You can always count on the police to do their duty. Particularly when they think their own necks are out!
Grafferty made sure there were no other snipers on the roof. Then he walked up to the corpse and turned it over with his foot.
"Fellow citizens," he said with a hand bullhorn to the empty street in general, "you can come out now and go about your business. The first interest of the police is to protect its taxpayers. The streets are safe once again, thanks to Bulldog Grafferty." Was he running for office or just getting ready to hit the town for higher pay?
I sauntered off.
Some Earth poet once said that Hells had no fury like a woman scorned. He must have had Margarita in mind.
It was a bit hard to saunter with that BB in my butt.
Chapter 6
It was time for strong measures. The hour had arrived to bring in the troops, the tanks and the artillery. It was plain that Heller was dangerous beyond belief. Even trying to put his room under surveillance was as much as your life was worth. My behind attested to that. Until I got to the privacy of my hotel bathroom I was certain the wound was near mortal, and I had envisioned a tender scene of getting Utanc to draw the lethal bullet out while I stoically groaned just a bit. But unfortunately the pellet had not penetrated flesh, and simply dropped out of my pants when I took them off. But it was bruised! Tender! The red spot was a quarter of an inch in diameter!
No, I couldn't go around risking death on Heller's account. So, sitting lopsided in the ornate hotel chair, I picked up the ornate white and gold phone and called Rockecenter's office.
That produced quite a spin at the hotel switchboard. I told them who I wanted to speak with and they didn't believe me. They acted like I was trying to call a God.
Finally the hotel switchboard supervisor got the telephone company emergency-assistance supervisor who got onto the chief information supervisor of the city of New York. They kept saying one had to call the Octopus Oil Company in Ohio. I argued this down and they said you called the Octopus Oil Company in New Jersey. They were arguing with one another over the phone like it was a conference call. After a while somebody thought of getting the emergency assistance information supervisor of the Continental Telephone Company and he got the idea maybe the International Phone Company would know. More and more people kept getting added on to this conference call. It appeared no one had ever before tried to telephone Delbert John Rockecenter and they weren't sure that it wasn't sort of sacrilegious.
Eventually they included in an Arab emergency assistance supervisor in Saudi Yemen and in broken English he said they should query the local operator at Hairy-town, New York, because he had heard his king went there once, and he had had to phone him about a palace revolution. So that local operator got added to the babble on the lines and she said, why, yes, she'd ask the butler at the Rockecenter Estate near there—Pokantickle, it was called—and maybe he'd know how you could phone Delbert John Rockecenter. The fourth assistant butler got on the line and said, in a lofty tone, that if it wasn't Miss Agnes calling, all such calls should be referred to the attorneys, Swindle and Crouch of Wall Street.
So the receptionist at Swindle and Crouch was added and she was horrified. Nobody ever called Delbert John Rockecenter! It should be reported to the police!
I had an inspiration. In a tough voice I said, "Put Mr. Bury on the line!"
She said, "Oh, I am sorry, but Mr. Bury is at his special office in the Octopus Oil Building at Rockecenter Plaza. He has an appointment with Mr. Rockecenter at ten and won't be in today."
A wheeze of relief went from New York to London to Saudi Yemen. They had run God to his lair. I am sure most of them had a coffee break to celebrate the instant they went off the line.
The hotel switchboard girl said, "That's only a few blocks down the street! I'll connect you."
Magic. The fourth assistant receptionist in Mr. Bury's Octopus Oil Building office had an open moment at one o'clock sharp and would see me.
Of course, I took a bath, put a Band-Aid on the red spot to cushion it and got all dressed up in my most Federal-looking investigator suit. I polished up my credentials and at one o'clock sharp was sitting, slouch hat in hand, before the iron-barred and bulletproof glass-protected desk of the fourth assistant receptionist in Mr. Bury's special office in the Octopus Building. At one-fifteen he came in from lunch.
I lifted my credentials up so he could see them through the glass.
He sat down at his desk. He said, "I'm sorry. We don't have any orders for the Senate today."
I said, "You better let me see Mr. Bury or you really will be sorry!"
He looked closely at my credentials again.
"The servant's entrance is in the basement," he said.
"I want to see Mr. Bury," I said firmly.
"Mr. Bury has just come back from an important appointment," he said. "He is exhausted! I'm scandalized that you would presume such a tone!"
I said, "You get on that blower, sonny, and tell Mr. Bury that Delbert John Rockecenter will be the one that's scandalized if I don't get to him."
"Are you threatening me?" He was pushing a buzzer. Two armed guards, carrying riot shotguns at port, burst in the door behind me.
"You tell Bury that I came here to avert a scandal!" I said, "or it will be bursting all over the papers!"
The guards grabbed me.
"What kind of a scandal?" said the fourth assistant receptionist.
"Family!" I said, struggling.
Hastily the fourth assistant receptionist held up his hand to the guards. It was time, too. They almost had me out the door.
Magic!
Two minutes later, the guards had me standing in the middle of Mr. Bury's office.
Mr. Bury was even more dried up. Life was being hard on him. He had more wrinkles than a prune.
"Now, what's this about a scandal?" he said.
I glanced either way at the guards. Bury nodded. They frisked me and took my gun. They left.
"Cheap fuel," I said.
"That's not a family scandal."
"It will be if I don't get to see Delbert John Rockecenter. Cheap fuel could wipe out the whole family fortune."
The Wall Street lawyer thought it over. "That cheap?"
"Cheaper," I said. "The dastardly plot was revealed in a long and careful investigation."
"Who knows about it?"
"Twiddle and me. And he knows no details. I came straight to headquarters with it when I was sure."
"What is this fuel?"
"That's what I'll tell Delbert John Rockecenter."
"No, no," said Mr. Bury. "You tell me and I'll tell him."
"That's what everybody says," I grated. "This stuff is as cheap as sand. You think I'd tell anyone else? Would Rockecenter want me to tell anyone else? It violates the old family policy, 'Trust nobody!'"
"Ah," he said contemplatively. "I see what you mean. Mr. Rockecenter is a stickler in adhering to family policy. But what's your own payoff? I've got to be sure this is honest dealing."
"Enemy," I said. "Personal revenge."
That made sense. That was something he could understand. But he hesitated. "Actually, I think you had better tell me. You have no other route to Mr. Rockecenter. There are none."
"There's Miss Agnes," I said, taking my cue from the fourth assistant butler at Pokantickle Estate.
"Oh, God (bleep)!" said Mr. Bury. "I told him and told him to ship that (bleepch) off!" He recovered from his unlawyerlike outburst. He passed a tired hand across his prune wrinkles. "All right," he said at last. "If you're up to it, I'll put you through the mill. But you'll be wearing concrete shoes in the East River if this is not on the level."
He saw I was determined. He pushed a buzzer and shortly two different guards came in. Bury pushed some more buttons and spoke rapidly into an interoffice phone. A huge, apelike fellow in very expensive clothes came in.
Bury said, "Take him through the precautionary sector and th
en take him to see Mr. Rockecenter."
"What?" yelled the apelike man, incredulously.
"That's what I said," frowned Bury. And to me, he added, "If I never see you again, don't come back."
Heller, I said to myself, write your will. You're as good as dead! Maybe worse!
And then, thinking of all this security and precaution, I amended my optimism: Heller was in the soup only if I could actually get to and handle Rockecenter!
Chapter 7
We left the black onyx and silver aluminum front of the Octopus Building. We walked through its landscaped plaza. We crossed the Avenue of the Americas. The alert guards kept a firm grip on me.
We passed the City Musical Hall. We walked through a whole street made into gardens and which ended with all the United Nations flags. We crossed Fifth Avenue. We walked below a bronze statue of Atlas bearing a huge skeletal world upon his back and I wondered if Delbert John Rockecenter must feel that way. We went north a block, passing St. Patrick's Cathedral.
The guards marched sternly on both sides of me.
I wondered what this strange promenade was all about. Were they trying to confuse me or lose me? Or was this a guided tour to show me all the buildings Rockecenter owned personally?
The apelike man stopped in a shop and bought a quart of goat's milk and a bag of popcorn.
We went all the way back, the way we had come, I supposed, though I was totally lost. We went into an ornate lobby, huge murals all around. We stepped through a small door which had been a blank wall an instant before. We were in an elevator.
We went up. It opened. We got out.
I was transferred to the burly guards in the front room and the original guards gave the new guards my gun and left. The ape-man stayed on, carrying the bag of popcorn and quart of goat's milk.
The burly guards frisked me. They shoved me through a barricade—rather tight, getting past two machine guns, manned.
Guards in the new room took over. They frisked me. They took my new I.D. Then they phoned Senator Twiddle's office and verified it.
They passed me through another barrier. They also passed them my gun. New guards there took the serial numbers off the gun. They also fired a round in a soundproof box. They phoned the results through to somebody. A sign flashed on a computer:
Weapon has not been used in the assassination of heads of state lately.
They passed me through another barrier. New guards took over. They frisked me. They took my fingerprints and an instant photograph. They punched it into the FBI's National Crime Index Computer. It went to Washington. It came back. The screen said:
Not wanted yet.
They put the fingerprint card and photograph in a shredder.
All this time, the ape-man was coming along with the bag of popcorn and quart of goat's milk.
They pushed me through a barrier to a new set of guards. There was a dental chair. They X-rayed my teeth for poison capsules. They X-rayed my body for any implanted bombs.
They passed me along to the next room and a new set of guards. They examined my wallet for concealed knives. They examined my keys for trick blades. They X-rayed my shoe soles.
They passed me along between two howitzer cannons—a tight squeeze—and I found myself in a room all dark except for one pool of light in the center. There was a desk over to the side. A sign said:
Chief Psychologist
I knew I was amongst friends.
He took me under the light, made me sit on a stool. He examined the bumps on my head. He drew back and nodded.
The ape-man pushed me to a revolving door. I went through. It was a miniature hospital operating room. Two attendants in blue-green gowns put out their cigarettes and donned masks.
They stripped me of all my clothes. They took my temperature and blood pressure. They got samples of sputum and put it under a microscope. They took a blood sample and examined that.
The senior of the two nodded and the other rammed me into a sort of glassed closet. They seemed to be filling bottles.
"Hey," I said to the ape-man. "Is all this necessary?"
"Listen," he said, "if the Prime Minister of England can go through this without a beef, so can you!"
They had their bottles full. They hit some knobs. I was sprayed with antiseptic.
I came out. They threw my clothes in and they, too, were sprayed with antiseptic.
They stood me and my clothes in front of a dryer.
As soon as I was dressed, the ape-man pointed at the next door. It had steel teeth on both sides that, apparently, could be closed instantly.
A girl was sitting with her feet on the desk, chewing gum. I recognized "Miss Peace" from the news photograph. Aha! He used his own staff for greeting ceremonies. How wise!
The ape-man said, "It's cleared so far."
She took her feet off the desk. She opened a gigantic drawer. It was lined with stocks of badges. They were huge. They said, "King" and "Banker" and such things across the top and had a blank line for a name to be filled in under the title.
"Oh, (bleep)," said Miss Peace. "I'm totally out of 'Unwanted Guest' buttons. I don't want him to think I'm inefficient."
"Give him anything," said the ape-man. "This milk is liable to go sour and I'm late already."
She picked up "Derby Winner" and dropped it. She picked up "Hit Man of the Year" and dropped it. She was dithering. "(Bleep)! If I don't put a button on this guy he won't know who he's talking to!"
Apparatus training tells. My quick eye spotted "Undercover Operator Up for Promotion to Family Spy." I said, "That is the only one you've got that covers it. I'm not a king."
"That's right," she said, glancing at me. "You sure ain't no king."
"Hurry up, will you," said the ape-man. "This popcorn will get cold, too! You want me to lose my job?"
She grabbed my I.D. and scrawled Inkswitch on the ''Undercover Operator Up for Promotion to Family Spy" one. She jabbed it into my lapel and into me.
What a man this Rockecenter must be to have such a loyal and dedicated staff!
There was an arched church door on the other side of the office. The ape-man pushed me through it.
I was in an enormous room. It had a vaulted ceiling of cathedral height. It had saint niches with votive candles burning under each saint. The statues were all of Delbert John Rockecenter. There was a big desk—actually an altar.
He was not, however, sitting at his desk. He was in a gilded throne chair, staring at a wall I could not see. Ah, I thought, Delbert John Rockecenter was deep in thought, sorting out the cares of the world with his mighty brain.
I was pushed further into the room. Then I saw what he was looking at. It was a one-way mirror. On the other side of it was the dressing room and toilet of chorus girls. They were taking off their costumes and getting into even scantier costumes. They were also going to the toilet.
Delbert John Rockecenter became aware that somebody had entered his office. He leaped forward, turned and glared. He was a tall man, past middle age, not much hair. His features were unmistakably those of a Rockecenter—a cross between a politician and a hungry hawk. But it was hard to tell. The whole cathedral office illumination was red.
"Can't you see I'm having my afternoon snack!" he roared at us.
"I brought it," said the ape-man, holding out the popcorn and goat's milk.
"You shouldn't come in here while I'm concentrating," said Delbert John. Then he saw me.
He stepped closer. He peered at the big button. "You haven't been sworn in yet," he said, "but you might as well start apprenticing." He waved a hand at the one-way mirror. "I'm just making sure none of those girls are pregnant. I hate babies. You've heard of my abortion and infanticide programs, of course. Got to keep the population down. Riffraff!"
He quickly forgot about me. He sat down and resumed his close inspection of the possible pregnancy of the chorus girls. He began on the goat's milk and popcorn.
This office was app
arently parallel with the back of a theater, disguised, perhaps, by the height of the theater stage loft. It was certainly big. The other end of the cathedral room had a balcony that overlooked the parks and city. Its doors were heavy glass, possibly bulletproof.
The ape-man had vanished.
After a while, Rockecenter sighed and punched a button on the side of his huge chair. With a whirr, curtains closed to obscure the one-way mirror. He tossed off the last of the popcorn and then drained the last drops of goat's milk. "Great stuff," he sighed. "This is what made Ghandi a world leader."
He peered at my badge again. "Inkswitch, eh? Well, Inkswitch, what have you done to get yourself promoted to be a family spy? It's a pretty important post, Ink-switch. Families really can be (bleepards)."
"I've always been one of your most trusted undercover men," I said. And I drew upon our file on him. "I covered up leaks of your links to I. G. Barben. And I covered up its links to Faustino 'The Noose' Narcotici's mob. What is an undercover man for if not to cover up links and leaks?"
I had his interest. I was taking no great risk: he had hundreds of millions of people sweating out their lives for him. He could not be expected to know even a millionth of his staff.
"Earlier," I said, "I befriended the family itself but never wanted to mention it. I was even a member of the burial party of Aunt Timantha."
"Well, well," he said. "I can see your promotion is long overdue."
"But I don't come empty-handed," I said. "Lately, I have been serving your interests as a Senate Investigator for Senator Twiddle's Energy Crisis Committee. And when I learned of my promotion, I made a point of gathering up every scrap of data of the most heinous skulduggery anyone could imagine. Senator Twiddle was utterly outraged. When I called it to his attention, he said it was the energy crisis of the century."
"One of our best men, Twiddle," said Rockecenter. "Sound. Always consults me before he casts a single vote! So what is this crisis?"
"I know of a plot to introduce a new, cheap energy source on this planet, completely independent of yourself, that would be in total competition to you."