Mission: Earth "An Alien Affair" (11 page)

"How ruined?" said Heller.

"We need over a million and a half to free our bank accounts. We can't pay our staff or rent. We don't even have money to start exchange arbitrage again. Throw me over the fence. You'll be better off without me. I'll close my eyes."

Heller pried his fingers loose from the leg of the seat with some difficulty. Izzy had his eyes tightly closed. Heller picked him up.

"Oh, thank you, thank you," said Izzy. He obviously thought Heller was going to throw him over the high fence.

But Heller carried him into the area with the souvenir stand and snack bar and pushed an elevator button. Izzy tentatively opened his eyes and saw he was no longer on the platform and began to sob anew.

Heller carried him down in the elevators and then up again to their floor. He went on through to his office, opened it and put Izzy in a chair.

Heller went to a safe and got out the black garbage bag. He began to empty wallets and pile wads of notes in Izzy's lap.

The heap grew. Mostly thousand-dollar bills. Izzy was holding them up to the light, checking them.

Suddenly Izzy began to count them with the expert motions of a bank teller.

"One hundred and one thousand, two hundred and five!" said Izzy.

"Tax free," said Heller. "Now, will that let you start arbitrage exchange again?"

"Oh, yes! How did you do this?"

"And you can begin to pay the rent and payroll?"

"Oh yes. The pound is out the bottom in Singapore and high in New York. But..."

"There's a string," said Heller. "Promise me not to go near that Observation Platform again."

"Oh, I won't. The wind hurts my sinuses!"

"And one more thing," said Heller. "I have now saved your life twice so you are doubly responsible for me."

"Oh no!" said Izzy with a wail. "Not with all that bad publicity!"

Heller reached for the money.

"I PROMISE TO BE DOUBLY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU!" shouted Izzy. And he ran with speed for the telex room, probably to get away before Heller thought of anything else.

Well, I ruminated, they were still in business. But they owed a million and a half and IRS had a way with it, being run as it was to keep Rockecenter rich and everybody else poor, especially potential competition. Hadn't I heard that in 1905, Rockecenter's great-grandfather had been the one who financed and pushed and hammered Congress to amend the Constitution and put income tax into law? And when it happened in 1911, that the family fortune was so organized that only it survived when those of all competitors were swept away? Cunning people, the Rockecenters, no matter that the current scion was insane. Here was IRS working for them still. Izzy didn't have a prayer of getting hold of a million and a half! A half he might make. But a million and a half, never. Not with just arbitrage, not with all his current expenses. Not even Izzy.

It was a relief. For Izzy's Chryster Motor Corporation would have been a potential competitor of Rockecenter interests. Izzy might pull the wool over Heller's eyes. But he couldn't fool me. He had obviously bought old, rickety, mostly defunct Chryster to build and install Heller's carburetors! One more crazy Izzy dream gone to pot.

But it was the media thing that really intrigued me. Rockecenter had that down, too.

And Heller? He really had no idea of what was happening to him or who was doing it. During the rescue of Izzy, his hands had gotten pretty dirty on the Observation Platform and there he stood looking closely at the soot. He just had no idea at all of the really important things that were going on!

About nine forty-five, Heller's day was given another jolt. He had been listening to speeded-up Italian-language tapes he had probably gotten from the language school down the hall and was just doing a replay of how to pronounce numerous Italian saints when Bang-Bang came bursting in.

"Right away, right now, Babe ordered you brought in. Come on!"

Heller said, "Santa Margherita."

"Do you no good to pray. She sounded quite put out. (Bleeped) mad, in fact. Come along."

Heller got into a white sheepskin coat, buckled its belt and put on a white leather cap with earmuffs. Pulling on white gauntlets he followed Bang-Bang.

They went down the elevator and over to the 34th Street Observatory entrance which Bang-Bang usually used due to the large taxi stand there, apparently. It was Heller's usual route out when he had to take a cab. He started to signal one.

"Hell, no," said Bang-Bang, pointing to the old orange cab. "I'm driving you!"

"Won't that take you out of your parole jurisdiction?" said Heller, but he got in.

Bang-Bang two-wheeled the cab into a screaming U-turn and rocketed it westward. He was bashing other traffic out of his way and felt comfortable enough now to talk, evidently. He yelled back, "Babe ain't in Jersey today. The family just acquired the old Punard Steamship Line through a merger with our Luverback Line. And Babe cleaned house of their lords and sirs and ex-Royal Navy captains, the ones that put the Punard Line on the bottom. She always okays top brass. So she's over here today passing on the hiring of new ones."

"She say what she wanted?" said Heller.

"No. She just said to fetch you. Hell, she ought to be happy as a lark today. The family controls the unions and with this last merger of shipping companies, she now controls all seaborne carriers in America. There ain't a single U.S. port she couldn't close down so fast it would make even the fish blink. You wouldn't think anybody could run a little rum-running fleet up to such a point but she has. Organized crime made it in spite of hell. The Feds don't even dare breathe on us now—America could be paralyzed. Even Faustino can't object to her being on this side of the river today. And she's down there hiring some of the biggest names in shipping like they was gofers. And is she happy? No!"

"What makes you think that?" said Heller.

"She (bleep) near exploded my ear is what makes me think that. But she ain't been the same since Jimmy "The Gutter" got wasted by that God (bleeped) Gunsalmo Silva. So you watch it, Jet. Be awful polite. Say 'sir' even if you ain't spoken to."

They got over to Twelfth Avenue and up on the West Side Elevated Highway and Bang-Bang nose-dived the cab down a ramp.

It was the old Passenger Ship Terminals, long since fallen into disuse with the monopoly of aircraft on people-carrying. A faded sign, Punard Line, had a bright new banner across it, EXECUTIVE UNION HIRING HALL, Local 205.

What with drays and limousines and swarms of seafaring-type people, Bang-Bang had to do quite a bit of nudging to get them into the terminal.

It was a vast place, like a warehouse, in an advanced state of decay. Bang-Bang drove the cab over the stanchions of a no-parking restricted zone and came to the foot of some stairs.

Two men, one on either side of the cab, materialized. They were tough-looking men: overcoat collars turned up and slouch hats turned down. They both shoved riot shotguns into the cab, one at Heller, one at Bang-Bang.

"Whatcha want?" said one. "Oh hell, it's you, Bang-Bang."

"And the kid," said the other one, stepping back. "Don't scare us that way. At least give us the lights signal. Doncha know the capa is over here today?"

"It's all right," yelled the first one up toward the mezzanine above them. "It's Bang-Bang and the kid."

Three men up there lowered their assault rifles.

Heller and Bang-Bang trotted up a flight of rickety stairs and walked along a sort of balcony that overlooked the mob and cars below. There were three lines of men formed and inching along past three desks. Half a dozen men in black overcoats and slouch hats were sitting at the desks, doing fast interviews. The desks had three signs: DIRECTORS, SHIP OFFICERS and EXECUTIVES. A lot of uniformed security police stood about, directing the foot and vehicle traffic. A busy scene.

Bang-Bang and Heller got to a point on the mezzanine which was above and just back of the interview desks on the floor below. It was glass enclosed.

And there sat Babe Corleone. She was dressed in a full-length, silver-fox coat and a cylindrical, silver-fox cap. She wore white silk boots and white silk gloves. She was seated in a big chair, intent and imperious. She had four bodyguards and three clerks near to hand. In front of her was a row of screens, closed-circuit viewers and computers, placed low so she could see over them and observe who was at the desks. The speakers near her were carrying whatever went on at the desks.

She didn't look up from her work. She pointed at a spot a few feet to her left. "You stand right there, Jerome Terrance Wister," she said to Heller, using his Earth name. It was ominous.

The screens were carrying views of the application forms on the desks and, from some data bank somewhere, records of the people themselves and a close view of the applicant's face.

Curiously, there was only one screen on each of the desks below and even more curiously, each of those had only one scene: it was Babe Corleone's right hand!

She would scan the applicant form, look at the face of the applicant and then glance at the record viewscreen where the clerk had the fellow's real record. Finally, she would either turn her thumb up—in which case they would hand the applicant a blue Hired slip—or she would turn her thumb down—in which case the applicant would be handed a red slip with No dice on it.

One of the clerks near her was keeping a big board and checking off positions as fast as they were filled.

The personnel selection was progressing with surprising speed.

It was interesting that some of the people she was hiring had criminal records.

The lines moved. Her thumb went up and her thumb went down. All of a sudden her hand went horizontal and flat. She was staring at the screen.

On the administrative-position application desk was the form of J. P. FLAGRANT!

Yes, there he was, down on the floor, standing there, looking pretty deflated, the Rockecenter PR man that was fired when we found and hired Madison.

The job being applied for was Punard Line Advertising Executive. The application form simply said Former employer: F.F.B.O. But the data bank record said Account Executive, Rockecenter Accounts. I. G. Barben.

Babe hissed something into a mike. It went to the earplug of the man at the desk below. A speaker went live on the mezzanine.

"I was fired," said Flagrant. "I will be honest with you. I hated the job. I hated Rockecenter interests. If you hire me you will do yourself a good day's work. I can even help you do Faustino in! I'll swear it as big as a billboard!"

Babe's hand did another movement. The thumb was sideways!

Two men in black overcoats instantly grabbed Flagrant, one on each arm. They marched him out through a warehouse door. The winter wind off the Hudson hit them.

They marched him right over to the edge of the dock and threw him in the water! In the dead of winter, they threw him in the river!

"Traditore!" spat Babe. "I hate a traitor!" When she had said "traditore," which is Italian for "traitor," it sounded like a bullet!

Babe pointed a finger at a clerk. He picked up a microphone and threw a switch. He said in a cultured voice, "Gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?" It went booming hollowly from metallic speakers the length and breadth of the vast pier warehouse, battering the thousands who milled about or stood in lines. "We are very grateful, on this cold day, that you have come to apply for employment with the newly resurrected Punard Line. What we most cherish is loyalty. The gentleman who was just thrown in the river was once employed by persons antipathetic to those who now own the company. If there are any others of such ilk, they can save themselves the inconvenience of a ducking by leaving quietly now."

Three men moved away from different parts of the line.

They were grabbed instantly.

Men in black overcoats and slouch hats bore them struggling to the dock edge and threw them into the icy water with resounding splashes.

A fourth man suddenly rushed out of the line and, of his own accord, dived overboard!

The clerk with the microphone said, "Now that we have gotten rid of those dirty (bleepards), executive hiring may proceed. Thank you, gentlemen, for your loyal support of the new management."

There was a faint cheer.

The lines began to move once more.

Heller was watching the water. A fish boat was pulling Flagrant and the others aboard. Heller was once more watching Babe.

Her wrist got tired. She stopped the lines with a flat palm. Then she extended her hand and a man rushed up and put a glass of blood-red wine in it.

She turned and looked at Heller, her expression as cold as the wintry river. She fixed him with her gray eyes.

Frostily, she said, "You lost the race." She let that sink in. "I have told you and told you, Jerome, you must not lose. It is a bad habit, Jerome. It is a habit that must not be tolerated! I know I have been neglectful. I know I have not always been a good mother to you. But that doesn't make any difference at all, Jerome."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Corleone."

"And the newspapers are saying bad things about you, Jerome."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Corleone. I don't know where it is all coming from. I..."

"Newspapers are very bad things, Jerome. You must not go out carousing with reporters. It will ruin your reputation. You must be very careful of the people you associate with. You must not consort with criminal types like reporters. Do you understand me, Jerome?"

"Yes, Mrs. Corleone. I am very sorry...."

"Stop interrupting me and don't try to change the subject. You do not have a single, valid excuse! You have been a very, very naughty boy, Jerome. I am very, very provoked. First you lose a perfectly simple race. And then you spread yourself all over the press. And you not only are ruining all your future but," and here her voice rose in pitch and volume, "the mayor's wife was on the phone to me for half an hour this morning saying the most awful things! And all about you and your bad publicity!"