Mission: Earth "Death Quest" (28 page)

"You like this place?" said Heller.

"Yes."

"You don't want this place wrecked?"

"NO, sir!"

"Then bring me a glass of water."

"I can't, sir. You can sit there. But no money, no water."

Heller waited half an hour. Other Japanese staff passed by, frowning at him. New York is no place to be without money. I heard somebody say once that the place was as hard as a whore's heart. True, by my experience.

I was beginning to taste some satisfaction in this plight of Heller's. Oh, there was no doubt he was finished. It was even curing my headache. Krak gone. Cars gone. Condos gone. Disaster all around him. I began to smile. This was worth everything I had been put through lately.

Izzy suddenly slid into the seat opposite him. He was pretty flustered, his hair untidy, his horn-rimmed glasses askew, his beak of a nose rubbed red.

Heller handed him the court order. "I didn't want to chance anyone following me to the office. They might not know of its existence. I've noticed it before: people seem to know where I am and where I go."

Izzy nodded. He was reading the court order.

"That can't be very legal," said Heller.

"Well, legal is whatever the lawyers say it is. They try anything, Mr. Jet. And usually get away with it. I'll give this to Philup Bleedum: it will take months for him to untangle it and years to settle the case and he's one of the fastest lawyers in town."

"Now to something important," said Heller. "What did the detective agency say?"

"Well, they've covered all the hotels. No one of that name or description registered. They've covered the hospitals and morgue. No sign of her anywhere."

"Blast!" said Heller. "The poor kid must be really hiding. And from nothing! These suits are just a pack of lies."

"Most suits are," said Izzy. "The total design of the legal system is wrecking people's lives so the lawyers can get rich. The trouble is, this fake Toots Switch doesn't have a dime. The lawyers just take such cases to get 50 percent of any court award. You can't recover damages from such people for all the wreckage they cause. By the way, they've already been to the office this morning."

"What?"

"Yes. A court order to attach your salary. But as you don't get any, it doesn't have any force. They try anything. They don't even have a judgment yet. But you were very wise not to come in. As I was en route here, I picked this up. Have you seen it?"

He handed Heller a paper. The front-page story said:

WHIZ KID BIGAMIST

SECOND WIFE SUES

FOR DIVORCE

Dingaling, Chase and Ambo today filed suit in Superior Court on behalf of one Dolores Wister nee Pubiano de Copula.

Alleging marriage by a village priest to the notorious outlaw Wister, otherwise known as the Whiz Kid, while he was on the run in Mexico, the delicate Mexican flower bared her tale of woe to the assembled media. It was a very pretty tale.

Posing as a revolutionist, the Whiz Kid, according to the suit, stole into the village and her bed in the depths of a romantic Mexican night and (bleeped) her thoroughly.

Due to the braying of her jealous burro in the

next room, the village priest discovered them and married them immediately as they lay wallowing in their sin.

Having searched in vain for her outlaw lover/ husband for two desperate, lonely and heartbroken years, and finding now that he had since married another woman in Kansas, the pitiful, grief-withered beauty has decided to sue for divorce.

Property settlements may run into billions.

Heller threw the paper back across the table. "Any way to put her in jail?"

"With this legal system?" said Izzy. "The truth is, the cops who came to your apartment couldn't have received the warrant yet. But one or another of these girls before the day is out is going to swear out an arrest order on you for bigamy. It's a criminal offense. I'd keep out of sight."

"Look," said Heller, "I don't give a blast about these people. I'm only interested in where the Countess is! I've got to find her!"

Izzy fumbled in his coat. He brought out a roll of bills inches thick. He slid it across the table to Heller.

Instantly, the Japanese waiter arrived with two glasses of water. He went away.

Heller was counting the money.

"I'm sorry," said Izzy. "All I ever keep in my personal box is thousand-dollar bills. I hope it doesn't embarrass you changing them. I wouldn't go into any banks, if I were you. Dingaling, Chase and Ambo will have everything covered. Here is something else." He slid Heller an envelope.

Heller looked in. It was one of his phony CIA passports and a ticket.

"I still think you ought to go to Brazil," said Izzy. "That's where the ticket is for. I'll get detectives looking even harder for Miss Joy and send her to you." "She wouldn't come unless I spoke to her."

Izzy looked like he was going to cry. "Oh, Mr. Jet, you don't realize what you're into! They've got you totally enmeshed in the legal system now. The Devil himself couldn't ever escape from it. And he's still in it. No man once grabbed by it has ever gotten free of it. Please go, Mr. Jet."

"I've got to find my girl," said Heller.

Izzy shook his head. He got up and sadly left.

The Japanese came over. "You order now?"

"I'm going to order somebody vaporized before this is through," said Heller. He walked out. He was looking up and down the street, as though by that he could locate the Countess Krak.

I was jolted. I had never heard him sound so cross before. Did he mean me?

Nervously, I threw the blanket over the viewer. Irrationally, I thought he might look back through it and see me.

My head was aching again.

Miserably, I tried to get some sleep. I couldn't. I felt things were not going well. I should be very happy. I was sure that he was thoroughly on the skids and so was the Countess Krak.

Something kept nagging at me.

It was a bad day.

The ex-Miss Pinch, now Mrs. Bey, came home about five. She walked in, took off her gloves.

"You wanted to talk to me?" she said.

"Yes," I said. "You promised you would open the safe."

"That's right," said Adora. She seemed to be waiting for something. Shortly the front door opened and Candy was home. "We're in here," Adora yelled.

Candy came in bringing Adora a beer. She had one for herself. She didn't give me one. She sat down attentively.

"Now that we're all assembled," said Adora, "I'd better lay out the facts of life."

"I've had too many lays already," I said. "All I want is my money."

"Well, you shall get your money," said Adora with a beady eye. "But there is something you should know first."

Candy laughed. I didn't like that laugh.

Adora smiled. I didn't like that smile.

"I don't want to know anything," I said. "Just give me my money."

They both burst out laughing. I surely didn't like that.

"It won't do you any good," said Adora.

"Give him the money, Pinchy. Then tell him. I still love it when he screams."

"All right," said Adora. She went into the front room. She opened the safe. She pulled out pack after pack of my money and put them in a garbage sack.

"Give him the blank invoices, too," said Candy, laughing.

Adora pulled out a sheaf of them. "Go ahead and sign to your heart's content."

I thought they were kidding me. My eyes were on the sack, swinging in her hand.

I thought I would test it. I wrote a petty cash invoice for $40,000! I signed it
George Washington.

She took it. She said, "You'll have it tomorrow."

She tossed the bag of money into my lap. I dived into it. Beautiful bills! There must be $65,000 here or more!

"Tell him, Pinchy," said Candy.

I stopped my counting uncertainly. I did not like the way Adora looked.

"You wanted the money so you could run, didn't you?" said the ex-Miss Pinch, Mrs. Bey. "You've been planning to light out the moment you had your hands on that dough. Oh, yes you did. But dough, my dear husband, won't do you a (bleeped) bit of good."

She leaned forward and her eyes were cold. "You see, you son of a (bleepch), you have just committed the crime of BIGAMY!"

The room started to spin. Dancing before my eyes was the news story I had just seen, "Whiz Kid Bigamist." THAT was what had been nagging at me!

"If either wife," said the ex-Miss Pinch, Mrs. Bey, "cares to prefer charges, you can be sent to prison for the rest of your life. Extradition amongst the states is automatic. You can be run down anywhere you go, brought back and thrown in the tombs." She flashed the marriage certificates from her purse. "We have these. So go ahead, you (bleepard). Try to run. That money won't help you at all. The legal system will bring you home and throw you in the pen. Either one of us will pretend the other did not know. So spend your dough, bigamist. You ain't goin' nowhere but right here."

They suddenly burst out laughing again. I must have looked very deflated.

The ex-Miss Pinch, Mrs. Bey, got up. "Now that that's settled, dear husband, take a shower."

"Why?" I pleaded. I had had enough horror today.

"Why?" she mimicked. Then her eyes narrowed and she poked her face very close to mine, for all the world like Lombar. Her voice became very deadly indeed. "You can stop your underhanded, chauvinistic machinations right now! By plying us with champagne and pot on our wedding night and then refusing to do your duty, you thought you could throw us back into lesbianism. You tried to make me break my sacred vow to crush Psychiatric Birth Control forever! Well, buster, you did NOT succeed!"

She slapped at my side just like Lombar. "It was NO good! You only confirmed my determination! Two lesbians will arrive in the next half hour and they'll be two ex-lesbians when we're through. And no more tricks to wreck the program! No more whining about them being dead!"

She stood back and surveyed me. "Learn to toe the line, dear husband, or we'll blow the whistle on you. Clean yourself up and get ready!"

They walked out. At the door, Adora looked back. "Biprnist," she said.

Defeated utterly, I began to crawl out of my clothes. I felt terribly confused. I kept thinking I did not want to have sex with Dolores Wister nee Pubiano de Copula's burro. But there was nothing I could do about it.

Belatedly, I started screaming. I hate burros!

The following morning, worn and weary, both from overexercise and a sleep that wasn't sleep but a parade of nightmares, I took a review of myself in the bathroom mirror.

I had a scratched face.

One of the candidates for sexual reeducation last night had been a thin thing, mostly bones. In addition to an immature body, her breasts> had not yet developed fully. I speculated on her age: she must have been fourteen or fifteen at the most. Someday she would be good-looking, maybe, but right now her eyes were too big and round and her oversized mouth was far too large for her face. She wore her light brown hair in a ponytail. She chewed bubble gum with very loud satisfaction.

Her name was Teenie and her job was licking stamps in Rockecenter's Medical Association Control Department. I had gathered that she had not been on the job very long, had come straight out of some psychology sex-education group in grade school and had not been wholly converted to Psychiatric Birth Control yet. So, according to Adora, it was important that pains be taken with her: my pains of course!

Last night Teenie had certainly expressed her enthusiasm for reeducation! But "enthusiasm" is too mild a word for it. She had been all over the place and me!

ACTIVE! And the others had just smiled indulgently and wouldn't pull her off!

It wouldn't have been so bad, perhaps, except that she had expressed her passion with fingernails, time after time!

But she made me realize that my own education was deficient. I didn't have a clue what "Ride 'em, cowboy!" meant. We don't have any cows on Voltar and if we did, we wouldn't keep hitting them with a hat! Or scratching them! Inhuman!

Yes, all in all, that very active Teenie had been a wearing experience. I hoped there would not be too many more like that! Too draining!

I put some patches on my face to hide the scratch marks. I hoped I would not be permanently scarred.

I thought I would cheer myself up by examining and counting and fondling the money. It was on the top shelf of my closet. I got it down. And then I just sat there staring at it. Was it worth it?

The thought had no more than begun when I sat up with alarm. Was something costing me my love of money? What if I went into a state of hypernegation?

Look at the state that Heller and the Countess Krak were bringing me to!

New alarm filled me. Heller might suspect me. And the Countess Krak, now that she had disappeared, might be looking for me. Supposing she took it into her head to turn Crobe loose on me when I went crazy!

I had not looked at Crobe's viewer much. Was she in contact with him?

Anxiously I turned Crobe's viewer on. He could make it very hard to watch due to his one penetrative x-ray eye. But today it was quite clear.

Crobe was standing in front of a group of evident psychiatrists. It was probably the operating amphitheater at Bellevue. The audience was very intent.

Before him there was a patient strapped in a chair. I gasped: Crobe was up to his old grafting tricks.

A reptile was rearing out of the patient's skull! The deadly snake head was moving about to right and left.

Crobe's voice boomed out: "Dis broofs de t'eory dot man iss running on de reptile brain. By zimply feeding de batient Drug 32, de reptile gortex 'as been restimu-lated do grow! Und it 'as grow and grow. Und vinally 'ere iss de broof!"