Mission: Earth "Death Quest" (25 page)

"You had an editor drop it to page three," I said.

"Yes, there's that," he said. "But Smith, you're not a pro, worse luck. Did you think I wasn't going to climax it?"

"From the number of rolls in the hay I've seen described in press and on TV, I should have thought you were almost out of climaxes."

"Oh, pish, pish, and tush, tush, Smith. I see that you are not only no pro at this business, you also don't know the depths to which it can be pushed in this legal system. I thought you were here at this morning's conference. I didn't notice that you weren't. So now I see why you're wasting my time with phone calls that could be going to important people. I'm not going to go over the briefing again. Just look at tomorrow's press. Goodbye."

Nobody answered the phone when I rang back. He was probably just sitting there glaring at it and letting it ring. Or he was phoning some judge to tell him what to decide on some case.

I was wrong on both counts. When the next morning came, it was very obvious that Madison was, indeed,

climaxing it. Banner headlines! The layouts made the paternity suit look like a notice for a church social. The story:

WHIZ KID SUED BY DESERTED WIFE!

ADULTERY ALLEGED!

SEIZURE OF WHIZ KID ASSETS ORDERED

Dingaling, Chase and Ambo this morning are filing suit against Whiz Kid Wister on behalf of Mrs. Toots Wister, nee Switch, alleging the grounds of adultery with Maizie Spread.

Under community property laws of Kansas and New York, Dingaling, Chase and Ambo are ordering all the Whiz Kid's assets frozen pending divorce settlement.

To a hushed assembly of all media, the tearful Mrs. Wister, in widow's weeds, sobbed out her pitiful tale. "He abandoned me," she said. "For a whole year I did not even know where he was. And now I find he was rolling in the hay with that Maizie Spread."

I was so delighted I cried out aloud and went prancing around the apartment. I was sure that this would do it.

I watched the viewers. Krak was still in her room.

Heller was walking disconsolately in Central Park. Neither one of them showed any signs of having read the story or seen the blasting coverage this was getting on radio and TV.

Afternoon came. And Madison had not waited for another day. He was striking hot iron with hot iron. The editions carried full photo stories of the background of the marriage.

The girl, Toots Switch, had been a conductor's niece. She was on a train with her uncle. The Whiz Kid and his outlaw gang had robbed the train. But in passing through the cars, looking for rich men to rob so he could give it to the poor Kansas farmers, the eye of the Whiz Kid had lighted on Toots Switch. No sooner seen than desired. Warned by the girl's uncle that he would be violating the Mann Act if he raped the poor girl while they were crossing a state line, the Whiz Kid had flourished his drawn Colt revolvers and demanded a clergyman be found. One was located in the bar and then and there, under the levelled rifles of the gang, the marriage had been performed. The sexy details of its consummation while passing over the Missouri border would be released on the morrow.

Indeed, it was a masterstroke.

But Madison had probably neglected one thing: the real Whiz Kid!

Still seeing no sign that either Krak or Heller-who had now gone to his office-were aware of this new development, I rang up Dingaling, Chase and Ambo.

"Have you served the real Wister?" I demanded.

It was Dingaling himself. He said, "Our process server got cold feet. The last time he served Wister he saw the fellow carried a gun and almost drew it. So we are

waiting to collect a backup team from Police Inspector 'Bulldog' Grafferty."

"Listen," I said, "I thought service could just be done by mail or something."

"There are many ways," said Dingaling. "The most common is to serve a member of the household. This is perfectly legal and sometimes the member of the household forgets to give the paper to the defendant and you win by default. But the place seems all locked up, the butler isn't opening the door, and so we were going to get Grafferty to help."

"You don't need Grafferty," I said. And I gave Dingaling some terse and precise directions.

Pinned to the viewers, I watched avidly.

About an hour later, there was a knock on the door of the Countess Krak's room.

She lifted her tearful face off the bedspread. She said, "Go away."

"It is I, ma'am," came the butler's voice. "There is a man at the door who says that he must see you personally."

"Tell him to go away," said the Countess Krak.

The butler's voice, "I told him that through the intercom, ma'am, but he claims that you will see him. He said his name was Hisst."

The Countess Krak sat up like she'd been shot.

"Lombar Hisst?" she said.

"I think that was what he said his name was," came the butler's voice. "Shall I let him in, ma'am?"

"Good Heavens," said the Countess Krak, and Lords know what must have been swirling through her head. Then she said faintly, as I knew she would, "You better let him in."

An interlude. Then an authoritative rap on the door. The Countess Krak opened it.

Standing there was the shabby man in the shabby coat with the shabby hat pulled over his eyes. He thrust a paper at the Countess Krak.

"You're not Hisst," she said.

"Madam, as a member of the household of Wister, I give you this. He has been served." He jammed the paper into her hands and fled.

Confused already by the false announcement, she opened the paper.

And there before her gaze was the Toots Wister nee Switch suit and all its gory details legally phrased.

She took a grip on the side of the door. The paper began to shake.

A wounded cry escaped her lips.

She read the paper again.

She had trouble walking back into her room.

She just stood there for a while, her head hanging down, a posture of betrayal and blighted hopes.

She let the paper fall to the floor.

She walked toward her bathroom and then stood there, propped against the door, a hand across her eyes.

Then she turned and stumbled to her telephone. She pushed the buttons. She got them wrong and pushed them again.

"President Mamie Boomp here," came the voice.

"Mamie," said the Countess brokenly, "he was already married."

"Oh, my God!" said Mamie. "Oh, you poor dear thing! Well, Jesus Christ, that's the way with sailors."

"Mamie, what can I do?"

"Do?" said Mamie. "Well, honey, you don't want to be messed up in that. They lie. You pack your bags,

honey, and you come down here where your friend Mamie can look after you. The place is knee-deep in millionaires. Arab princes, too. You just come down and cry on Mamie's shoulder and I'll get you through it some way."

"All right," wept the Countess Krak.

She hung up. A young woman in a maid's dress had entered the room. "Did you call, ma'am?"

Other staff were at the door.

"No," said the Countess. "Yes. Pack my clothes."

She stared a long time at the phone.

Oh, it was a mortal blow all right. I was beside myself with glee. I knew she was debating whether or not to call Heller at his office and tell him good-bye.

She must have decided against it. Listlessly, she pushed a button that opened up a phone number book. She pressed an automatic dialling letter.

"Bonbucks Teller Central Customer Purchasing," a voice said.

The Countess Krak dully gave the number of the Squeeza credit card. Then she said, "I have to go to Atlantic City."

"Quickly or in a leisurely fashion?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Will you be staying long? Is it a round trip?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Would you like to go by bus? By train? By limousine? By helicopter?"

In an introverted, weeping voice, she said, "If I only had my own ship I could go home."

"Well, madam, I've just checked your credit rating here and it's unlimited as always. I had a note here just this morning... Yes, here it is. The Morgan yacht has just come on the market. It is two hundred feet,

twin screw, fully found and ready to go to sea. She has roll and pitch stabilizers, five salons, two swimming pools and gold fittings in the owner's cabin. At Atlantic City she could lie in the Gardner's Basin Maritime Park quite close to the casinos or cruise about to other anchorages in the numerous bays. It would save you the fatigue of having to live in one of those casino hotels. The captain and crew were protesting being paid off. My clerk here on the other phone says the
Golden Sunset-
that's her name-could be standing by off the Hudson Harbor, 79th Street Boat Basin, in about an hour if that's suitable."

"It doesn't matter," said the Countess Krak.

"Well, very good, ma'am. I'll give the orders for the sale transfers and all that to be drawn up in our legal department and assign an adequate allowance from your credit card to care for her expenses and she will be standing by for you. It is a pleasure to be of service, ma'am. And I hope the nice sea voyage will relieve your tedium." He hung up.

I was on the verge of fainting. How much did a yacht cost? And hadn't I heard that Morgan had once said that if you had to wonder about how much the upkeep of such a vessel was, you didn't have any business owning one?

I was certain that I had just seen my half-million credit card guarantee, that had been held by Squeeza, go up in a puff of funnel smoke.

I was torn between the glee of seeing the Countess Krak crushed and the horror of knowing that Mudur Zen-gin was quite likely to do anything villainous he could think of now!

I watched the viewer but there was nothing much to see. The Countess Krak was just sitting there, staring at

the floor. Only in her peripheral vision could I detect her lady's maid packing up her clothes and the fatal legal paper lying, walked upon occasionally, in the center of the rug.

But fate was not through playing with me that day. Stamping on me would be a better term. Fate was getting ready, as the hours passed, to do a ghoulish dance step.

The Countess Krak's baggage had been shifted to the 79th Street Boat Basin by cabs. The white expensive length of the resplendent yacht was standing by in the river, and two flag-streaming speedboats were curving ashore from her, throwing fans of spray, ready to pick up the Countess, her baggage and her maid and carry them away.

It suddenly occurred to me that she could shortly be out of range of the activator-receiver. She would be on a yacht and might take it into her mind to go anywhere, and I had no way to keep tabs on her. Well, never mind. Maybe the yacht would blow up and sink. I had to look on the brighter side of things.

Just as the grizzled old captain in all his gold braid was gallantly assisting the listless Countess to step into the speedboat, I heard the front door of the apartment open.

I covered up the viewers. I did not go out.

A certain amount of fear had been with me since my return to the apartment. Miss Pinch and Candy were not talking to me but their whispers to each other, I was certain, boded no good.

And I was right.

Miss Pinch and Candy had not taken off their coats. They came in. Miss Pinch was taking off her gloves.

They both sat down.

"Listen, you," said Miss Pinch, severely, "we have to talk."

"What about?" I said in fright.

"The children when they are born," she said.

"No, wait," I said. "Rockecenter sends anyone who gets pregnant to his abortion clinic. There's no reason both of you can't go. You'll get fired if you don't."

"That's just it," said Miss Pinch. "Psychiatric Birth Control is for the (bleeps). So all they say of childbirth must be as well. We are determined to experience the joys of motherhood. There is only one way we can't be fired."

The hair began to rise on the back of my neck. It always did when she fixed her eyes on me like that.

"Candy and I are agreed," said Miss Pinch. "There is no other way."

"Than?" I pleaded, expecting the worst.

I got the worst.

"You have to marry us," said Miss Pinch.

When Miss Pinch brought me to by throwing a glass of water in my face, I sat there transfixed, eyes staring sightlessly.

I tried to speak. I tried to tell myself my name was not Heller. I tried to tell Miss Pinch that her name was not the Countess Krak.

Apparently, I wasn't making any sounds at all.

Candy said to Miss Pinch, "He seems to be stricken dumb, Pinchy. Let's have a bite of supper and let him recover a bit and then you can tell him the rest of it."

They went off.

I sat there.

After about half an hour, Miss Pinch came in. They had apparently finished supper but she still had a fork in her hand. She used it to prod me into the living room. Defensively, I sat down on the sofa. My legs wouldn't hold me up very long. I knew more was coming.

Candy said, "Let's put him in the mood." She went to the clamshell stereo and put a platter on the turntable. "I'm sure you remember this song," she said. "You played it the first time you raped us."

The song started up, very emotional crooning:

I found my voice. "Turn it off!" I begged. I felt I knew what this was, now. A sadistic and evil revenge for all the favors I had done for them.