Wait a minute. There was a pattern to this. An excellent student of psychology like myself should be able to sort it out. Then it hit me: Teenie was a pathological liar!
INSPIRATION!
I knew my way out of this!
I could have her committed to Bellevue.
Any psychiatrist would end her as a threat!
The court could not possibly object!
My Gods, no wonder they had considered me a top student at the Apparatus training school!
I COULD SOLVE TEENIE!
No wonder they continued to practice psychiatry here on Earth and at such vast expense. What a Gods-send! You could get rid of anybody you wanted, get them mangled or murdered at the stroke of a pen.
I could get rid of Heller, Krak and now Teenie. All through the vast humanitarian benefits of psychiatry!
PART FIFTY-THREE
Chapter 2
what are the facilities of civilization for, if not for use?
The project to end Teenie without getting hit for her murder was no sooner conceived than begun.
I phoned the stalwart and staunch security chief of the Rockecenter enterprises. I said, “This is Inkswitch. I need a résumé of your file on Teenie Whopper, the teenager you threw down the steps the other day. She’s a troublemaker.”
“That’s ancient history, now,” he said. “But I can get it on the computer if it’s still there. Wait a minute. . . . Yes, here it is. You mind if I just sketch this to you? It’s pretty extensive.”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Born Sioux Falls, South Dakota, fifteen years ago. Parents, according to court records summarized here, were two con artists, Hazel and Shaker Whopper. They must have traveled all over the US—numerous arrests, lots of cities. I’ll spare you the list.”
“They aren’t dead?”
“Not according to this. Still operating in Canada. Anyway, you didn’t ask for them. They used this Teenie in a badger game from the time she was four and up until she was eleven.”
“What’s a ‘badger game’?” I asked.
“Set somebody up in a sex situation, take photos of him doing it and then blackmail him. This had a difference. They used the kid. They’d put her in a hotel room with some guy. She’d get him to let her go down on him, and right when it came to the juicy part the parents would walk in with flashguns and cameras and blackmail the bird. I’m just scanning this for you. Lots of arrests on suspicion.
“They got to New York about five years ago and were raking in the dough. And then they hit the wrong man—a Superior Court judge, Hammer Twist. He laid a trap for them, they fell for it and when they walked in with the cameras the cops were waiting.
“Says here he had them judged unfit parents and had the kid Teenie made a ward of the court. She hasn’t seen her parents since.
“The judge appointed her a guardian: some old guy, I guess, because the report here says he died of alcoholism. That was three years ago. Due to usual court delays, no guardian since.
“Note here of a mental problem.”
“Aha!” I said. And then eagerly, “Go on!”
“Just that, no more. Says she was expelled from school about six months ago. Personnel officer at Octopus recommended part-time employment as a hardship case.
“Personally fired by the big chief himself during routine personnel inspection of female staff. And that’s all we’ve got on the blotter unless you want a lot of (bleeping) case numbers.”
“No, that’s plenty!” I quivered. “Just give me the name of that school she was expelled from and any psychiatrist and psychologist mentioned in that mental problem.”
He gave them to me and rang off.
Oh, Gods, had I hit the jackpot! A child pawn in a sex blackmail game. And a mental problem! I was IN!
I phoned Judge Hammer Twist, remembering that he did not leave until tomorrow for the Miami golf tournament. As I avoided the court system and rang his home directly, I was in luck.
“I’m a Fed,” I said, carefully not mentioning my name. “Could you tell me what you know of a Teenie Whopper?”
“Teenie Whopper? Teenie Whopper? Teenie Whopper. Oh, yes, I recall the name now. She’s a ward of this court, I think. Oh, yes. I just signed a court order enjoining some Turkish nut from murdering her. Foreign (bleeps). They’re raping the whole country, you know.”
“Did this girl ever do anything irregular with you?”
“Oh, you mean sexually? No, of course, not. The only irregularity that comes to mind was my chief clerk. Every time she did her monthly report-in to the court, he used to give her a kiss. But I put an end to that. I made it totally unnecessary for her to report in. That fixed him!” He laughed. “Yes, she comes back to me now. But if you don’t mind, I have a lot of packing to do. Good day.”
He rang off. What a liar that (bleeped) brat was! Saying the judge kept her around to go down on him. A really pathological case! And DANGEROUS!
I called the psychologist. He said, “Teenie? . . . Teenie? . . . Oh, you mean the girl that was expelled six months ago.”
“Would you mind telling me what she was expelled for?”
“Not a bit,” he said. “I hope she’s in Federal trouble, (bleep) her. She went in the locker room just before the biggest game of the season and went down on the whole football team. Weakened them. They lost, of course. Christ, were people mad at her. I lost a bundle on it myself.”
“You didn’t have her as an assistant, did you?”
“Assistant! Christ, no! She was my patient for a while and I just continued the treatment recommended by her psychiatrist. Just routine for school children.”
“What was her psychosis?” I said.
“You’ll have to talk to her psychiatrist for that. You’ll have to excuse me. I’m very backlogged today on child care.”
I rang off. My, I certainly was getting there. All those tales about helping him out by going down on him and his patients. Gods, what a liar! And a dangerous one, telling lies like that on honest, hard-working professionals, slaving away to make school children into fit citizens.
My luck was holding. The psychiatrist was not only in his office but he was between appointments.
“Always glad to help the Feds,” he said. “Where would psychiatry be without the government to support it? Teenie Whopper? (Bleep), I have so many patients, (bleeped) kids . . . I’m looking in my files. Hold on . . . Nurse, where are the files? . . . Ah, here it is. Teenie Whopper. Serious case.”
I grinned eagerly into the phone. “What was the diagnosis?”
“Hyperactivity. I spotted it myself when she was skateboarding. Flagrant case.”
“Did you treat her?”
“Certainly I did. You don’t think I’d neglect my school children, do you? Have to make a show for Federal assistance appropriations some way.”
I knew I had Teenie now. Right in a vise! “What was the treatment?” I said.
“Hyperactive child? Textbook. We only go by the textbook here. I started it and then turned it over to the school psychologist to continue and complete. Yes, here’s the discharge notation.”
“She didn’t ever go down on you, did she?”
“(Bleep) no! The proper treatment for hyperactivity is sexual release, of course. You put the patient on a table, strapped down, and use a hand vibrator. In the case of girls, of course, you might have to give them kisses to provide oral stimulation to get them started. But I assure you, the vibrator produces a perfectly acceptable orgasm or ejaculation in any child. Did she say I had her go down on me?”
“She certainly did.”
“That’s absurd. Why should I want a little girl to go down on me when I have my hands absolutely full of young boys that have to be converted to homos? Why would you use girls to do that when you’ve got so many boys to do it? Makes no sense!”
“So she lies,” I said.
“Of course,” he said.
“Then you wouldn’t be averse to signing an order committing h
er to Bellevue.”
“WHAT? My God, no! I resent that! I’ll have you understand that I know my business perfectly. You’re not putting any black marks on my record to reduce my appropriation. My diagnosis was ‘hyperactive.’ That was correct. The treatment was standard and was begun by me and completed by a competent psychologist. A notation right here says ‘symptoms permanently submerged, have seldom seen a child so hollow-eyed and (bleeped) up, skin and bone.’ Sir, are you inferring that psychiatry is not a successful science?”
“No, no,” I said. “But . . .”
“You may be a Federal agent, sir, but you do not understand the brain. I will contest with violence any effort to remove a menace from society! Good day, sir!”
He banged down the phone.
I sat there staring.
Thank Gods, no such barriers stood between committing Heller and Krak. Their court orders were already signed and waiting only to be served.
But Teenie Whopper?
A pawn trained by experts in the badger game from infancy. A confirmed pot smoker. A pathological liar racing around ruining everyone’s reputation.
She could get me sterilized and sent to prison to be (bleeped) by homo cons.
DANGEROUS! She made Jack the Ripper look like a saint!
I had passed by my last opportunity to murder her. I couldn’t strangle her now without going to prison if she vanished.
I couldn’t possibly leave her alive to ruin me with lies and photos. And I couldn’t kill her. All solutions were blocked.
I began to feel sort of insane.
I couldn’t stay here with homos pawing at me.
I couldn’t leave.
Yet I had to leave.
If I left, Teenie and a warrant for rape could reach me and finish me wherever I went.
Suddenly, bravely, I realized I could not just sit there and go crazy.
I must get a plan. I must get a plan. I must get a plan!
PART FIFTY-THREE
Chapter 3
Heller’s viewer was a sort of mockery to me. The day, where he was, was beautiful and mild, a calm disturbed only by the rolling swell which pulsed through the blue water. The clouds, as in a picture book, stood like castles along the horizon. The yacht’s stabilizers had her rolling not at all.
He was standing at the rail, gazing out, probably westward to New York under the horizon. It was an otherwise deserted sea.
Captain Bitts came up. “Top of the morning to you, Mr. Haggarty,” he saluted. “It’s pleased I am to see you all shipshape and Bristol fashion and well recovered from your wounds.”
“It was poker,” said Heller. “A truly remarkable game. Very therapeutic and instructive, too. But I was thinking, Captain Bitts, now that you have my marker for $18,005, the only way you can collect it is to land me in New York and let me go to a bank.”
Suddenly I penetrated the sneakiness of the man. He had worked out a way to bribe Captain Bitts! By letting him win at poker! Ah, Heller, go ahead and plot: if you succeed in getting ashore, the court will have you picked up and committed to Bellevue Hospital, thanks to Dingaling, Chase and Ambo and my ingenuity.
Mentally, I urged at Captain Bitts to fall for it. It would deliver Heller into my hands.
“Mr. Haggarty,” said Captain Bitts, “this is very tempting. But let us review the situation: The enemies of Turkey are after you; probably Russian agents dog your trail; I have my orders from the owner’s concubine to not let you ashore. I regret that, even to my financial distress, the answer is no.”
(Bleep) him! He thought Krak was my concubine as she had used my Squeeza credit card to buy the yacht. He was working against his own boss! Me.
“Ah, well,” said Heller, “if you won’t, you won’t. It does happen, however, that I am a little bored. I have heard of a game called ‘dice.’ Could you teach me to play it?”
Captain Bitts assured him that he would be glad to, first thing after lunch.
I thought all this over. I was looking for some advantage on which to base a plan.
Something went flash in my head. I grabbed the phone and called the State Department in Washington, office of the Secretary of State. I decided to use the name of Rockecenter’s law firm.
“This is Swindle and Crouch,” I told the clerk.
“Yessir!” he said, instantly respectful and alert.
“There is a yacht upon the high seas called the Golden Sunset. There is a desperate and notorious criminal aboard, an American. I want your advice about calling the Navy Department to have her boarded and the criminal seized.”
“Where is he wanted, sir?”
“There is an outstanding commitment warrant unserved in the New York Superior Court. And within a few days there will be another warrant.”
“What is the national flag of the yacht, sir?”
“Turkish,” I said.
“I will have to get an opinion from our Citizen Harassment Section. Please hold on.”
I sat anxiously.
He came back on. “I’m terribly sorry that I have bad news, sir. We are, of course, devoted to the arduous task of making all possible trouble for US citizens wherever they may be found, and we are usually very successful at it: just today we had a US mother and her two babies seized by the Chinese after we planted contraband in their nursing bottles, so we don’t want to give you the idea that we lack zeal. But through an oversight by our Legal Section, the extradition treaty between Turkey and the United States has expired and it will take several years to get the paper work from one basket to another here to get it renewed. So it would be illegal to board the yacht and seize the subject US citizen.”
“Oh, too bad!” I said.
“Do you know if the subject US citizen has committed any crimes in Turkey? If he has, why, then we could threaten to reduce our support of their army—they’re very dependent upon their army to keep the people under repressive rule—and the Turks, of course, would arrest and imprison the man.”
“I’m afraid we couldn’t prove any crimes in Turkey,” I said.
“That’s too bad,” said the State Department man. “It’s sort of frustrating to have some US citizen out there that we can’t harass and get arrested. Usually we can think of some way, unless, of course, the person is a known political terrorist: we have to protect those to keep everything stirred up and the media happy. If he isn’t a registered terrorist or a drug runner, there should be some way the State Department could help make trouble in the world.”
“He isn’t either one of those,” I said.
“Ah, wait a minute. As soon as your call came in, we flashed the information into our various sections that Swindle and Crouch was on the line, and our State Department Intelligence Chief has just slid a memo onto my desk. He recommends you call the President and have him order the CIA to simply blow the yacht out of the water. This is the routine solution to such cases and I hope it is of assistance. We can’t have some US citizen out of the country and unharassed, so we are only too glad to have your assistance in serving the national interest.”
“Count on the Rockecenters to do that,” I said and hung up.
(BLEEP)!
I couldn’t put the solution into effect for two good reasons: Heller was carrying a CIA passport identifying him as H. Hider Haggarty, and the moment the CIA heard that, they would think it was one of their own men and wouldn’t act. The other reason was more personal. It had really not occurred to me before that I owned that yacht!
For a bit I wondered about simply sending the captain a radio and telling him when and where to dock and have the court officers waiting there to pick up Heller. But it was too simple to work. They warn you against simple solutions in the Apparatus. It, however, was impossible because the captain would think the radio was a fake. For all he knew, the real owner was in Turkey and not in New York. Without my presenting identity to Captain Bitts personally, he would just consider my radio a ruse of the enemies of Turkey. He would show it to Heller and Heller would be
alerted that I had a hand in this. Heller would tell Krak and Krak would track me down.
This train of thought collided abruptly with the fact that the Countess Krak might very well, at that moment, be following some line of investigation which would lead her to me!
A horrifying threat!
It was one of those awful days when just at the moment you were sure things couldn’t get any worse, they did!
PART FIFTY-THREE