A brief scout found Utanc. She was standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. She had her finger in her mouth and was looking east toward the great, tall obelisk of the Washington Monument. The leaves of fall were already blowing around and the wind was on the surface of the long mirror pool so the monument didn’t reflect in it. At this time of year it really wasn’t even a very scenic scene. I couldn’t imagine why she was just standing there, looking at the monument. Nothing much to see. Just a white shaft.
I was fifty feet away from her, dressed in clothes she had never seen me in. My tailing had been very secret. She gave a shuddering sigh. She took her finger out of her mouth and turned to me and said, “Isn’t it beautiful, Sultan Bey?”
I walked over to her. I might as well, now that she had spotted me. My curiosity was aroused. “What’s so beautiful about it?”
“So tall, so white, so hard.” She put her finger in her mouth and looked at it again.
Inspiration! I said, “That’s only 550 feet high. In New York City, the Empire State Building is 1,472 feet high, close to three times as tall!”
“It is?” she said, incredulous.
“Indeed, it is,” I said. “It even has a spike on top.” And we left that very night for New York City. It takes real genius to operate in the Apparatus!
We checked into the Bentley Bucks Deluxe Hotel, the penthouse. In the fifties, it had a clear-shot view of the Empire State Building to the south and Central Park to the north. But that wasn’t what was good about it: it had two bedrooms! Marvelous! I could sleep on an actual bed, not a living-room sofa! And this was especially good, as I expected we would be here for quite a while. My luck was already good and now it was improving!
Bright and early the following morning, all refreshed and with no crick in my back, I had breakfast and, as soon as the numerous waiters and maids had cleared out, unlimbered my receiver and viewer. Before I went into action, I had better have a good look at what (bleeping) progress Heller had made lately.
Flare out!
Maybe my equipment had been damaged in transit. I checked the various indicators. It seemed to be all right.
Then I realized what was wrong. The 831 Relayer was coupled to the activator-receiver! It was boosting the signal so it could be seen thousands of miles away. Until it was turned off, I would get no views in this area!
Where had Raht and Terb said they had put it? Aha! On the TV mast of the Empire State Building. I walked out on the terrace and looked south. I was in straight view of it.
Well! Nothing easier. I would get it turned off.
I phoned the New York office.
It rang and rang. No answer. Then I remembered Faht Bey’s complaint that they were all out chasing criminal prospects.
Gods. One had to do everything himself. I dressed in ordinary street clothes, puzzled over the subway system, and took a cab.
We were only a score or so of blocks north of the Empire State Building, and in no time at all I entered through the 34th Street entrance, bought my observatory ticket and went flying up to the eightieth floor. The elevator takes less than a minute and I left my stomach on the first floor!
Nevertheless, as it was all in line of duty and one must never quail at that, I took the second elevator to the eighty-sixth floor observatory.
Without thinking, I actually walked out on the public platform. There is a ten-foot fence around it to keep people from using it for casual suicides, but this doesn’t block any views. Although I might have been able to look all around for fifty miles—it was a clear autumn day, relatively speaking, for New York—I hastily backed inside again to the snack bar and nervously had a Coke. This place was HIGH!
Cokes apparently don’t calm your nerves. You’d need a telescope to see the people on the street below from that platform.
Where was the (bleeped) TV antenna? A guide said, “Oh, that’s the upper platform. The circular observatory on the 102nd floor.” He pointed up.
“The 102nd floor?” I wailed.
“Oh, it’s perfectly safe. Glass enclosed.”
Duty, remorseless duty, called.
So up I went to the 102nd floor.
Well, to be brief, that isn’t the top. There’s another 222 feet on top of it! The literature said they built it to be a dirigible mast but never used it after one near-fatal attempt. And now it was a TV antenna.
The activator-receiver and 831 Relayer were up there somewhere!
There was glass all around me. Yes, I could see for fifty miles. And I could also see 1,250 feet DOWN!
There was a trap in the ceiling.
I began to shake. I hate heights. I knew in my soul that trying to get up there wouldn’t result in a near-fatal attempt. It would be TOTALLY fatal!
I controlled my vertigo enough to get into the elevator. And though I had protested the speed of those three consecutive elevators going up, I blessed it going down!
When I arrived once more on 34th Street, I bent over and reverently patted the sidewalk!
Silly situation. Thousands of miles away, in Turkey, I could track Heller easily. Now here he was, only a few hundred feet up in that same building and I couldn’t track him at all! (Bleep) Spurk!
Raht and Terb!
I did know where they must be—the Silverwater Memorial Hospital over on Roosevelt Island. But I did not know what names they were registered under.
I couldn’t figure out the subway system on how to get there. I took a cab.
Only because I knew their approximate date of entry and the state they had been in was I able to run them down in the wards “as a caring friend.”
And there they were. Ambulant! They weren’t even in bed! They were sitting by themselves in a patients lounge, watching TV! The nerve of them. I knew they had done all that just to get a vacation at Voltar government expense!
They became aware that somebody was standing there in a deadly manner.
“Officer Gris!” gasped Terb. He raised the casts on his arms protectively.
Raht didn’t speak. His jaws were still wired up.
“What are you doing here?” said Terb somewhat unnecessarily.
“I am doing your jobs!” I thundered at them.
“Sssh!” said Terb, waving his casts about.
“Why ‘sssh’?” I demanded. And indeed, why? There were only some old and chronically ill people in the lounge. Riffraff. “You are neglecting your government duties! You left the 831 Relayer on! Negligence!”
A nurse came tearing in from the hall with a what’s-wrong, what’s-wrong, this-is-a-hospital look on her face. I stopped her! I flipped out my Federal credentials and in minutes I was talking to a chief administrator.
“Those two men are malingerers,” I said. “They are evading the draft. They have been recalled to service. When can you get them out of here?”
He was impressed. He said, “The records here show compound fractures. They have some time to go before they can be unwired and have the casts sawed off. It would be dangerous to just discharge them.”
“If you don’t cooperate, I’ll cut off your Medicaid,” I said. “The government must be served.”
He knew that. I didn’t tell him which government. He groveled and said he’d do the best he could.
I went back and told Raht and Terb to get that 831 Relayer turned off as soon as possible. I gave them my phone number at the Bentley Bucks Deluxe Hotel and told them, acidly, that when they’d caught up on their TV, they were to phone me that they were on duty once more and that, until then, their pay was suspended.
I left. I was pretty cross, actually. Here I was working my skull to the bone while others just lay about.
But it didn’t solve my problem. I had to know what Heller was doing.
I returned at vast expense by taxi to the hotel.
Before I undertook my next step, I should surely check on Heller.
Utanc was out. I had missed lunch. I ordered room service to send me up three shrimp cocktails and ate them moodily.
Then inspiration! Food sometimes has that effect on one. I remembered the telescope.
I unpacked it and went out on the terrace. Certainly one of those rooms in the Empire State Building was his.
There was trouble with the image. Unclear. Sort of yellow. I went and read the instructions.
This telescope, when you turned it on, wasn’t really a telescope as such. It threw a beam. The beam sensed the other side of a wall by going through the spaces between molecules of a wall and then not finding any. When it didn’t find any more to go through, it made a patch of energy which acted as a mirror. And the image on that mirror was what came back to the viewer. It also had an audio pickup. Well, well. It sure looked like a telescope.
I tried again and then saw what it was. Smog. The poor telescope thought the smog was a solid wall and tried to construct reflective mirrors all along the way. Too much smog. Too much distance. I did get a vague impression of stenographers on people’s desks and things but nothing useful. Heller’s office, I suddenly remembered, faced south anyway! The other side of the building. (Bleep)! I had to get on the job right away. Duty demanded it! No possible delay could be tolerated!
Utanc came back, followed by two bellboys who looked more like mountains under her purchases. I saw signs on the wrappers: Saks, Lord and Taylor, Tiffany. I hoped we would have enough money to get home!
She came out on the veranda.
“We got to stay here for some time,” I said. “I hope we will have money enough to get home!”
She opened her purse. “Almost all of the hundred thousand left,” she said. I gaped. After Rome, Paris, London and Washington? What a money manager this wild creature from the Kara Kum Desert was! Amazing!
She was friendly, too. Talking to me even.
“My goodness, look at that!” she said, putting her finger in her mouth. She was staring at the Empire State Building bathed in the setting sun. “My, it’s tall and bold and hard! So HIGH! It’s a sight that goes right through you!”
“Indeed, it does,” I said with a shudder, thinking of my horrible experience with it.
She had something on her mind. She looked at me prettily. “Sultan Bey, do you suppose that when we’ve had some supper and it is nice and dark in your room, I might come in and . . . well . . . you know.”
Oh, joy!
Never before in my life had I heard such a wonderful plan!
Duty could wait!
More than my spirits rose to the occasion!
PART TWENTY-SIX
Chapter 4
Of course, it was wonderful.
But Utanc, about 10:00 PM, seemed a bit restless. She got up and went to her room. I myself felt too exhilarated to go to sleep. I heard her moving around and, presently, the penthouse elevator arrived and departed.
Curious, I picked the lock of the door to her bedroom.
She was gone!
Oh, well, probably out for a walk to get some fresh air.
I myself felt masterful. Suddenly I realized that my luck had changed, that it had been changed for some time in fact. The thing to do is ride the crest of good luck. I would take this telescope and go over, right now, and have a look at Heller’s suite.
I looked at a street map, found I was only a mile or so from the Gracious Palms. I got dressed in dark clothes. The telescope was in a thin, long case with a carrying handle, so I picked it up.
Shortly, in a cab, I arrived at an apartment house just north of the Gracious Palms. It was a very quiet street. The apartment house seemed old. There was no doorman I could bribe to let me on the roof. There was only a vast array of polished brass mailboxes and buzzers.
Genius. I would choose a name on the top floor, get entrance and then, agilely, get onto the roof.
A top-floor apartment—22B. And what a name, “Margarita Pompom Pizzazz.” What an attractive name! Probably a showgirl with lots of boyfriends, used to being buzzed late at night. I buzzed.
Apparently you got a phone call back and you had to answer the phone. It rang. I answered.
“Who is it?” said a voice—the quality of the phone was bad.
“An old flame,” I said, hoping the quality was equally as bad on the way back up the wires.
The door clicker clicked promptly. I pushed it open, got in the elevator and got out on the twenty-second floor. There was a stairway emergency escape to the roof at the end of the hall. I headed for it.
Halfway there, I became aware of a door cracked open on a chain. It was 22B. A voice said, “Who are you?” Musically.
Through the three-inch crack I could see part of a woman’s face. She must be about sixty! Welcome still registered on it.
“Roof inspector,” I said.
“What?” No welcome.
“Roof inspector,” I repeated. “Got to inspect the roof.”
“You mean you didn’t come up here for a fling?”
No, no. I was a lot too spent! “Roof inspector,” I said, tapping the case I held.
The door slammed. Loudly!
Oh well, I’d heard it takes all kinds to make this planet. I went on up the stairs. The emergency exit door was locked. I picked it expertly. It opened upon a roof festooned with tall air-conditioner units which blocked clear views.
In two minutes or less I had oriented myself and had the telescope out of its case. I went over to the parapet and, from what I knew of the view from inside his suite, tried to pick out which building and which suite. It was a little confusing until I found I was looking north instead of south. I corrected this.
After that, it was easy. I turned on and tuned in the telescope. It did everything the late Mr. Spurk claimed. I was looking into the synthetic-jungle/synthetic-beach room. A small brown diplomat, with his top hat still on, was really making a score with a coal-black girl! They were rolling over and over in the synthetic grass while the synthetic sunlight scorched them. But there was nothing synthetic about that lovemaking!
Finally, from somewhere he produced a rope and managed to get it around her ankles and her wrists. And then he really gave it to her!
I thought I had been satisfied this evening. I began to get aroused. He was going to kill her for sure!
But suddenly it was all over. She shucked off the rope as though it had not existed. She said, “Was that the way it was, Mr. Boola?”
He said, “Exactly! Let’s do it all again!”
Ah, well. I hadn’t come here for recreation. I moved the telescope along. I was looking into Heller’s sitting room. It was quite dim.
Everything was very neat except for some ice cream dishes sitting on the bar and they were stacked just right and ready for a houseman to take. Leave it to Heller. His neatness grated on you if nothing else did!
It sure was a beautiful living room, even seen in the half light.
I moved the telescope along. I was looking into his bedroom. It was confusing! Mirrors! For a moment I couldn’t tell which was the bed and which was any one of fifty multiplying images. I found the bed. Huge, circular; enough bed for a half-dozen people.
There was Heller! Lying on his side, blond head pillowed on one upflung arm. Sleeping peacefully. Without a care in the world for all the trouble he was causing me!
He was all alone in bed!
Not a trace of anyone else!
And then the telescope slipped and tipped up at the ceiling mirror. Was that someone on the other pillow? A face? A small, three-dimensional face?
I increased the magnification.
A Voltar three-dimensional bust picture!
THE COUNTESS KRAK!
I was stunned. Perhaps it was because those pictures look so lifelike despite their cloud and sky backgrounds, but it was sort of like the Countess Krak was looking at me! There she was, blond hair, gray blue eyes, perfect features. He must have sneaked a portraitist in one night on the tug in Voltar.
He had been carrying her picture in his baggage!
And there it was, lying on the pillow next to him.
For some r
eason, I knew not why, it made me uneasy. Then I threw it off. What a dog he was, having all these women every day and still putting out Countess Krak’s picture!
But that wasn’t why I was here. By adjusting focus, I began to inspect closets.
He sure had a lot of clothes!
And there sure were a lot of bass plugs in those cabinets! Deathtraps!
But the telescope couldn’t comb through stacks of sweaters and other things.
One door was very tightly barred and locked. I had a ray of hope. Maybe he only locked it when he went to bed. Maybe, had I been earlier, he would have opened it.
It occurred to me that we were approaching the time when he would be writing his third report. If I got very, very lucky and got here earlier tomorrow night before he went to bed, he might be writing his report or at least have that closet open.
I resisted the temptation to look in on more diplomats at play. I went into the stairwell, locked the door, walked down to the twenty-second floor and was shortly back in the street again. How easy! Nothing to it when you’re Apparatus trained.
Back at the hotel, Utanc still wasn’t in. But I went to bed. It had been a busy night!
PART TWENTY-SIX
Chapter 5
I idled through the following day. I did not see Utanc, but then, I didn’t expect to. I was getting conditioned to hanging around hotel rooms alone.
The afternoon papers had an item of interest. Rockecenter had roared in from a conference with kings and dictators and things in the Middle East where he had settled the world problems of energy forever until next week when the price was going up again. Nice front-page picture of him being handed a bouquet of calla lilies by Miss Peace. The photographer had had a bit of trouble shooting around and through the two or three hundred soldiers carrying cocked guns. I hadn’t known he had been out of town. My luck was surely in. Tomorrow I would make an appointment and see him. But Senator Twiddle surely had been right about it being hard to get close to Delbert John Rockecenter. Those soldiers. And even while the ceremony was going on, apparently, Miss Peace was being frisked by a personal bodyguard.
As to this night’s planned work, I knew that Heller would probably be up and around in his suite about nine. Earlier observations on the viewer told me that. And he was not well enough trained to know that safety lay in not repeating habit patterns.