spring balance on the brake drum behind the engine. He started the engine up and began to measure the spring-balance readings as he revved the engine up faster and faster. The roar and vibration and smoke were awful!
Playing. You can always count on Fleet people to play with machinery!
Then, using gloves to keep his fingers from scorching, he took the carburetor off the engine.
Then he connected regulators and hoses to the oxygen and hydrogen tanks.
He made a brass fitting that covered the place the carburetor had been and made two nipples into it and connected the hoses to it.
It was a pretty crude rig.
He even put on a gas mask to work with it.
He started up the engine!
It ran!
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br /> Then he began to fiddle with amounts from one tank to the other and began to put pressure on the brake. He kept writing down readings from the tank regulator gauges and the brake spring balance.
Using some kind of a gauge, he started sampling whatever was coming out of the exhaust pipe of the engine. He got the gauge meter to read zero by adjusting the two valves of the hydrogen and oxygen tanks while the gauge on the spring balance on the brake measured maximum.
It was late by that time. He dismantled everything, took off his mechanic’s coveralls and left.
He also left me with another puzzle. What was that all about?
But I could tell one thing. He was happy. As he walked down the street to get on the train to New York, he was whistling. Some new trick he had learned.
He was making too much progress on something too fast! I knew he was doing it just to spite me, to mock me for having had to forgo killing him.
I felt awful.
PART TWENTY-THREE
Chapter 3
Just when I was feeling that nothing could get any worse, the Blixo arrived. It utterly dispersed my existing confusion. It was eight o’clock in the evening, Turkish time. I had been trying to figure out what to do to avoid another sleepless night in my lonely bed when the warning panel in my secret office began to flash:
SHIP ARRIVAL
It could only be the Blixo. A sudden thought, “My gold!” began to lift my spirits. Then a sag. I had promised Captain Bolz a bottle of Scotch on arrival. He was an officer who remembered these things clearly. The bottle of Scotch I had gotten had been stolen. He might hang on to my gold!
I made a sudden, urgent telephone call to the taxi driver. “For Gods’ sakes, bring me a bottle of Scotch quick!”
“It sounds bad!” he said.
“It is bad!” I said.
I hung up. I went tearing around trying to find a uniform. At the moment the panel flashed, I didn’t have any clothes on. It would not do to go aboard that way. He might think I was so lacking in authority he could hold on to my gold. It would buy an awful lot of Scotch—six million dollars worth! I knew Captain Bolz.