That was exactly what happened to me. The ounce of orange juice was halfway to my lips when I saw the lead story:
WHIZ KID
CHALLENGES
OIL COMPANIES
In an exclusive statement to the New York Yuk, the Whiz Kid today asked, "How come America and the world is letting itself get gypped by the oil companies?"
Spokesmen for the Seven Brothers, which includes Octopus Oil Company as their acknowledged senior, said, "We are only public service organizations. The cost of oil is such that we have done everything possible to cut it. Such accusations are common."
The story went on. I was shaking so that I couldn't see the type to finish it.
I rushed into the hall, realized I had no bathrobe on, rushed back and put on an overcoat and then phoned for a bellhop to bring up a copy of every newspaper in the stand.
Crouched on the floor, I went over them. They all carried the story. The only difference was that the name of the paper had been changed in the first line. The Whiz Kid had made the statement exclusively forty times, to forty different papers including the Garment Daily Worker.
I must be calm, I told myself. Then I realized that Madison, of course, had not had time to stop the story. It takes a few hours to set a newspaper into type and he probably had not been able to stop it.
The viewer was sitting there. How was Heller taking this? Sometimes he stopped by his office before leaving for the speedway.
Yes, there he was. He had newspapers spread all over his desk. Shortly, he picked up his gloves, ready to leave. Izzy was coming in the door. Heller went back to his desk.
"Where is all this coming from?" demanded Heller.
Izzy looked very sad. "A publicist would say you have caught the public fancy."
"But I didn't make any such statement!"
Izzy shrugged and then made a circular motion with his finger around his temple. "That's newspapers."
"What do I do about it?"
"Leave for South America," said Izzy with sudden interest. "I can get you a ticket on the first flight out."
"Oh, this isn't that bad. It's what I'm trying to do, really. But it's strange. No reporters have come near me and here I am making statements."
"Air tickets are cheap," said Izzy, "compared to what this can cost in the long run."
Heller was going to leave again and Izzy said, "Just don't connect any corporations with racing. Or your name!"
I was confident that Madison would have stamped on the campaign by now. I idled away the morning and after lunch, went out for a walk in Central Park. The air was chilly.
Coming back, I chanced to see an advertising sign on top of a building, a big one. Workmen were busy spreading a new display on it.
A corner of what they were pasting up in sections made a chill go through me. It was a WH.
I steadied myself against a litter basket.
In horror, I saw it go together piece by piece.
It had a huge caption:
WHIZ KID TAKES ON SEVEN BROTHERS!
And there was a caricature of the Whiz Kid with glasses, pugnacious jaw and teeth. He was wearing boxing gloves. He had just knocked down one of them. The other six were cowering to escape him. Puddles of oil splashed about.
A billboard campaign! Gotten out and executed at incredible speed!
Well, wait. That would have taken two or three days. It was part of Madison's original effort.
Back at the hotel, I got on the viewer. Heller was leaving the speedway. He was looking at a billboard. It was the same caricature. But he got out and, being Heller, climbed up to the walkway they have along the bottom for workmen to stand on, and read the tiny type, financed by the Americans for Cheap Fuel Committee,
He got down and drove along. Sign after sign after sign! Everywhere he looked on his road back through Brooklyn to Manhattan, he was seeing these signs.
I groaned! What a sickening spectacle! The whole town was being plastered with those (bleeped) signs! Usually they advertised air travel or cigarettes or foreign cars. All that had been swept away. It was only "Whiz Kid!"
I tried to phone Madison. I could not make contact.
I tried to phone Bury. He would not be back until the morrow.
But worse was yet to come. Thinking I ought to watch a movie, something calm like the FBI making America safe by blowing up its buildings, I turned on the TV.
A talk show! There sat the Whiz Kid. I realized it was the set that Madison had erected out at the speedway. The Whiz Kid wasn't heard. His lips were moving. The commentator was dubbing in what he was saying.
All about how he had a cheap fuel and America would be greatly benefited and could now look forward to prosperity.
The interrogator was shot separately.
Half an hour later, another channel, same patter!
Madison again was not available!
All evening, on whatever channel, even in the news, you could count on the Whiz Kid popping up with an overdubbed set of statements.
I suffered through the night. Nothing could be worse than this. Madison had turned his coat! He had sold us out! I knew how he was getting such coverage. He must be in contact with the Rockecenter-appointed bank directors on every paper and TV channel and he was giving them their orders and they were passing them down the line.. Madison was selling Rockecenter out, using Rockecenter's own press-control network! A traitor!
Even worse was to come. In the morning, in addition to more news stories, I chanced to turn the TV to a housewife program.
There stood the Whiz Kid before a group of housewives! In the flesh. In person. And he was telling them what a shame it was they had to empty their teapots to buy gas when a fuel existed that was so cheap they would be able to buy mink coats with the money they saved. They were hysterical with joy!
In person?
I went to the viewer.
Heller was en route to the office! He wasn't talking live to any housewives!
I looked at the TV again. Glasses, buckteeth, pugnacious jaw...
I phoned Madison. I got him at his mother's place.
"Madison!" I screamed at him. "I thought I told you to mend your ways!"
"I did!" he said. "I doubled the coverage and added controversy! I know it is awfully fast but I think we're making it. We are forming fan clubs now, coast to coast."
"Oh, my Gods!" Then, as the TV was still on and the Whiz Kid was still addressing housewives, I cried, "But how are you doing this housewife thing?"
"Oh, the double," he said. "Well, in handling publicity, you never can trust a client. They always say the wrong things and are not handy when you need them. That's why I had to have a double. I could have gotten some actor that looked much more like Wister but in his envelope of instructions Mr. Bury said that if I used a double I could only use this young man. He was very emphatic about it. This double has buckteeth and a heavy jaw and he's blind as a bat without glasses. He wouldn't consent to our pulling his teeth and plastic surgery or contact lenses. And Mr. Bury was so emphatic, I had no choice. I had to make Wister look like the double. Do you have him on? I think he is marvelously convincing! I've got to hang up. Good-bye."
I rang his phone again. Nobody answered.
Not for nothing did his colleagues call him J. Warbler Madman. He was as crazy as a coot! He was going to make Heller a household word as the Whiz Kid!
Heller was in his office at the Empire State Building now. He got hold of Izzy.
Izzy said, "They've got a double for you. I saw him on TV."
"Wait," said Heller. "That's impersonation! I've got to get a lawyer and stop this!"
"We don't have ten million dollars," said Izzy. "That would be the lawyer's fee. And it would take years. I got you a ticket for Brazil. There's an unexplored area up the Amazon. There are only soldier ants in it that eat everything. You'd be much safer there."
"They haven't done anything destructive yet," said Heller.
Izzy looked at him and
then gave his own Salvation Army Good Will suit a tug. "I think you will find, Mr. Jet, that it doesn't do to raise your head in this world. It's kind of fatal."
"Then there's nothing I can do?"
"Use this air ticket," said Izzy. "And fast!"
Heller brushed it aside and left for the speedway.
But I had quite another view of it. Madison had sold out. He was making Heller a folk hero even with fan clubs! And he was using the Rockecenter power to do it.
I called Bury. He said instantly, "Don't talk about it on the phone. Meet me at Goldstein's Delicatessen at 50th and Eighth Avenue for lunch, twelve sharp." He hung up.
Oh, I could see he also scented trouble. Secret meeting!
In a deadly, bad humor, at twelve I elbowed my way to a greasy, white-topped table in the back of Goldstein's Delicatessen. Despite the crowd, it was apparently reserved. I sat down. Bury came elbowing through the mob seconds later. He was carrying a huge book. He was looking like he might smile if he ever could.
He put the book on the next chair and ordered kosher hot dogs. "I hate these things," he said. "Don't let me forget to put bicarbonate of soda on them this time."
I was too upset to do much talking. I ate my kosher hot dog moodily. Bury ate three.
He lifted up the book. "Madison sent this over for you. You're lucky he doesn't have your address or right name. He said you sounded cross. Why?"
I gaped at him.
He opened the book. It was full of clippings and TV summaries, a press book showing all the coverage. He was almost smiling as he leafed through the vast Whiz Kid array.
"He's making a hero of him!" I said. "And he's using the Rockecenter power to get the press!"
"Precisely," said Bury. "Precisely. I just picked this up on the way over." He dropped the just-released copy of Tripe. The front page had a photograph of Heller standing by the Caddy—the Heller with glasses, buckteeth and jaw. The caption said American Youth on the March, page 5. And page 5 began a photo story of a humble cottage where the Whiz Kid had been born, photos of his early teachers, his mother and father and an early Cooper-Martin racing car he had rebuilt at the age of five.
There was something wrong with Bury's attitude. "I had to see you before you upset Madison," he said. "He's sensitive. A sort of prima donna, really, dedicated to his art. So don't be cross with him, Inkswitch. I think he's doing just wonderful!"
I was so confused I even paid the check.
In the hotel, I lay on the bed looking at the TV. They had a picture of the goofed-up Heller in an insert and a station editorial commentator was giving a spiel, "Is this young man, a pillar of American youth, going to revolutionize our culture? It has always been the opinion of this channel that American youth should be given its head and the wisdom of that policy is manifest today in the emergence upon the world stage of Wister...."
I snapped it off.
I knew it would not get better. It didn't.
The morning paper front-paged the scene of Heller's tire blowing out. The headline said DID THE 7 BROTHERS PLAN WHIZ KID DEATH?
Anxiously I looked to see if Heller was dead, as it implied. It didn't really say!
The morning TV news carried the whole scene of the skid, including smoke. And then there was a shot of a Long Island police officer holding a piece of rubber. He was saying, "Forensic medicine has just revealed that this tire did not have enough air in it. Members of the Whiz Kid pit crew are in custody and under question."
Insane! He didn't have any pit crew!
Yes, he did. There they were, creeping out of a police van, holding up their coats so you couldn't see their faces.
Worse. The afternoon news showed a fist-gesticulating mob in front of the Arabian-Manhattan Oil Company, demonstrating against its effort to do away with the Whiz Kid!
Bury liked this?
They all belonged in a psychiatric ward!
I sank into a sodden despair.
Maybe the whole planet ought to be in a psychiatric ward!
Chapter 5
I had been so horror-struck by the contents of the newspapers that I had not noticed the progressing dateline. Reading the latest heroic activities of the Whiz Kid one morning, my eye chanced to pause, while I got my heart going again, on the date.
It was days past the time Heller would have sent in his third report to Captain Tars Roke. He had probably mailed it direct to the base and there they would have placed it on the first outward-bound freighter. I had lost a chance to get the platen code.
I wished Utanc would be around some time. I needed somebody sympathetic. But all I ever saw of her was piles of packages being delivered, wrapped in paper, labelled Lord and Taylor or Saks or Tiffany. I half expected to see a skyscraper arrive, neatly boxed: she was buying out the town. But I must say, when I caught rare glimpses of her, she did look extraordinarily chic in her western clothes. One day I had seen her alight from her chauffeured limousine looking like an animated silver statue in her metal-hued gown and slippers. She didn't say hello: she just handed me a rare painting she had got at an auction and promptly drove off. Maybe she thought I was a bellhop.
I was very alone in a very cruel world. If Lombar caught a whiff of Heller's fame and possible success, I was done for! Of course, it did have the advantage that if Tars Roke heard of it, the Grand Council would be so happy that they would forget all about an emergency invasion and I would not be slaughtered along with everybody else on Earth. It sort of depended on the way you looked at it.
But then something happened which jarred me out of my numbness.
Heller was at the Spreeport Speedway. He had not yet installed the carburetor on the Cadillac. He was still using high-test gasoline. At the track they had put on additional security guards and nobody could get through the gate, not even press, except of course on Saturday nights when they had their races.
Thus it was with interest that I watched somebody walking up toward Pit 13. Usually the place was deserted. The newcomer was pretty plump, rather carelessly dressed, a cigar clamped in yellowed teeth.
Around the track, Heller wore a totally enclosed racing helmet with a dark plastic visor, probably a sort of disguise. One couldn't blame him. He had been inspecting his tires after a few turns around the oval.
"You Wister?" said the newcomer. He didn't get an answer but he put out his plump hand. "I'm Stampi. I own this place."
"Glad to meet you," said Heller, shaking hands.
"I just came over to tell you the track was closed now. The season is over. The circuit moves south."
"Sorry to hear it," said Heller. "I was hoping to use it for a longevity trial. Endurance, I think you call it. Just for my own information."
"Oh, hell no, Wister, it ain't closed to you. But that ain't the point. I got a call a while ago from the association president and he said somebody had given him the idea we should hold another event. What were you going to do?"
"I was going to get the hood sealed and locked by AAA inspectors and then I was going to run a hundred hours without refueling. Just round and round."
"Oho! The new fuel!"
"Not really a fuel. It's the carburetor."
"Carburetor, fuel, what's the difference? Endurance race, eh? Well, Wister, you been kicking up quite a fuss in the press and the association president said that if you was agreeable, we could make a sort of an event. You know, tickets, TV coverage. Might gate a million bucks. The networks would pay and the gate would be heavy. Could cook up a prize for you. Quarter of a million, maybe? If you busted any records."
"Well, it wouldn't be very exciting," said Heller. "Just a car going round and round."
"Oh, other manufacturers or owners would say their cars also could do endurance runs. We'd invite a few in. Some sort of event. My only misgivings is that this track is going to start icing in another couple weeks. And I notice you keep worrying about tires."
"Well, if it didn't disqualify me to stop and change a tire, the ice isn't any real
problem. One would just drive carefully."
"So ice don't worry you none?"
"Not especially. Couldn't be much worse than wet."
"Well, all right, then," said Stampi. "I'll call him back and we'll put together an out-of-season special event of some kind. And if you win, you get a cup and a quarter of a million. Okay, Whiz Kid?"
They shook.
And a wave of relief flooded through me! That carburetor! I just remembered! It was sabotaged! It would quit after seven hours! Heller was going to lose!
I leaped up. I was in ecstasy! Brilliant, brilliant Lom-bar! He had foreseen it all from the first!
I dashed to my phone. After fifteen minutes of busy signals, I got Madison.
"He's agreed to race!" I cried.
"I know," said Madison. "We had to twist an arm or two and tell the association president his track would be dropped from the circuit, but it went just like it was supposed to. It usually does."
"But you don't know the good part!" I told him. "His carburetor is sabotaged! It's going to fail in about seven hours! He'll lose for sure!"
"So?" said Madison.
"He's all set up to fall on his head!" I said. "He can't possibly win that race!"
"Mr. Smith, please forgive my abruptness but I have some very urgent things to do. We just got the governor of Michigan to be president of the International Whiz Kid Fan Clubs and he's on the other wire. But when you have important data for me, by all means, phone. But right now, I'm sorry. Good-bye."
I sat there gaping. He was not the least bit interested! If he was really selling us out, he would be interested. If he was not selling us out, he would be interested.
There wasn't any way to make heads or tails of it.
I tried to find a movie on the TV and there was the double as a guest of honor at a kiddie afternoon puppet show. On another channel, there was the double, prerecorded, being compared to Einstein by an eminent psychologist who was examining the bumps on his head.