PART SEVENTY-FOUR
Chapter 1
Teenie, standing in the door of her palace, still clothed in the golden page’s costume she had worn while walking back of Lombar, received Madison’s ebullient good news somewhat grimly. She looked at the authorizations and gave them back.
“All right, all right, Madison. We’ve got it this far. Now you better start delivering. You can’t hang around here and get anything done now. I want Gris’ head and I want it bad—rotting preferred. So roll up your sleeves and start sweating!”
The look she gave him was so meaningful and the pop of her bubblegum so explosive that Madison hastily left. She might suspect that this really was a double-cross. He wasn’t after Gris at all—his real target was Heller-Wister, for only in that way could he come right with Mr. Bury. With Heller-Wister fully handled on Voltar, Madison could only then return to Earth a conquering hero—and not be shot as a deserter.
He hoped Teenie realized that PR was intricate and complex and wasn’t done in a minute. The thing to keep your attention on was thoroughness—and GETTING HEADLINES!
Madison knew the image he would have to complete: it was that of a folk hero on the model of Jesse James, and how well he was researched in such images now—in the yacht he had traveled all over studying famous outlaws. Heavens, he fairly ached to put it into effect.
He knew just how to attain results: Coverage, Controversy and Confidence.
What he lacked here on Voltar were Connections, another C which he had always had on Earth.
Well, first things first. He had better get organized. He didn’t even have a secretary, much less a string of obedient editors and publishers. Money. That was what he better start with first.
As he climbed into his airbus, he said to Flick, “How do I get my identoplate changed? Where do I go?”
“You going to get PAID? Oh, you just lie back on the seat there and relax and I’ll have you to the Government City Finance Office twice as fast as this junk heap will go!”
They took off in a blur. They rushed through the Palace City gates, outbound, so fast Madison hardly had time to get nauseated from the time shift to thirteen minutes earlier.
As he drove frantically across the Great Desert, Flick said, “Oh, but am I tired of eating stale sweetbuns out of garbage pails like we been doing! You also owe me a pack of puffsticks. And I know a rooming house where we can get a room real cheap. Do you feel all right? Are you comfortable? Should I turn on some music?”
Madison was not paying much attention. He was trying to work out how he would go about setting up in such unknown terrain. Then he got off into headlines that kept drifting through his head: 18-point, FLEET OFFICER GOES RENEGADE but he kept discarding them. They were sort of pale and lacked punch. He realized this would require a lot of careful planning to really make it good. He had no support troops, he had no lines and the fact that these people on Voltar were ignorant of real PR was both a blessing and a curse. Every trick of the trade would be brand-new to them, but on the other hand, there were no traditional supports. It was sort of like a man approaching a virgin: the question was, how willing would she be to be raped?
His thinking was interrupted by Flick. The driver had gotten out, opened Madison’s door and was now anxiously cautioning him not to trip on the ramp as he alighted. Madison was startled to see how much time had elapsed. They were at the Finance Department.
Following the anxious directions of Flick, Madison went by himself through the scurrying crowds and came shortly to a counter which had a sign, “Identoplate Changes.”
A bored clerk, in a working coverall to protect his suit, finished downgrading the pay of a disgruntled teacher who had been transferred to a lesser school and turned to Madison. Without interest, he examined the papers. He reached over for his plate-changing machine and then suddenly looked back at the form.
“UNLIMITED PAY?” He went boggle-eyed. He hastily pushed buzzers and Madison found himself surrounded on every hand by Finance Department Security Police.
An officer took the Change of Pay form through a door while the others just stood and stared at Madison. The officer could be seen punching buttons and turning on lights that apparently verified codes hidden in identoplates.
When he came back, he held on to the form and waited. It made Madison very nervous.
Shortly, an old man with a Finance Department executive badge came behind the counter and the officer gave him the form.
“I can’t understand it,” the officer said. “It’s genuine.”
“This is impossible!” said the aged executive. “Unlimited pay status? He could buy the planet!”
“Well, it’s your business now,” said the officer, and at a signal all the Finance Police left. But all along the counters, the word had spread and clerks and others were peering at Madison and whispering.
Another executive came behind the counter and the first one handed him the form and said, “Gods, look at this, Cipho. That guy Hisst gets crazier every day! It’s a valid order. But what do we do?”
Cipho said, “What allocations would it come out of? Let me see the other papers.”
They examined them minutely. They conferred. Madison got very nervous. He said, “Is there something wrong?”
The first executive looked at him. “We can’t determine what budget it comes out of. Your rank is PR man, whatever that is, and it’s in the Apparatus. Your pay status says: No Pay—P, so that means you were to be attached to Palace City. Hisst signed this authorization not only as Chief of the Apparatus but also as Spokesman for His Majesty, so that would make it Royal. We can’t determine which letter designation to put after the new pay status. I’m afraid you will have to come back.”
Madison’s stomach rumbled. He thought of his image with Flick. He thought of Teenie’s meaningful look. He thought of his anxiety to get started. “Is there no way it can be done now?”
“Well, it’s dangerous,” said Cipho. “You might overdraw somebody’s budget. You might decide to buy Industrial City or something and then you’d jam all our computers.”
“What kind of money is in those budgets?” said Madison desperately.
They went in the other room and came back. Cipho said, “The Apparatus is nearly overdrawn because of the revolt on Calabar. Palace City is nearly empty now, so its allocation is only fifty percent utilized. The Royal expenditures have dropped to almost nothing.”
“Money,” begged Madison. “How much money is in them?”
“There’s a billion Palace City that won’t be used and about four billion Royal.”
Madison’s hopes soared. “Look, just give me a pay status on all three.”
“Hmm,” said Cipho.
“Look,” said Madison, putting on his most earnest and sincere face, “I am a reasonable man. If I guarantee to advise you if I intend to draw more than a billion at any one time and confer with you, will you make it a pay status for all three? That way it would only debit from existing funds.”
“You’d have to put it in writing,” glowered Cipho.
“It would keep the computers from locking up,” said the first executive. “Give him some paper.”
They got the signed and stamped undertaking and marked his identoplate: Pay Status: Unlimited—APR.
Madison accepted it with a very straight face. Never in his whole career had he ever had a billion-dollar drawing account! Oh, what he could do with that!
They had the look of men who had bested him. And he was very solemn as he walked away.
A BILLION-DOLLAR DRAWING ACCOUNT!
PART SEVENTY-FOUR
Chapter 2
On the way out, Madison put his new identoplate to use. At the cash-withdrawal counter the pretty girl there looked at the identoplate and stared at him round-eyed. “Unlimited pay status?” she gulped. “How . . . how much cash do you want?”
Madison gave her the first figure that came into his head. “Oh, fifty thousand for now.”
She scratched her head. “That will be an awful wad. It will ruin the shape of your suit. Wait right there. I’ll see if we have some thousands.”
She came back with a neat pack and while she was stamping things, Madison looked at the banknotes. It was the first time he had seen any Voltar money up close. It was gold-colored paper, quite pretty. It sparkled. He petted it. Very nice.
“You wouldn’t have some idle time tonight, would you?” asked the girl hopefully.
Madison ran.
He got in the airbus and Flick closed the door for him. “We got some money?” said Flick. And when Madison patted his pocket, Flick leaped behind the controls and they took off.
“I’m STARVING!” said Flick, as he threaded his way through Government City air lanes. “I’ll just drop down to a busy street and we’ll get some hot jolt and FRESH sweetbuns off a vendor. You also owe me a pack of puffsticks. I gave one to that guard, remember?”
He dropped down into the parking strip beside the thronged and noisy street. He yelled at a dark-complected old man who was pushing a cart laden with comestibles and other things.
“Two hot jolts, four sweetbuns, one pack of puffsticks,” said Flick.
Dutifully the old man handed them in and then held out his hand.
“Pay him,” said Flick.
Madison got out a thousand-credit note and handed it over.
“I can’t take that,” the old man said. “It would clean out the change of the whole street. You only owe me a tenth of a credit. Haven’t you got a coin?”
“Wait a minute,” said Madison. “Two coffees, four buns, one pack of puffsticks. Ten cents? You must be mistaken.”
“Well, things are a little high these days,” the old man said. “And after all, I’ve got to make a living.”
“No, no,” said Madison. “I’m not haggling with you. I’m just trying to figure out how much a credit is worth. I got it: how much is a good pair of shoes?”
“Oh, call it a credit and a half,” the old man said. “They’re kind of dear, the good ones I mean.”
Madison did a racing calculation. He had been thinking in terms of dollars. As close as he could guess, one credit must be worth at least twenty bucks!
He sank back on the seat in a sudden shock. He didn’t have a billion-dollar drawing account.
HE HAD ONE FOR TWENTY BILLION!
A voice penetrated his shock. “Well, pay the man,” said Flick. “He’s got some blank vouchers there. Just stamp one.”
Madison was still in shock. Flick came back to him, stuffed the thousand-credit note into his breast pocket and tapped around his coat and found his identoplate and drew it out. The old man was presenting the paper through the window and Flick, looking at the stamp face, was pushing the button to get it to come up with the right stamp.
Suddenly Flick froze.
He was staring at the plate.
Suddenly Flick cried, “Pay Status UNLIMITED?”
He stared at Madison.
The mouth opened in the squashed oval of a face. The mouth closed.
Flick looked back at the identoplate. He worked the button and made the picture of Madison come up. He looked at it. He looked back at Madison. Then Flick shifted the button and stared at the pay status again.
Flick sat back. His eyes were jiggling.
The old man urged the paper at the driver. “Stamp it for my tenth of a credit, please.”
Flick got his eyes in focus. He went into sudden motion. He scribbled on the paper and stamped it and said, “THROW THE WHOLE CONTENTS OF YOUR CART IN!”
The old man looked at the paper in shock. Then he hastily began to pitch things through the window. He barely managed to tip up the last tray when Flick took off.
“HOT SAINTS!” cried Flick as he raced into the air. “MY DREAMS HAVE JUST COME TRUE!”
PART SEVENTY-FOUR
Chapter 3
The airbus was accelerating so rapidly and with such a wild turn that Madison was sent sprawling into the tumbling packs, canisters, chank-pops and jugs of sparklewater. He thought the world had gone vermilion until he found, from the floor of the vehicle, that he was looking at it through a disposable umbrella of that hue which, somehow, had sprung open.
“What the blazes are you doing?” yelped Madison.
“Just hold on,” said Flick. “I’ll have us there in a minute flat!”
“I didn’t give you any orders to go anywhere!” howled Madison from amongst cartons of puffsticks.
“You don’t know the place like I do,” Flick called back. “Just don’t worry. We’re not lost. I know exactly where we’re going.”
The airbus swooped perilously. It wasn’t a minute. It was more like ten. And Madison had just begun to get himself sorted out when WHAM! they landed.
Flick was out of the airbus like a flash. Madison, prying a sweetbun off his face, heard him chortling. “There she is. Oh, Gods, you beauty! Just what I have always wanted!”
Madison gingerly pried himself out of the car, dabbing at his face. They had evidently landed straight through the open doors of a huge display room. The sign in reverse on the window said:
Zippety-Zip
Manufacturing Outlet,
Commercial City
Flick was standing ecstatically, looking at the ceiling.
A rather good-looking man in a bright green suit came over, somewhat upset about this unorthodox landing but not saying so. “I’m Chalber. Is there something I can do for you gentlemen?”
“That!” said Flick, jabbing with his finger.
Madison had gotten the sweetbun crumbs out of his eyes. They were surrounded by rows and rows of airbuses of every shape and hue. But Flick wasn’t pointing at any of them. He was jabbing at the ceiling.
Up there, on a transparent sheet suspended by cables, was a vehicle on display, visible from the air if one looked through the high windows or glass dome. It was utterly huge: it had a flying angel in lifelike colors protruding forward from each of its four corners and it appeared to be solid gold.
“That, that, that!” said Flick. “I’ve wanted it for years!”
“Oh, I am sorry,” said Chalber, “that’s the Model 99. There were only six of them ever built and they were used for parades and vehicle shows. It’s sort of our symbol of excellence to show what Zippety-Zip can do. It’s not for sale.”
“Oh, yes, by Gods, it’s for sale. Look at that sign on the window. It says, ‘We Sell Everything That Flies.’”
“Well, that’s just a figure of speech,” said Chalber.
“You better start figuring,” said Flick. “I WANT THAT AIRBUS!”
“Well, really,” said Chalber, “you must realize that when the Model 99s were built, they were never intended for sale. We were merely seeking to prove we could do better than any other manufacturers. One or two of them were presented to noblemen as a gesture of good will. But you gentlemen aren’t noblemen.”
“You want a fight?” said Flick, putting up his fists.
“Listen, Flick,” said Madison. “I don’t think we should get into any brawls. . . .”
“Listen yourself!” said Flick. “That 99 has a bar, a toilet, a washbasin with jeweled buttons. It has a color organ and every known type of screen and viewer. The back seats break down into beds that massage you. The upholstery is real lepertige fur. It flies at six hundred miles an hour and can reach any place on the planet nonstop. It is fully automatic. It is completely soundproof and it is pressurized for flights up to three hundred miles altitude. When you land, a piece of the back end pulls out and becomes a ground car and you don’t need to walk. The Model 99 has tons of storage cabinets and you can even hide a girl under the seat.” He shook his fist at Chalber pugnaciously. “I’ve had dreams of driving one around, snooting at all the other traffic and I’m NOT going to be stopped!”
“Really,” said Chalber. “Be reasonable. The price would be ten times that of a top-grade limousine airbus. I can show you gentlemen some very fine vehicles that—”
“How much?” said Flick.
“That Model 99,” said Chalber with a superior sneer, “sits on the books at thirty thousand credits. I am sure . . .”
Flick still had Madison’s identoplate. He stuck it in front of Chalber’s face and said, “Will that do?”
Chalber looked at it. Then he went into staring shock. “Pay Status UNLIMITED?”
“Him,” said Flick, jabbing a finger at Madison. “Apparatus-Palace City-Royal. Now get that beauty down here! Service it! And don’t delay!”
Chalber nodded numbly. Flick threw his hands wide toward the car and cried, “Baby, come to your Daddy Flick!”
PART SEVENTY-FOUR
Chapter 4
After Flick had oohed and ahed over the lowered Model 99, showing Madison all its beauties, and while mechanics got dust off of it and fuel rods into it, Flick raced over to an office communication booth and got very busy.
Madison, already a car buff, began to warm to the vehicle. It certainly was FLASHY! Even the angels at the four corners had a sort of wild grin on their faces as though they were going to show the world. He thought for a moment of his poor Excalibur, probably on the river bottom still in New York, far away, and then dismissed it. This was a car that performed like a jetliner, with no wings. It wasn’t chrome-plated. It was gold-plated! Every button was a precious stone. The seats were like sitting on a cloud. He forgot the Excalibur. This was a PR car to end all PR cars!
Chalber had a lot of papers to stamp and had to show him how but he was very respectful. Flick came away from the communication booth long enough to make sure it was all in order.
“You hold on to this Apparatus junk heap,” said Flick to Chalber. “I’ll tell you what to do with it. And you stand ready to give me two or three mass-passenger air-coaches if I send for them. I’ve always wanted some.”
He went off leaving a numbed Chalber.
Suddenly Flick rushed out of the communication booth. He was flinging his arms around. He said, “I’ve got it! Oh, man, my dreams are really coming true. Would you believe it, I’ve got it!”
Flick was dashing around, checking the Model 99, and Madison couldn’t get his attention.
Flick stacked all the contents of the vendor’s cart into the hidden cabinets and pushed Madison in like another piece of baggage.
Madison felt a little piqued. After all, it was he who now owned the car. Who was boss here anyway?
“Listen, Flick,” said Madison mildly as they took off, “I’m glad you got us a nice car but I have other things to think about and do. I am a working PR, you know. I should be about my business getting some connections.”
“Feel her!” cried Flick. “Ain’t she beautiful? Not a sound from the outside, not even a whirr from the drives. Oh, man, does she handle just like I knew she would.”
The car did ride smoothly, actually like a feather. He was startled to look out the window and see the ground rushing by, quite close, at a speed which must be approaching sound. They had left Commercial City but the verdant countryside was such a blur, Madison could not tell if they were farms or parks or what.
“Flick,” he said, “I’m sure it’s a joy to drive this thing and she is a beauty, I admit. But I see it is now afternoon and I should not be wasting the day.”
“Never you mind,” said Flick. “Don’t you fret. I can tell you’re new here. An Earthman, isn’t it? I didn’t know we had such a planet but I don’t know them all. So you just let me handle this so you don’t get lost.”
They were over buildings now and were slowing down. The area seemed to consist of a lot of parks and clubs whose signs were even visible in daylight. For a hopeful moment, he thought Flick might be taking him to Homeview, for he could see a gigantic dome ahead with that lettering upon it.
“We’re almost there,” said Flick. “This is Joy City. That’s our destination over there, just beyond that big sign, “Dirt Club.” Ain’t it remarkable?”
“Well, that IS a remarkable advertising sign,” said Madison. “A girl in a military hat lying on cannon parabolas. But really, Flick, I think I should go over to Homeview. . . .”
“Not the Dirt Club. That’s for Army officers and we ain’t Army. No, no. That big bright slab of a building.”
Madison tried to see what they were heading for. All he saw was a rectangle of metal that must be eighty stories high and which covered an area of what might be six New York City blocks.
“That’s her!” said Flick, hovering to let some traffic clear. “The five top stories of that building was the townhouse of General Loop.”
“All that?”
“Yeah, he was awful rich. He died a couple years ago and it’s too big for anybody to want to live in. The swank residences are all over at Pausch Hills and nobody with that much money wants to live in Joy City: there’s nothing but clubs and hotels and amusement parks and the entertainment industry around here. So it’s been closed. It must be absolutely crammed with antiques and valuables. Way back before he retired, the owner, General Loop, was in charge of all electronic security for the whole Confederacy. Ever since I heard nobody was living in it now, I’ve tried and tried to sneak into it, but it’s guarded by the fanciest electronic gimmicks anybody ever heard of! An awful challenge: I’ve laid awake nights trying to figure out how to break in and rob the joint. But back there, I solved it. I’ll tell them we’re interested in buying it. And they’ll show me every security device! Then we’ll come back and rob it. Smart, eh?”
Madison blinked. However, before he could protest, Flick received a clearance on a flashing screen on his dash and dived abruptly for the roof. The flat metal expanse was the size of several football fields. He headed for a solitary figure at one end, tiny as a doll in all that vastness. It was waving at them to come in. Flick landed.
An old man in a watchman’s uniform was at their door. He was carrying a small box in his hand. “So you’re the fellow that wants to buy this place,” he said to Flick.
“Yes, sir,” said Flick emphatically. “Another dream that’s going to come true.”
“Why hasn’t anybody bought it?” said Madison, not at all happy about what he was getting into. He might be able to use some offices, but this was not even getting a building: it was a planned robbery. He was being steered way off his mark, and the meaningful look of Teenie hovered in memory.
“Oh, they’re crazy, of course,” the old man said, “but they think the place is haunted.”
That was all Madison needed to get along: the robbery of a haunted townhouse. What a headline THAT would make! He tried to think of something that would dampen Flick’s enthusiasm.
But the old man was talking, “You can’t get into this place without help,” he said, climbing in.
“I know,” said Flick.
“So I thought I’d better come up in person with the box. They’re all waiting for you down below, so if you’ll just move this airbus ahead to that small white dot you see there, we’ll go in.”
Flick, quivering with expectancy, moved the car as stated and the old man pushed at the side of the box.
SWOOP!
Hidden doors whose edges had not been evident activated and they were still sitting in the airbus but it was now sitting in the center of a palatial living room!
Madison glanced up. The door was gone.
Three nicely dressed men were sitting around a desk.
Flick leaped out of the car, looking all around. There were paintings on the walls, vases on stands. He rubbed his hands.
Flick rushed over to the desk. He didn’t shake hands. “Let me see the rest of this layout!”
One of the men, gray-headed, said, “We have to be sure this is a serious offer. We came over from the bank just in case somebody really wanted to buy it.”
“We got to see the whole place,” said Flick.
The three businessmen and the watchman seemed a little cool but then Flick, like a stage magician, flashed Madison’s identoplate.
“Pay status UNLIMITED?” gawped the gray-haired man.
Flick gave Madison a broad wink when the bankers weren’t looking.
Madison swallowed. This was NOT good PR! The identoplate was now being used as an entrance to case a joint and rob it! He had visions of himself being carted off to jail.
The bankers made haste to show them some of the rest of the townhouse. To see all of it would have taken more than a day. Five floors of this size would have taken far more walking than they had the legs for.
There were apartments beyond count, some quite elegant. Some were like the palatial cabins of ships at sea, some were like those of spacecraft. Some looked like hunting lodges.
There were several bars as big as a tavern, chairs and tables and decor approximating styles of different planets.
There were kitchens that were complex mazes of electronic cooking gear which sent viands upwards which would then appear magically on tables in dining salons without having seemed to travel.
There were rooms which contained such a multitude of screens that one got the impression he could look at any band or transmission on any planet anywhere.
They came to an auditorium that would seat at least two hundred people and whose stage revolved or simply flapped back when another decorated stage rose.
Madison got the distinct impression they were not seeing everything there was to see in these rooms. Something odd about it all, something strange. Spooky. Part of it was that there seemed to be windows but they were all black.
The old watchman didn’t seem to be much interested. Flick ran along and the watchman would hit buttons in his box and the doors of rooms would open. Flick would look in, see paintings and hangings of great value and rush on.
“You realize,” the watchman said at last, “that if I was not working this box right, we not only could not pass down these halls, for I’ve opened all the invisible barriers, but traps would open in the floor as well. There’s this box for watchmen and such but some of the master suites can’t be opened at all until they’re voice-tuned to the new owner.”
Flick whispered to Madison excitedly. “There’s a half a million credits in loot in this place. It would be the haul of the century.” Then he went racing on to glance into more rooms.
“Of course,” the gray-haired banker told Madison, “the apartment has regular street entrances and elevators: several of them in fact. But you can only come up to the first floor of these five. The upper ones require special entrance. General Loop was pretty security conscious, I’m afraid.”
Finally the three bankers and the bored watchman were so worn-out with walking that they simply stopped. “Do you mind,” said the gray-haired man, “if we go back to the hangar salon? If you’re still interested . . .”
“Oh, we’re interested!” said Flick with a wink at Madison. And he followed them back to where the airbus was.
Flick, arriving there, reached out his hand to the watchman. “Could I see that box?”
The watchman shook his head.
The three bankers sank wearily into chairs, quite worn-out from almost two hours of unaccustomed walking. Madison himself felt fagged.
“If you’re willing to talk price,” said the gray-haired man, “we are open to some serious offers. We know that the place is large, too large. And it could never obtain a hotel license. The entire remainder of the building, all seventy-five lower floors, are separately owned by residential families such as club officials and so on, and they are much smaller. This so-called townhouse is all under one deed that can’t be broken down into subdeeds and so it can’t be separately rented out or sold in pieces. Now, I am being very frank. The general’s heirs want to get rid of it. It would not be honest of us not to tell you. So what do you offer?” Madison was sure Flick would find some excuse. Madison’s main problem was how he was going to discourage Flick from a break-in and robbery.
Flick was looking at the box in the watchman’s hands. It was obvious the watchman was not going to give it up. Flick sighed deeply. Madison had visions of being part of a break-in that would bring immediate arrest. There was only one way to handle this. As a PR man he knew how to wheel and deal. He would offer a price too low. They would leave and then he would use his authority to argue some sense into Flick. Maybe bribe him.
“Well,” said Madison to the gray-haired man, “I’m afraid we can’t go higher than twenty thousand credits.”
“Sold,” said the gray-haired man without even looking at the other two. “The heirs will be very pleased. The papers are already here. I will fill in the amount and you can stamp them.”
Madison blinked. Then he suddenly realized the offer was about four hundred thousand dollars!
HE HAD BOUGHT A HAUNTED TOWNHOUSE!
PART SEVENTY-FOUR
Chapter 5
Jumping comets, are you smart!” crooned Flick as they rose up through the roof and flew away. “Now we can rob the place without any watchman even sticking their noses in.”
“Flick,” said Madison, “we OWN the place.”
“Makes no difference,” said Flick. “My dream is going to come true! Look, I got the box and a four-foot stack of directions in the bargain. Wow, what an easy break-in this will be! Oh, man, are all my dreams coming true!”
“Flick—”
“Oh, leave this up to me. You’re smart. I got to admit that now. I was wrong: a murderer can have brains for something else besides nightmares. Wow, what a master stroke! Boy, and I puzzled and puzzled over that for months and months!”
“Flick, it’s sunset and I think we ought to call it a day. I got to get up early in the morning and get on my job!”
“Hey, that shows you why you should leave all this up to me. Crime works best by night and you ought to know that.”
They had leaped up into the sky and the traffic lanes, strung out like fireflies in the dusk, were falling behind them.
“Flick, we seem to be leaving the towns. Where are you going?”
“Now, don’t bother your head. Just because you got one bright idea doesn’t prove you know enough to handle everything in sight. Just relax back there.”
“Flick, I think . . .”
“Hand me a sweetbun, would you? They’re in that side locker. Have some yourself.”
A vast sea was on their left and they were speeding along the coast, a greenish surf drawing ribbons of foam upon the sand in the dimming light. Great scarlet clouds, far to the west, were catching the afterglow of the sun.
Presently, in the fading twilight, the beaches gave way to cliffs and black mountains began to silhouette against the stars. Suddenly Flick pulled his throttle back and pointed.
A huge ebony bulk lay just ahead, sprawling along the top of cliffs that fell a quarter of a mile, sheer, to the sea. Battlements that covered acres were blacker against an ink-dark sky.
“That’s the Domestic Confederacy Prison,” said Flick. “Two hundred miles from Government City and two miles past hell nine. My brother did twenty years here and he told me all about it. It used to be an Army fort that held a million men: huge underground bunkers. But part of it was destroyed by an earthquake that took some of the cliff away so they gave it to the ‘bluebottles.’ They use it for those sentenced to twenty years or more: place is escape-proof, so they ship in their worst ones from all over the Confederacy. There’s about two hundred thousand prisoners there and they never see the light.” He slid Madison’s identoplate into a slot in the dash.
“You mean we’re going in amongst murderers?” said Madison.
“Oh, you kill me, Chief, you really do. Always gagging around. You don’t have to pretend with me. I’m your driver, remember?” Flick snickered. “An officer of the Apparatus squealing like a little girl about associating with criminals! And a murderer at that.” He thought it was very funny. Then he sobered. “There’s their call-in light. Now, you let me do the talking, you hear?”
A glaring light hit them from a battlement and then went off. Four bright blue lights sprang up, bathing a courtyard in an eerie glow.
Flick landed and they got out. Two “bluebottles” approached and the snout of a gun covered them from a high turret. Flick showed them Madison’s identoplate and a torch glared in Madison’s face as they compared the picture. Surf sounded with a distant boom and the wind moaned.
“Take us to the warder,” said Flick.
They walked across the gritty courtyard, through a rusty door, and shortly were ushered into a stone-walled room where a very old and tough-faced man was just getting his jacket on. “And what’s so urgent that you come here at night?” said the warder, scowling.
Flick held up Madison’s identoplate.
“PR man?” said the warder. “What’s that?”
“Parole officer,” said Flick. “Apparatus parole officer.” And he made a little gesture toward the two “bluebottles” that had followed them in. The warder signaled with his hand that the escort could withdraw.
Flick reached into Madison’s coat and drew out two one-thousand-credit notes and slid them into the warder’s palm. It was a year’s pay.
“Ah, yes,” said the warder. “A parole officer. Anybody special?”
“Lead us to your computer consoles,” said Flick.
The warder took them down a stone passageway, ushered them into a room where several consoles sat, deserted at night. He waved his hand in invitation and left, shutting the door.
Flick took off his mustard-colored tunic, rolled up his sleeves and sat down before a keyboard and screen.
Madison said, “Flick, you’ve GOT to tell me what you are up to NOW!”
“Well,” said Flick, with a glance to make sure the door was shut, “if you plan a robbery you’ve got to have a gang.”
“You don’t need a gang, Flick.”
“Now listen,” said Flick, “I’ve dreamed and dreamed of having my own gang. I never had the means to break one out. Now, you’re not going to spoil it. You got to be more careful of dreams: they’re fragile.” He turned to a pad on the desk, a big smile beginning to split the horizontal oval of his face. “Oh, man! Am I ever going to have a great gang. Now I’m going to make a list of absolute essentials, so don’t you interrupt.”
He began to write and Madison, looking over his shoulder, read:
IDEAL GANG
He chewed the end of the pen for a bit, then he said, “Nope, that’s it. That’s just about right. A gang right out of my dreams for sure. Now I’m going to computer out ten candidates for each of these jobs, then I’ll get the warder to dig the applicants out of the old bunkers and parade them and I can select the absolute top-best criminals. Perfection!”
He turned to the console and shortly the screen began to show a racing blur of numbers, names, faces and records. Flick was preselecting categories and then entering them by number in on a side, portable computer board. Thousands of names and faces were pouring through.
Madison watched dully, wondering how he was going to stop this.
No master at operating one of these, Flick occasionally hit a wrong key. This got him in a tangle and wrong categories flashed up while he tried to get back.
“Wait!” said Madison, suddenly jarred out of his preoccupation. “What on Earth is that category you just passed? Go back to it.”
Flick did. “Circus girls? What would anybody want with circus girls? All they ever do is stand around and show off costumes. And there, look at the crimes: life for rolling drunks. That type of criminality is NOT dignified. We’re not rolling drunks: we’re in the house-robbing business.”
“Wait, don’t shift categories yet. Some of those carry the educated symbol. Does it say any of them were ever models?”
“What’s a ‘model’?”
“Pull the printout on those and get them paraded along with the rest.”
Flick muttered. He hit another wrong key.
“Hey!” said Madison. “There’s an ex-Homeview cameraman doing life for equipment theft!”
Flick was disgusted. “Look, if you’re going to put together another gang, go over to another console: you’re getting in my way.”
Madison approached another console and figured out how to operate it. He got to work.
PART SEVENTY-FOUR
Chapter 6
Madison, two hours later, was feeling more than slightly ill. He was standing in the ghastly blue light of the prison courtyard, one hand on the airbus, trying not to vomit. Naturally fastidious, he feared he’d be smelling that smell for weeks.
The warder, good as his word, had paraded ten candidates at a time in a noisome assembly bunker and Flick and Madison had had the job of interviewing each. Between them, they had examined 480 prisoners. They had selected forty-eight. They had been cursed luridly at the last by the 432 luckless ones who had NOT been chosen.
And here came the fruits of their interviews after being handled on the prison rolls. The small mob was being prodded forward by stingers in the hands of guards. Additional “bluebottles,” alert with guns, walked behind.
The night was dark and the courtyard cold with wind in off the sea. The prisoners’ rags were blown like tattered banners about their filthy limbs. They stank; their hair was matted; they were thin. The fourteen women and thirty-four men should have been cowed, but they were not.
They came to a stop in the sudden glare of a spotlight on the wall. They had not been outside, some of them, for years. They looked around brazenly. A couple of them barked laughs at the guards, jeering laughs. Flick and Madison had not chosen convicts who looked cowed.
The warder, walking over the black pavement to Madison, heard the laughs and turned around and glared at the group. Then he turned back to Madison and pushed papers at him on a board so they could be stamped.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” the warder said. “The people you selected were not the ones I would have picked for parole. You passed over many a bird down there that have maybe reformed. Some of these you picked are probably killers we never got the goods on. Those women are a bad lot—capable of anything. I think they fooled you with their looks. But you guys in the Apparatus always have been crazy. We pick ’em up and you turn ’em loose. The government pays us to prevent crime and pays you to commit it. Funny world.”
Madison handed the now-stamped papers back.
“You got forty-eight killers there,” the warder said. “Don’t turn your back on them. Good luck.”
He walked a few paces toward the prison doors and then changed his mind and faced the tattered, filthy group grinning at him in the wind and spotlight glare. In a loud, harsh voice he said, “Listen, you bird droppings. If any one of you show up here again, I’ll put you in the iron box and down in the darkest hole and we won’t even bother to bury you when you die. You’ll stay free only as long as this Apparatus officer here is still alive. Your papers say you are to be returned here any time he says so. If you run away from him, a warrant goes out for you and back here you come. You belong in hells, not in free air.” He pointed emphatically at Madison. “Obey that man, you (bleepards), or you’re dead!”
Madison watched the warder tramp away. The fellow had earned his money: he had turned total control of these convicts to Madison with that speech even though he might suspect that Madison would order them to commit crimes.
Earlier, from the prison, Flick had called Chalber and out of the night here came three air-coaches and an airbus to ferry back the Zippety-Zip drivers. They flashed down out of the night and into the glare of the wall spotlight. They were shiny new vehicles, sparkling and sleek.
A driver popped out of the Zippety-Zip ferry airbus, spotted Madison and came over with papers to be stamped. While he waited, the driver stared at the prisoner group.
Flick had begun to sort them out and move them to stand beside different vehicles. The convict drivers were getting genned in by the ferry people.
“Ouch,” the man beside Madison said. “What a hellish lot! You’re actually putting them in clean, new air-coaches!” He looked closer. “What a bunch of killers!” Then he shrugged and took the papers back. “Well, they’re your vehicles now. Carry whom you please. Wow!”
Madison went over to the groups as the ferry airbus took off hastily.
Looking into the faces, he began to check his list. It was composed of:
Madison finished his body check and despite the stench, a pulse of exultation began to course through him.
One thing they had in common. It was chief amongst the several quick tests he had used. If they tried hard, they could lay aside the killer stamp and appear totally honest and sincere. If they concentrated, they could even talk in persuasive voices. Oh, they would require some work and practice, that he understood. But he always expected that. A master at it like himself could drill it in.
A glow of eagerness built up to a fiery excitement within him. What luck!
HE HAD HIS CREW!
The exact people he needed to get on with his job!
He felt he could rise to heights now never before achieved!
Oh, how lucky Heller was, to have him for his PR!
He must not let anything stop him now!
PART SEVENTY-FOUR
Chapter 7
There was a holdup on departure.
The convicts were all loaded. The felon drivers were at the controls of the air-coaches. No Flick.
Madison looked around the black and gritty courtyard, noting there was a turret gun still trained on them from the wall. He wanted to get out of there before something untoward happened. He didn’t want to shout and raise a commotion.
Then he saw a glow was coming from the Model 99. He raced over to it.
Flick was bent over one of the panel screens: three-dimensional colored maps were stopping, shifting, blurring on it. They were all of mountains.
“You’re keeping us waiting,” said Madison impatiently. “Let’s get out of here. What on earth are you doing NOW?”
“I’m looking for a place to take this gang,” said Flick. “There’s a lot of mountains but it’s not like on Calabar. On Voltar, I can’t find any caves.”
“And what do you want caves for?”
“To train! You got to train a gang. You can’t just let them blunder into a job. It all has to go off like clockwork—clip, clip, clip! Now, there’s some old ruins on the other side of the Blike Mountains—some town that got knocked out in a revolt ten thousand years ago, it says. And it would do, except only this airbus can cross the Blike Mountains. Those air-coaches can’t fly at fifty thousand feet. I got PROBLEMS!”
“Well, Flick, I don’t see why we don’t go to the townhouse in Joy City.”
“Oh, no! That would be cheating!”
“Well,” said Madison, “you can do what you please, but I’m going to take MY gang there.”
“YOUR gang—MY gang! What’s this? Are we splitting up? Hells, that could cause a gang war!”
“Oh, we should do anything to avoid that,” said Madison. “Look, I’ve got a compromise. The seventy-sixth floor is said to be just ordinary. It’s the rest of the upper floors that all the loot is in. I promise faithfully not to let anybody go up to the upper four floors.”
Flick frowned. He thought it over. Then he said, “All right. Nobody goes into the upper four floors until we’re ready to rob them. So that’s settled. We go to the seventy-sixth floor of the townhouse.”
Madison started to withdraw to signal the air-coaches. “Wait a minute,” said Flick. “It will look awful suspicious going into the townhouse in that swank neighborhood with a bunch of prisoners in rags. The cops would be all over us like a blanket. We’ll go rob a clothing warehouse first.”
“NO!” said Madison.
“Yes!” said Flick. “I compromised on the seventy-sixth floor of the townhouse. Now you can compromise on something. I know of the swankiest men and women’s clothing outlet you ever heard of. HUGE. Even noblemen’s stores get their stock from that place. Besides, I need to put my footwoman in a uniform: she’s got awful big breasts and is going to need a big selection to choose a uniform from, or we won’t get a fit. So, as long as I’ve got to get her one, we’ll just outfit the whole gang in one go.”
Madison looked at him aghast.
“Classy Togs Warehouse is the name. It’s in the outskirts of Commercial City, whole area deserted at this time of night. I cased the joint. It’s only got one watchman and he’s old.”
Seeing the determination, Madison felt helpless. “I’m afraid that I’ll wait outside.”
“Oh, good. You be the whistle man!” And Flick leaped out and raced to the air-coaches, ordering the drivers to follow him, whispering to each they were off to do their first job and get some clothes.
Shortly they soared into the air out of the courtyard and strung out, streaking down the coast. A moon had risen and was bathing the night with a soft green glow. The Domestic Confederacy Prison’s bulk disappeared behind. Then even the mountains were gone.
Flick was chortling happily. “Man, we’re off on our first job!”
Madison looked down. They were speeding along moon-bathed beach, the surf long ribbons as it purled against the sand.
Madison looked back.
NO COACHES!
“HALT!” he screamed at Flick. “You were going too fast!”
“WHAT?” said Flick. “No air-coaches? I only been doing three hundred. Those coaches can do four hundred easy! They’ve escaped!”
He flipped the Model 99 around in the air and sent its scanners flashing all around the sky.
NO BLIPS!
No sign of air-coaches on the screen.
“Well, (bleep) them!” raged Flick. “That’s gratitude! The lousy (bleepards) have taken off to do their own job!”
“Let’s go back the way we came,” said Madison. “Maybe they crashed. Can you do a ground search with something?”
Flick punched around and got a metal-detector beam working and registering.
They sped back up the moonlit sand. The tips of the mountains to the north rose once more as they headed back.
Then, A BLIP. TWO BLIPS. THREE BLIPS!
Three air-coaches down there on the sand!
Fearing the worst, they speeded near and did a fast pass.
THE COACHES WERE EMPTY!
“Oh, Gods,” said Flick. “They’ve escaped inland! We’ll never find them in that scrub. Where the hells is the body-heat detection button?”
“You don’t need one,” said Madison. He was pointing.
The group wasn’t inland. It was down in the surf. Were they fighting?
The Model 99 swooped nearer and landed with a thunk in the sand. Madison leaped out.
Convicts were running everywhere!
“WHEE!” they were shouting. “WHEE!”
Madison caught an arm of a naked woman as she raced by. But she was gone, shouting, “Whee!”
He spotted another one who had stopped to catch his breath and quickly went over. It was one of the cooks/logistic personnel.
“What’s going on here?” demanded Madison of the naked man.
He was catching his breath. He finally said, “I’m afraid it’s all my fault, Chief. Your Lieutenant Flick told us we were going to get new clothes tonight so I said, ‘Let’s throw all these rags away!’ I think they got a little enthusiastic.”
A voice was at Madison’s elbow. The director, naked as the day he was born, said, “Isn’t it great? If my cameraman just had a camera, I could really get it in the can. And show it as the ‘Rites to the Goddess of the Sea.’ Hells, I’ll direct it anyway. YOU THERE! GRAB THAT WOMAN AND PITCH HER OFF THOSE ROCKS!”
Madison raced back to the Model 99. It had every known kind of noisemaker: sirens, klaxons, scream-beams, moans and bomb blasts. He pushed them all. A dreadful assortment of sound racketed across the waves and sand. Naked convicts came streaming out of the water and rushing in from the dunes to see what was up.
Madison found a floodlight knob and pushed it. The immediate scene went a glaring yellow.
He was surrounded now by a mob of naked bodies. He rapidly made a count. The last one was just arriving: he now had forty-eight.
“Blast!” cried Flick, above the thunder of the surf, “How we going to do our job with no clothes?”
“You said the job was to get clothes,” somebody yelled.
“That’s right!” cried another.
A woman shouted, “You can beat us and we won’t put those rags back on!”
Madison saw mutiny in the air. He motioned Flick to be silent. “I think you did just great!” he shouted. “Just be sure you don’t leave those rags lying around. People will think somebody has escaped. So gather them up and we’ll be on our way.”
The throng disintegrated.
Shortly a pile of rags was gathered in one heap just above the water’s edge. Somebody got a laser-lighter from an air-coach and touched off a blaze.
That would have been all right but somebody else promptly found some driftwood and piled it on the flame and then somebody else found some more and they had a bonfire. They thought that was great and, grabbing hands, began to dance around it in two rings going opposite ways.
Then, mysteriously, sweetbuns and sparklewater from the lockers of the Model 99 began to get tossed from hand to hand. They had robbed the airbus!
Then they were all sitting, toasting sweetbuns on long sticks and guzzling sparklewater from jugs. And somebody began to sing a song!
And here’s a cheer
To the boys in blue
And here’s to the cons
They love to screw.
So let’s screw the blueboys
Screw, screw, screw.
And chaw on their carcasses
Chew, chew, chew!
Up their butts
And off with their nuts
And here’s to a life of crime!
Flick was seething. “Some gang! Lay into ’em, Chief. Kick some sense into their heads. They’ve got a job to do tonight!”
“You lay into them and kick some sense into their heads,” said Madison.
“You’re the boss. They’ve got to learn to respect you.”
“You’re the lieutenant. You’ve got to teach them respect for me.”
“I’m too disgusted,” said Flick. “I’m going over and sit in the airbus.”
The sweetbuns had vanished. The sparklewater jugs were empty. They had finished the hot jolt and were smoking the puffsticks.
Madison got up. He said, above the surf, “All right. It’s getting late. Let’s be on our way.”
“Just as soon as we wash this sand off!” somebody yelled.
There was a concerted rush into the sea and then they began a water fight.
A statuesque circus girl, body gleaming in the moonlight, rushed out of the water toward Madison. Three more came whooping on her heels. Madison thought they were just chasing the first girl until she was upon him. She grabbed him with a shout. The others jumped on him.
“Come on in!” they were shouting at him.
They had his clothes off so fast he hardly knew when they had been slipped off. Yikes, these girls were expert!
They bore him straight into the sea and pitched him into the teeth of a towering wave. Madison came up blubbering and blowing.
Something pulled him under. He hadn’t taken a breath. Then he was on the surface again and being carried into the air.
Buffeted by the waves, four girls bore him back to dry land. Madison was coughing and sneezing and trying to get his breath.
He was being held horizontally six feet off the ground.
His blurred sight took in faces rushing at him.
They were going to wipe him out!
He stared around anxiously.
In the lights from the bonfire and the car, eyes were glittering. Like wolves?
Suddenly they began to chant, “Hup! Hup! Hup! Hup!” Was this some sort of a convict or guard cry that marched them about?
They were going to the fire. Were they going to throw him in?
They were marching around the fire. Some sort of savage ritual. “Hup! Hup! Hup! Hup!” Like Indians or wild animals!
Then suddenly they all stopped. A male voice—the director’s?—began a chant, calling one line and being answered by all the rest.
“Who’s the gang?”
“WE’RE THE GANG!”
“Who’s the mob?”
“WE’RE THE MOB!”
“Who’s the chief?”
“HE’S THE CHIEF!”
And threw Madison in the water!
He came up spluttering.
They paid no further attention to him. They were now trooping off to the air-coaches.
Madison, not knowing how to take all that, but quite certain it was not the kind of respect and image he needed, trudged alone across the sand to where his clothes had been stripped off.
He dried himself with his undershirt and got his clothes back on.
He was glancing around to see if anything had dropped out of his pockets. Nothing lying there. He patted his pockets. He had his identoplate. Then he missed a bulge which should be at his breast. He patted again.
HIS WALLET AND FORTY-EIGHT THOUSAND CREDITS WERE GONE!
He felt himself go white.
He looked at the air-coaches over there in the moonlight. They were all loaded and waiting to go.
He flinched at tackling that mob again.
That settled it. He would have to work on his own image first. He went over to the Model 99.
“Some gang,” muttered Flick. “Bunch of lousy beach (bleepards) out for a holiday.”
Madison sank back in the seat. He didn’t agree at all. That mob was a bunch of criminals. But he wasn’t going to tell Flick they had stolen his wallet—no use to harm his image even more.
PART SEVENTY-FOUR
Chapter 8
When they flew in over the outskirts of Commercial City, it was dark as pitch below. A hill blocked off the moonlight and left the part of the plain they wanted in the deepest shadow.
That was fine by Madison. He couldn’t possibly imagine greater folly than using a Model 99, so recognizable, on a robbery job. Not unskilled in the methods of crime—since these often go hand in hand with truly expert PR—he knew you were supposed to steal some cars and, after the heist, abandon them without fingerprints.
A vast factory complex, spreading over possibly six square miles, squatted in the darkness below, all of it, apparently, devoted to just one company, Classy Togs. In daytime it might well be occupied by hundreds of thousands of workers, and a network of monorails led in from the town and curled and swooped all over the plain and mountainside and then went over to another site, a collection of high-rises, a miniature city in itself.
The Model 99’s screens, turned to night frequency, showed it all up plainly, color-corrected to look like day. It was quite startling to then look out and see only blacks and shadow.
Flick was sorting out the buildings. He found the various chimneyed structures where they made cloth and fabric molds and discarded them. He was able to label the many-windowed, low, long buildings, each standing in its park, as design and assembly structures.
“I thought you’d cased this joint,” said Madison.
“I did. I saw it on Homeview,” said Flick. “It produces, all by itself, .07 percent of all the clothing for the nobility, their staffs and estates.”
“That’s not very much,” said Madison.
“But it’s quality we’re after and that is the TOP .07 percent. Or maybe it was 7 percent: I always have trouble with my ciphers because they’re nothing, you see, and you don’t have to bother with them. But I’ll convince you: the cloth they make in them factories down there have been used in stage clothes for Hightee Heller. So there’s no better recommendation than that!”
Hightee Heller? thought Madison. Ah, yes. He’d heard something: that was Jettero’s sister. “That’s the Homeview star,” he said.
“Star?” sniffed Flick. “You mean goddess! Don’t you go running down the girl of my dreams. Hey, there it is! The warehouse! No windows. See it in that snarl of monorails? Here we go!”
They shot down to a truck roadway that ran under the monorails and stopped. They were in a park, close by the warehouse, within a hundred feet of its doors. Three air-coaches came down, crump, crump, crump, on the road behind them.
It gave Madison the creeps. Here he was in a glaringly recognizable car, accompanied by three vehicles full of naked cons. He looked around hastily for guards.
The night was very black here, the moon blocked out. Ah, there it was: a watchman’s office, marked by a blue light. The office itself was inset into the side of the circular warehouse and close by the main entrance.
His attention was distracted by someone at their windows. It was the scaler, the purse snatcher and the electronics security man, stark naked.
The security man said to Flick, “All the controls will be in that watchman’s office. This place will go up like a celebration if we even touch the latch of that front door at this hour. We were talking it over in the coach.” But he was pointing at the watchman’s windows.
Madison’s hair stood up. In silhouette, a watchman could be seen peering out.
“You see?” said the electronics convict. “Our gang ain’t complete. We ain’t got no slugger to take the watchman out.”
“Oh, yes, we have,” said Flick. “The chief. He’s a first-rate murderer.”
Madison groaned. He knew he had set up the wrong image.
“Well, don’t hold us up, Chief,” said Flick. “Go on over and erase that watchman. Sir.”
Madison knew his control of this gang was on the line. But murder?
“When you get in there, Chief,” said the electronics man, “you’ll find a big board. So as soon as you take the watchman out, remove the activating plate from his belt and push it over a green dot you’ll find on the board and all the alarms will nullify.”
Madison braced himself. He got out of the airbus. Two of the roustabouts had come up and showed every sign that they were going to go accompany him.
In a firm voice, Madison said, “Don’t come with me. I don’t want any witnesses to learn how I really work.”
“He’ll be armed,” Flick said.
“You birds stay here,” said Madison. And they watched him walk down the road, visible only against the watchman’s window light.
They saw Madison enter the office and the watchman vanish from the window. A small sound came to them, something falling. Then there was a delay and they grew more and more nervous. “Maybe he’s having trouble with the opening plate. Those boards are pretty complex. I better go help.”
“You stay here like he said,” snarled Flick. “You caused enough trouble for one night.”
They became more and more edgy.
Then suddenly someone was running toward them and they tensed.
It was Madison.
He beckoned.
Nervously they followed him.
Madison reached for the entrance door and opened it. At his gesture, forty-eight naked cons slid like whispers into the building.
Flick glanced toward the watchman’s office.
“Don’t go in there,” said Madison. “It would turn your stomach.”
Madison firmly closed the door behind them, fumbled along the wall and pushed a panel.
The interior of the warehouse flooded with light.
There were tiers and tiers of shelves of boxes, racks and racks of clothes, men’s and women’s.
The convicts let out suppressed squeals of delight and began to rush along the racks and tiers. They began to tear down boxes of fancy shoes and grab hats and capes.
At a low word from Madison, Flick called them to come back.
Holding items already grabbed they unwillingly returned.
Madison walked up to a rack of shimmering white dresses, probably expensive beyond belief. He ripped one off the hangings. He was using it to wipe his hands!
THEY WERE BRIGHT RED!
Madison tossed the gown, now gory, on the floor.
The convicts stared at him.
Madison went over to a hook and took down a book that was hanging there and looked at it. “Yes, I thought so,” he said. “This is the stock book for these rows. It has all the sizes. Now what I want you to do is each one outfit himself for any role he might have to play. Try everything on carefully.”
“Oh, no,” Flick gasped. “That will take time. On a job like this you grab and run!”
“And wind up with a sloppy-looking gang?” said Madison. “Take your time. We’ve got hours to dawn.”
“There are sometimes roving watchmen, too!” said Flick.
Madison let out a snort. “They’re not roving anymore.”
The convicts hastened back to the shelves. They began to grab stock books. They began to look at sizes. And soon they were very busy indeed.
The circus girls paraded around, getting opinions on which costumes were the most provocative until Madison told them they had to look like ladies of quality and, on this new thought, had to select all over again.
Flick kept trying different tunics on his footwoman to see which ones best showed off her breasts until Madison forced him to find his own and then match hers to that. He had to correct that again when Flick found some lepertige tights that left everything on her front bare. “But,” argued Flick, “I found some for myself and they match the upholstery!” In the end, Madison did manage to get them into shimmering violet uniforms but he had to let them take the tights as well: it was the footwoman, this time, who was protesting. She LOVED them!
The two actors who had been impersonating officers had to be argued down into more junior ranks when they found whole racks for generals and admirals.
The horror-story writer couldn’t find anything gruesome enough and Madison had to force him into a wardrobe for scholars and lettered men.
The director went crazy trying to decide whether he could direct best, dressed as an archbishop or a lord, and Madison had to talk very fast to get him to choose clothes of a working executive.
What was most trying about it, to Madison, was that he really didn’t know the styles or what they represented. He was finally saved by the studio production secretary finding vast books of fashion plates which showed what was now in style.
After that, it was plain sailing. He firmly got them to outfit themselves as, each one, people of quality, working people, domestics, executives and actors.
At last he could turn to his own wardrobe. And he had very little trouble with that. He found the racks for top-flight executives like presidents of companies and, in a conservative way, got himself into the height of fashion.
Throughout, he had thought that the warehouse stank a bit and then, smelling some cloth to make sure it didn’t make him sneeze—for he had some minor allergies—he realized that the bath in the sea had not been total for these convicts: they still stank of the prison; the odor clung to their matted hair and beards and seemed to ooze out of their skin.
The Apparatus! He had smelled this smell at the training center. He had smelled it in their old car. The Apparatus smell was the smell of convicts! So THAT was why it stank!
He shuddered at the thought of their contaminating these new clothes. He persuaded them, before they left, to dress in their working clothes and not their finery.
“It’s coming on to dawn,” said Flick nervously. “We better be getting out of here. If we don’t, we all could wind up back at the Domestic Prison.”
With several trips they got their loot into the coaches and then came back one final time, at Madison’s order, to wipe the place clean of fingerprints.
Madison waited at the door. The crew finished on the various floors and came down.
Madison was standing at the entrance. He was humming a little song. The director tried to get by him and peer into the watchman’s office. Madison blocked him.
“But it must be a great shot!” the director said. “Dead bodies bleeding all around.”
“Your stomach wouldn’t stand it,” said Madison. “I don’t want those new clothes all stunk up with vomit.”
“Gods, ain’t he a cool one,” a convict whispered. “Wipes a whole watch force out and hums a little song.”
Another convict tried to peer in and Madison shooed him off. “What’d you use?” the convict said. “You didn’t have any weapon.”
“My bare hands,” said Madison. “I love the feel of the running gore when I rip out throat arteries. So smooth, so slick. And it has a lovely smell. You should taste it!”
The convicts let out a gasp. One retched. They stared at Madison.
He shooed them off to the air-coaches and sauntered after them, humming his little song.
Even Flick looked at him a bit white-eyed as he climbed in.
Madison was still humming as they all took off.
And he had something to hum about.
When he walked into the watchman’s office, he had disregarded three leveled guns from three tough watchmen. He had pointed to the viewer-phone on the desk and said, “Connect me to your owner, please. The president of the company.” He had held up his identoplate and they had.
When the startled president of Classy Togs was blinking into the viewer-phone from his bed, Madison had told him, “I am an Apparatus officer. I’m outfitting an Apparatus crew who must not be recognized. We are therefore getting clothes out of the warehouse without the help of clerks. Take an inventory in the morning, see what’s gone and put the amount on the bill.”
“Wait a minute,” the president had said. “The Apparatus is poor pay!”
“Oh, this is on my personal account,” Madison had said. And he had pushed his identoplate into the viewer-phone slot.
“UNLIMITED pay status,” the owner had gasped. “Hot Saints! Go ahead! Take the whole blasted warehouse! WATCHMEN, STAY OUT OF SIGHT! DON’T YOU DARE LAY A FINGER ON THAT MAN!”
In retrospect Madison liked the touch of taking the bottle of red ink off the watchman’s desk and sloshing it on his hands.
He ended his song with a laugh. He had certainly repaired his image with this crew.
And yes, he had. The sound of that laugh turned the blood of Flick to ice.
BARE-HANDED! And he liked it. Oh, Flick told himself, by Gods, they’d have to think twice before they crossed the chief. A REAL murderer for sure! A PROFESSIONAL! And he LOVED HIS WORK!
“We’re heading for Joy City right now, sir,” said Flick.
Madison heard the tremor, the fear and the respect in that voice.
It made everything complete.
He had total charge of this crew!
It didn’t hurt at all to use the techniques of PR to improve one’s own image.
Now he could REALLY PR Heller-Wister!