They dumped me in a first-class seat.
Utanc! She was caped and hooded and veiled, sitting right there!
“Darling!” I cried.
Utanc grabbed a passing blue sleeve. “Purser,” she said, “I see you have a lot of empty seats at the back. Could you please dump my owner into one of them? He is making me feel like I’m going to sneeze!”
He gave a snappy salute. “Pan Am service, ma’am.”
The purser snapped his fingers for a stewardess and in no time the two of them had me clear at the back of the first-class compartment and were covering my clothes with a plastic sheet and buckling me in.
I sank back. Surrounded with the posh luxury of a first-class superjet, complete with classic Greek temples in the murals, I sighed a sigh, somewhat interrupted with a sneeze, as anxiety ebbed out.
And so, gratefully, I saw the landing strip race by and presently, bending sideways without too much pain, watched the smoggy skyline of New York grow small and fade away.
Thank Gods, I had made it.
Later, the dinner being served from carts on the aisle was delicious. But a glass of wine, no matter if served with great ceremony in first class, aloft, does not substitute for a good crystal ball.
With its usual evil grin, fiendish Fate had been busy, just ahead, sorting out available disasters. The one it chose to first serve up for me was horrible. The very memory of it makes me wince.
PART THIRTY-FOUR
Chapter 1
The THY (Turkish Airlines) plane slid down toward Afyon. The snowcapped peaks lined up to point at Afyonkarahisar’s wintry finger. It was a striking view of a bleak terrain: how could any human beings possibly survive in the villages which dotted the hostile mountains and the plain? A scene of utter desolation, it had one saving grace: I was home! The optical illusion, which made a mountaintop and marked the Voltar base, was still in place—suitably wintry now—so I was not only home, I was still connected to Voltar, my real native land.
And I was still alive!
What a relief!
We landed and while we waited for the landing stage to roll up and the door to open, Utanc stepped close to me. She put her dainty hand upon my sleeve, a favor I so seldom enjoyed. She looked at me, her eyes large and dark and pleading above her veil.
“O my master,” she whispered, “we still have a little money left.” She was holding her purse open now. It was absolutely stuffed with money. “May I keep it?”
“Oh, dear Utanc, what a manager you are! Of course, you may keep it.” I was quite touched. Imagine doing that whole trip on much less than a hundred thousand dollars! Besides, I still had millions in the gold I had brought from Voltar.
She closed the purse with a snap and was first down the plane steps.
Some people were at the airport gate. The taxi driver, Karagoz and, ah yes, Utanc’s two little servant boys!
Cloak pressed against her by the wintry wind, Utanc raced toward the gate!
The two little boys burst through and, crowing with delight, sped across the tarmac to meet her!
She gathered them up, hugging them.
Both of them had their arms around her neck and she was kissing their cheeks through her veil. What a bundle of welcome! They were trying to tell her everything that had happened since she had been gone and trying to find out what she had brought for them all at the same time.
They ignored me as I limped painfully by them.
Karagoz ignored me. The taxi driver ignored me. I went through the terminal to the parking area. Karagoz had evidently brought the boys in Utanc’s BMW for there it sat alongside the taxi driver’s taxi.
The wind was very dry and cold and a bit gritty. I was getting chilled and it wasn’t doing my unhealed wounds any good.
Finally they came through the parking lot door, the two small boys chattering and excited, eyes glowing. They did look somewhat like Rudolph Valentino and James Cagney as they must have looked as children. That surely had been a successful present!
Utanc was saying to the taxi driver, “Now, here are the shipping manifests for the trunks. They couldn’t come on this plane but when they do, you be sure to hire a truck to pick them up. Now we will go home.”
Karagoz stepped close to her and whispered something in her ear.
Utanc said, “Ice cream! How would you two dear little boys like some ice cream over in town?”
They shrieked their approval of the plan.
Karagoz, Utanc and the two little boys got in her BMW, and with veiled Utanc behind the wheel, it rocketed out of the parking lot, screeched its tires as it turned into the road to Afyon and was gone.
The taxi driver loaded his taxi with the bags we had checked through on this plane and shortly we were headed for the villa.
“Well, how is she working out?” he flung back at me as he dodged through the camels and donkey carts.
“She is absolutely amazing,” I said. “Not only is she a great slave but she also happens to be the best (bleeped) money manager you ever saw! She handled all our funds on that very expensive trip and just now when we got off the plane she must have had nearly all of the original money left. Amazing! I don’t know how she did it!”
“Yeah, she was sure a bargain,” said the taxi driver. “Cheap, too. They don’t make slaves like that anymore. Her turn-in value would be almost as high as the original price. You want I should ever trade her in on a new model?”
“Never!” I said firmly. “Not even if they come out with a new rear end.”
We were drawing close to the villa. There seemed to be a number of cars parked on the road outside it. The taxi driver found a place to stop.
Creakily, I got out. I went through the gate.
The yard was full of men!
My reflexes, after all I had been through, were not very quick. I didn’t get any chance to retreat.
A hulking brute stepped behind me!
Another hulking brute stalked up to me and used my Turkish Earth name. “You Sultan Bey?”
“That’s him,” said another. “I know him!”
Another jumped in front of me. “I’m from the American Oppress Company! Here is your bill. It’s overdue!”
Another shouldered through. “I’m from the Dunner’s Club. Here is your bill.”
Yet another shouldered through. “I’m from Masker-Charge! What are you going to do about this bill?”
Still another crowded up. “I’m from the Squeeza Credit Card Corporation. One month interest on your first month’s purchases is already more than the original amount!”
In chorus, a very menacing one, they yelled, “When are we going to get paid?”
I staggered back. I couldn’t stagger very far as they were hemming me in. They were all waving bills!
It hit me! Utanc had gotten credit cards on my apparently affluent name and position before we left. She had done the whole trip on CREDIT CARDS!
PART THIRTY-FOUR
Chapter 2
I saw some of the amounts they were waving. HUGE! The best hotels, all first-class travel, all the best shops . . .
Weak as I was, I still had some wits to gather about me. My gold! Painful though it might be, I would have to part with some gold.
I held up a bandaged hand. “Enough!” I cried. “You will be paid!” I would save the old homestead!
I rushed across the yard, across the house patio, into my bedroom, into the closet and through the secret door.
There it was, the stack of boxes in the corner of my secret room, all marked as “dangerously radioactive” to keep people away.
Ignoring the pain to my hands and the agony it caused to bend over, I ripped the lid off a box. Glittering yellow! I picked up a fifty-pound bar. It would weigh 41.6+ pounds on Earth. At twelve ounces Troy to the pound, that was 499.99+ ounces. Gold was above $700 when I last looked. This bar should be worth more than $349,999.99! That should hold them!
I struggled out with it. They gaped when I reappeared on the lawn.
I dropped it in front of them. “This gold, if you cash it in, should take care of everything. And be sure to credit me with the difference.”
They fought their way to it. One hulking brute got possession. He took out a pen knife and cut into the bar.
He stared.
He showed the others.
I stared.
The sliver he had cut off was lead!
“Sultan,” he said in a low and menacing voice, “that bar is just lead painted with gilt paint! Are you trying to put us off?”
I couldn’t believe it!
I checked it myself. Just lead with a coat of gilt paint on it.
The creditors instantly started grabbing rugs out of the house!
“Wait! Wait!” I cried.
I struggled back to my secret room.
I began to open boxes and lift out bars. Nine cases. Seventeen more fifty-pound bars. Eight hundred and fifty more pounds of lifting. A frantic knife cutting slivers!
They were all lead with a gilt coat of paint! But it had been real gold before I had left for New York! I had checked it!
Aching and battered, the bandages on my hands coming apart, I regained the lawn.
Not only did they have piles of rugs and furniture stacking up, they were now also herding the domestic staff out. They began to put ankle cuffs on them and connect them together on a long chain. One hulking brute cried, “They’ll bring a good price in the slave markets of Arabia!”
“Wait! Wait!” I begged. “I will pay you! It’s just that I have a slight headache.”
The taxi driver was still there. I leaped into his cab. I would still save the old homestead. “Mudlick Construction Company!” I cried, “And to Hells with the camels!”
At great cost to my bruises from the bumps, we went careening back to Afyon. With screaming brakes we skidded to a stop at Mudlick.
I rushed in. The manager said, “I’ve been expecting you.” He went right over to the safe, opened it and took out stacks of US dollar bank notes. It was really painful to see those going into a sack and know I would never be able to caress them.
A quarter of a million dollars! My half of the kickback on that construction cost. I signed the receipt.
We went tearing back to the villa.
In agony from the bumps, I got out of the smoking taxi.
I stalked into the yard.
They had waited. The rugs were still piled up. The staff, in leg irons, was still standing there.
Triumphantly, I threw the sack of bank notes at them.
They all tore it apart and began to count it.
Then the Dunner’s Club man cried, “There’s only a quarter of a million dollars here!” He turned his back on it. He got a piece of paper from an aide. He waved it. “Here is my order for foreclosure! Get a padlock on those gates!”
“Wait! Wait!” I screamed. “I will pay! I will pay!” Ye Gods, how much were those bills?
I turned to the taxi again. “To Faht Bey’s office!” I would save the old homestead in spite of Hells!
With engine roaring and my bruises shrieking, we braked in front of the International Agricultural Training Center for Peasants. I went reeling into the Base Commander’s office.
Faht Bey looked at me. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said, a deadly look on his fat face.
“Give me a million dollars!” I said.
“Can’t do it!” he said.
I was astonished. “Look,” I said. “I started this hospital project. You have two hundred gangsters coming in here to get their faces remodeled. At $100,000 each, that’s $20,000,000! The buildings only cost a million. You got $19,000,000 clear! What do you mean, you can’t? Look at that profit!”
“Little enough to compensate for all the damage you do. Besides, the demand for drugs from Lombar Hisst is out of sight in tonnage. We’re barely making both ends meet.”
“I’m in trouble!” I wailed.
“When weren’t you?” said Faht Bey. “But I have a proposition for you. If you will agree to certain terms, you can have a quarter of a million.”
“The terms?” I begged.
“When the credit card bills began to come in, I made up my mind and wrote it all out for you to sign. Here it is.”
I read it:
I, Soltan Gris, hereby swear and affirm to stop grafting, chiseling and embezzling monies from the Earth Base Treasury. I will demand not one more cent after this final payoff and I will absolutely undertake to place no more contracts for construction so I can get a kickback from the contractors as I have been doing.
Signed, Sworn, Attested, Witnessed.
________________________
I was desperate. But this was horrible!
Faht Bey said, “If you refuse to sign it, I will simply let those credit card people tear you to pieces.”
He had the quarter of a million in stacks, right there.
I signed! He got his wife and the security guard to witness it.
Stuffing the packets of bank notes in a handy sack, I regained the cab. We went scorching back to the villa.
I staggered out of the taxi. I made my way to the waiting mob. I flung the bag at them.
They pounced on it. They tore it apart. They counted it.
“Aha!” said the American Oppress man. “He has covered the first month of bills!”
They agreed. They got the shackles off the staff. They brushed them off. They put the rugs and furniture back in place.
I was reeling. I had saved the old homestead. But at what a terrible sacrifice! And it and I would both be swept away again in just a few weeks when the rest of the bills came in!
But that wasn’t what caused me to collapse.
When they had everything in order again, the whole mob came over to me. They were fawning.
“Ah, Sultan Bey,” said Dunner’s Club. “I speak for all of us. You have met your first month’s bills. You have proven your credit beyond any doubt. We are waiving any limit we thought we might have to impose. Feel free to charge whatever you like, any amount you like, anywhere in the whole world!”
The others raised a cheer.
What an awful, awful sentiment!
I fainted dead away!
PART THIRTY-FOUR
Chapter 3
I came to, lying in the yard, right where I had collapsed. The staff had pretty well cleaned things up. They were walking around, even stepping over me.
I became afraid they would sweep me into one of their trash bags. I was far too weak to resist.
Suddenly, I recognized how really sick I was. I knew I had to get to the hospital while I still had the ability to move somewhat.
The taxi driver wasn’t there.
An old Chevy station wagon was in the yard. I crawled over to it on my hands and knees. They used to keep a spare key under the mat. With enormous strain, I lifted up the corner of the floor covering.
The key!
I hauled myself up by the steering column. I somehow got under the wheel.
It started!
Oh, Gods, if I could just hold out until I got to the hospital!
A camel driver saw me coming. I was driving awfully slow. He saw who was behind the wheel. He got his beasts off the road quick. Lucky for me: the camels might have attacked me.
Going five miles an hour, concentrating on every yard of advance, I finally saw the sign ahead:
WORLD UNITED CHARITIES
MERCY AND BENEVOLENT
HOSPITAL
It looked much bigger. The warehouses were up and a new wing had been added.
I was distracted by the fact that it was all landscaped! A couple of peasant women were doing winter trim on rose bushes. They screamed at me when a wheel inadvertently went off the drive slightly and made a furrow in their lawn. I couldn’t understand the commotion: cold weather had turned the grass brown.
Distracted, I hadn’t seen a little Fiat move around me and sneak into the parking place toward which I was headed. It was bright red and at the last insta
nt I saw that it was opening its door.
CRASH!
The door hit the side of the Chevy.
The curb stopped me. I somehow managed to shut off the ignition.
Somebody was getting out of the Fiat. A voice! “What in the name of Allah are you doing, you cross-eyed camel! My car, my poor car!” In the rearview side mirror, somebody was bending down stroking at a dent. That somebody promptly stood up and came storming to the side of the Chevy. “My new Fiat! You wrecked my brand-new Fiat!”
It was Nurse Bildirjin!
She was alongside my door. She looked. She saw who it was! Fury contorted her face! “So you’re back, you (bleepard)!”
It wasn’t a very friendly welcome to the portals of Mercy and Benevolence even if its principal business was the altering of the ID of gangsters.
“I’m dying,” I managed to get out.
“Really?” she said. It changed her whole demeanor. “You wouldn’t fool me, would you?” She turned and ran like the quail she was named after, straight into the hospital yelling gaily, “Hey, Doc! You got to come out! Sultan is outside actually dying! Hurray, hurray!”
It did produce a certain commotion. A lot of women with children rushed from the waiting room and formed a staring ring, laughing and chattering excitedly.
At length, Dr. Prahd Bittlestiffender pushed his way through the cheering throng. He was followed by a couple of orderlies pushing a cart with a corpse bag on it.
“Cadavers are usually delivered at the mortuary entrance,” said Prahd in reproof. “Can’t you drive around there?”
“I’m too weak,” I said sadly. “Doctor, just this once, be kind. You’ve got to help me. I am a survivor of the battle of New York. I am a victim of red pepper, Miss Agnes, mustard, truncheons, taxi cabs and snakes. I have crawled back home with final last words: Cancel my credit cards before the US Army Signal Corps finds Bury!”
“Oh, I don’t think we need to go to the expense of burying you. But speaking of credit cards, when does my pay start?”
“Must we talk about money?” I wept. “Please help me, Doctor. I am in agony!”
Prahd had them stuff me in the corpse bag and soon we were in his operating room. He pushed the male attendants out and bolted the door.