Gods, this Prahd had no sense. Faht Bey would die if you dried up his source of birth certificates of dead babies. "Get your head screwed on," I told him.
"Oh. Well, there's another project I have in outline. I think I can make all women have triplets. Isn't that important?"
Gods, the government would go mad! They already had an oversupply of people who had to emigrate to get work! "You'll overstrain their food supply," I said brutally.
"No, no, I thought of that! I sketched a design for a new intestinal organism that lets the body utilize 94 percent of its food intake. It will stretch the food supply way out. And also there's a way to fix their grain so its yield will quintuple!"
"Prahd!" I said in a loud voice to jar him. "Grow up! This is Earth! The food suppliers would kill us if we did that! And the U.S. couldn't export its surplus grain! Their bigwigs make a fortune out of it! Be practical! Criminals are your best product!"
He didn't look convinced. One blanket had begun to wiggle and he looked at it with alarm. He opened it up. Then he opened up the second. The two small boys looked at him above the tape gags, eyes terror-wide.
"Be careful of them," I said. "They're vicious. Put them apart, in two cells. Keep them locked up and don't take your eyes off them. Their presence here is absolutely secret!"
"But I don't have any jailers!"
"You're good at hiring. Employ half a dozen deaf-mutes to man this place. Get it set up! Get a full cello-logical operating room going right where we're standing."
"And then my pay starts," he said insinuatingly.
"Prahd, if you do this job perfectly, we will give it very grave consideration."
I handed him the two Illustrated Lives. "I want you to fix one of these boys so he looks like Rudolph Valentine and the other one so he looks like James Cagney!"
"Wait," he said. "They're too young to put adult faces on."
I compromised, "Make them so they look like they will grow up to look like those two men."
He was opening the Illustrated Lives. It suddenly took his interest. "Ah, there are pictures here of how they looked when they were young."
"Now you have it," I said.
He was lifting bandages on the injured one. "You should have brought him here sooner. Somebody smashed him up."
"Ran into a tree," I said.
"Never mind," said Prahd. "The bone structure has to be altered anyway."
"You can do it?"
"Oh, yes. Means perhaps some gene alteration, some pigment reorganization. A bit extensive but nothing difficult."
"How long?" I demanded.
"Until my pay starts?"
"Until they are completed and healed up," I corrected.
He considered very carefully. Then he said, "It will take until my pay starts."
"Cellogically!" I thundered at him. "How long?"
He rubbed his chin. He seemed to be making some calculations. "One week if my pay starts then."
"One week!" I howled.
"That's as fast as it can be done."
I was being defeated. How could I hold the fort for a week? I would have to think of something. "All right. One week."
"And my pay starts?"
"You do a perfect job in one week and your pay will start!"
"Ah," he said. He went over and picked up the two little boys. He put one in one maximum security cell and one in another. He began to rip the tape off the last one.
I left.
The shrieking hurt my ears.
I somehow had to bridge this gap. One week delay!
Something. I would think of something!
Chapter 7
My self-confidence, after so many cruel knocks, was returning. My id had been battered to a very low point of ego. The exact instant of resurgence had commenced with that inspiration about the little boys.
My original idea had been to just get the boy patched up and restored to new condition. But this banal and unimaginative idea had stepped aside before the onslaught of true inspiration. The moment I saw those photographs all smeared with lipstick, my true genius had asserted itself.
What a present! One little boy looking like Rudolph Valentino, the other looking like James Cagney! Instead of flat, uninteresting, two-dimensional photographs, she could have these two to put on a shelf, the way you do with any other knickknack. One could admire them from time to time and keep them dusted and otherwise forget about them.
How she would admire me! And now she would do what I said!
The delay was, of course, a bit chancy. But with my id chasing my ego to new altitude records, this seemed child's play.
I planned it with care. The unseen killer was some part of the base crew, that was for sure. Thus, I must get broad coverage so whoever it was would know I was busy.
Wherever I was, I would raise my voice from time to time and shout how busy I was. But this could only go on for so long: my throat was getting hoarse.
The next day, I awoke with a brilliant plan. I dressed and got a list of everyone at the base. I then proceeded to ferret out each one.
The plot was to question them in such a way that each would realize how active I was and how dedicated to my job. I knew that people talk to one another and the word would get around. Thus, I could consume at least three days doing this.
The action consisted of searchingly and lengthily questioning each person about poison. I did not intend to poison Heller—I did not have the platen—but it would show my heart was in the right place.
From each I wanted to know everything they knew about poisons, particularly rare, violent and undetectable ones. I didn't have to say who I was going to poison as the one with the mission of killing me—and now Utanc—would understand I was really taking my job seriously.
Oddly, I didn't get too many answers. I got a lot of averted eyes and foot shuffling. And by the third day I was aware of quite a few strange looks coming my way.
On the fourth day, I could no longer continue the project. Everyone in sight walked hurriedly off when I appeared. Also I began to suspect everything I ate or drank. But the project was serving its purpose. Utanc was still alive.
When the fifth day came, I realized that if I didn't seem industrious, bad consequences could result. So I had another inspiration.
I went into my secret room. Right at the lunch hour—so Faht Bey could not accuse me of interrupting vital work—I put my foot down upon the secret floor tile by the tunnel door and gave it the proper twist.
Instantly, of course, alarm signals, silent in the office but awfully loud and bright everywhere else, clanged and flashed throughout the base.
I gave them time. When I was quite sure everyone must have responded, I sauntered down the tunnel.
They were all gathered in the center, crouched behind sandbags, gun muzzles sweeping nervously about. I almost got shot.
I explained to them that this was just a drill. I told them that some very important things were going on elsewhere, that I had to take care of a "certain person" and that I would be away for several weeks.
Instant cheering!
Enormous volume! Some of it even hysterical! They waved their caps and cheered and cheered.
I hadn't realized I was so popular. Quite touching, really. Brought tears to my eyes.
Most important of all, I had bought time. I could now prepare to take care of Heller once and for all without being stabbed in the back.
I sorted out passports. I chose one from the United Arab League. It would give me diplomatic status, pass through all my baggage uninspected and let me designate any entourage that I chose. As it required a trip to Istanbul, which I made very speedily, it consumed two days. I was almost up to deadline and I would have to hurry.
It occurred to me that I might need bugs. There were lots of bugs in the Spurk Eyes and Ears of Voltar stuff so I tore over to the hospital.
Prahd was down in the basement and I didn't want to be plagued with nonsense talk about curing all the diseases in the world and wrecking the capitalistic system, so I tried to do the search myself. The store warehouses were not ready, the materials were still jamming the wards. I got keys and began. You never saw so many boxes piled in places where you couldn't get at other boxes.
Although the Spurk stuff was undoubtedly there, I could only find one small box that was get-at-able without lifting things.
In it there was a compact telescope. It seemed to be able to see through walls. Apparently, it used a distant solid wall as an extension of its front lens. By utilizing the space between molecules, it could get a picture and sound waves through a solid. One had to be at least a hundred feet away from the solid. Aha! The very thing! I could use this to look into Heller's suite! Interference or no interference! I knew there were roofs nearby. Here was a way to see what he did in his rooms and where he hid things! I took it.
There was also a common bug in the box that picked up sound. It was the size of a speck of dust. Maybe I could plant it in Utanc's room. I took it.
I was exhausted at the thought of lifting anything so I got out of there.
Now, money.
I have found that when one is travelling around, money is very necessary. If my plans worked out all right, it would be very necessary.
I went to the radiation-marked boxes in the corner of my secret room. I had not really checked my gold. More lifting.
Bar by bar, I lined it up. I got my thumbnail into each one, even my teeth. Nice and soft. Beautiful gold. Eighteen lovely fifty-pound bars of it! It lay there glowing.
Suddenly, I could not bear to part with any of it! I would find other means of financing my trip! Reverently, I put it all away.
I went down the tunnel to see Faht Bey. I explained to him how urgent the trip was and that it could and would be very expensive.
Faht Bey sat there at his desk, holding his head in his hands. Try as I might, I couldn't shake him loose from any money. I did manage to get a mutter that the Lebanese was over at the hospital.
Well, it was time I had a showdown with this Lebanese! He'd helped wreck the banking business in Beirut and now he was wrecking mine!
He was in the basement!
There was a little office just inside the secret entrance—it had heavy bars and wire nets across it, something new! You couldn't get into it with a blastgun! A maze of bulletproof glass to push things through, a big swing basket for heavy objects. You had to get down and shout through the glass maze to communicate with the cashier! Something, I guessed, that he'd learned in the Lebanon revolt!
"I want some money!" I yelled through the maze.
He sat there behind it and looked awfully deadly. He was bright yellow, no hair and only a couple of fangs left. "No money!"
Right on his desk, in plain view where he'd been counting it, were stacks and stacks of money! I never saw so much money in one pile. U.S. dollars, British pounds. Even some diamonds!
"Some gangsters have arrived!" I yelled at him. "I see the evidence!"
He threw some blank account sheets on top of the money. "Only ten so far!"
"There were two hundred on that list!" I yelled through the maze.
"They're scheduled, spaced into the future. Some of them had to rob banks before they arrived!"
"But ten," I yelled through the maze, "must mean you have collected a million so far! The price was a hundred thousand U.S."
"This place cost a million!" he snarled back through the maze. "We're not covering running expenses yet!"
I heard something to my left and right. I looked up. Two automatic-shotgun muzzles protruded from remote-control turrets. They were pointing straight at me. The Lebanese had his hand on a button that apparently controlled them.
I left.
I sat outside in the dilapidated Ford station wagon. The unfairness of it was very plain. I was making money for the base in rivers! They still had one hundred and ninety gangsters still to remodel! They had nineteen million U.S. in plain sight over the coming weeks or months and already had a whole million!
Aha! Mudlick Construction!
I drove madly to their office. I told the manager to fork over.
"They've got money?" he said.
"They can pay you in cash for the first job this minute!"
He drove madly to the hospital.
He came back.
He handed me a quarter of a million!
I madly stuffed it into a paper sack. A big one. It was half what I was due but he had only been paid half.
We shook hands beamingly.
I drove home.
Chapter 8
Utanc was out. Melahat was cleaning her room. Utanc apparently had swallowed the tale about grandmothers. Her attitude toward me during the past week was as usual—nonexistent. Ah, all that would change!
Melahat was sort of hanging around to lock up the room and I didn't have a chance to plant the bug well. I pretended to be inspecting for cleanliness and kicked it under the carpet.
I went to my room and set up the audio-transmitter-responder for it. I fiddled a bit with the telescope but the directions were right. I could see through a wall a hundred feet away but no closer. Ah, well, it would do for New York!
I phoned Prahd. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, he said. There had been a little delay, other business coming in. But if I would be there around eight, he would deliver "the two packages." He said the bandages were ready to come off. I said to leave them on.
I fended his query about pay. Later, if the job was perfect.
That night I dreamed of Heller being dropped from high places, being squashed between two trains engaged in a head-on collision and being boiled in oil by Manco Devils. Wonderful dreams!
And then, just before dawn, the most beautiful dream of all: lovely Utanc stealing into my bed. It was a dream I meant to become reality!