“I see. You’ve taken an important step, Norvell. Naturally, I wish you the best of luck.”
“Thanks, Arnie,” Norvell said eagerly. “I don’t think it’ll be so bad. I—”
“Of course,” Arnie went on meditatively, “it does put me in kind of a spot.”
“You, Arnie?” Norvell cried, aghast.
DWORCAS shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose. It’s just that the fellows at the shop warned me that you were probably stringing me along about the tickets. I don’t know what I’ll tell them that won’t make you look pretty bad, Norvell.”
Norvell squeezed his eyes shut. Loyal Arnie! Concerned about his status in the eyes of the other engineers!
“Well, that’s the way the ball bounces, Norvell,” Arnie went on. “I can’t blame you for putting your own problems first.” He looked ostentatiously at his watch. “I’d better be getting back to the Hall. My brother has something he wants to consult with me about. He dropped a bill on the table and piloted Norvell to the door.
Under the dingy marquee, he patted Norvell’s shoulder. “Drop me a line once in a while, won’t you?” he urged. “I’m the world’s worst letter-writer, but I’ll always be glad to hear how you’re getting along.”
Norvell stopped. “Write you a letter, Arnie? I’ll be seeing you, won’t I?”
“Of course you will.” Dworcas frowned at the rain. He said patiently, “It’s just that you naturally won’t want to make that trip from Belly Rave too often. For that matter, I’ll be kind of tied up evenings myself until I get this thing for my brother over with . . . Look, Norvell, no sense standing here. Drop me a line when you get a chance. And the best of luck, fellow!”
Norvell nodded blankly and walked into the rain. With his credit card canceled and no cash-money in his pockets, it was a long, wet way home. After the second block, he thought of going back and borrowing cab fare from Arnie.
He decided not to.
He needed plenty of time to rehearse what he was going to say to Virginia.
FORTUNATELY, Virginia’s daughter was asleep. Norvell changed his sopping clothes without a word to his wife, came down, looked her in the eye and told her—directly and brutally.
Then he waited for the explosion. Virginia sat there, blankfaced, and ran her fingers caressingly over the soft arms of the chair. She rose and wandered to the wall patterner. Typical of her sloppy housework, the morning-cheer pattern was still on. With gentle fingers, she reset the wall to a glowing old rose and dimmed the lights to a romantic, intimate amber. She drifted to a wall and mirrorized it, looking long at herself.
Norvell looked, too. Under the flattering lights, her skin was gold-touched and flawless, the harsh scowl lines magicked away.
She sat on the warm, textured floor and began to sob.
Norvell found himself squatting awkwardly beside her. “Please, honey. Please don’t cry.”
She didn’t stop. But she didn’t push him away. He was cradling her uncomfortably in his arms, talking to her in a way he had never been able to before. Being without contract status would be hard, of course, but weren’t thousands of people standing it right now? Maybe things had been physically too easy for them, maybe it took pressure to weld two personalities together, maybe their marriage would turn into shared toil and shared happiness and . . .
Alexandra giggled from the head of the stairs.
Norvell sat straight up. The girl tittered, “Well, excuse me! I didn’t dream there was anything intimate going on.”
Virginia got quickly to her feet.
He swallowed and made the effort. “Sandy,” he said gently, using her almost-forgotten pet name, “please come down. I have something to tell you.”
Virginia stood tensely. Norvell knew she was trying and loved her for it.
THE girl came down the stairs, her much too sophisticated dressing gown fastened with a careless pin.
Norvell began firmly, “Sandy—”
Alexandra’s face was ancient and haughty. “Please,” she interrupted him. “You know how I feel about that humiliating nickname.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Of course you didn’t mean anything. You didn’t mean to wake me up with your drunken performance on the stairs, did you? You didn’t mean to keep Virginia and me in terror when you didn’t bother to let us know you’d be out late.” She shot a sly glance at her mother, fishing for approbation.
Virginia’s hands were clenched in a tight knot.
Norvell said hopelessly, “I only wanted to tell you something.”
“Nothing you can say now would help.”
“No?” Norvell yelled at her, restraint gone. “Well, listen anyway, damn it! We’re going to Belly Rave! All of us—tomorrow! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Virginia said at last, with a wiry edge to her voice, “You don’t have to shout at the poor child.”
That was the ball game. He knew perfectly well she had meant nothing of the kind, but his glands answered for him. “So I don’t have to shout at her—because she isn’t deaf like me, is that it? My loyal wife! My loving family!”
“I didn’t mean that!” Virginia cried.
“You never do!” Norvell bellowed over Alexandra’s shrill contribution.
Virginia screamed, “You know I didn’t mean it, but I wish I had! You call yourself a husband! You can’t even take care of a family!”
It went on and on almost until dawn.
VIII
CHARLES MUNDIN said, “Thanks for springing Bligh, Del.”
Dworcas answered affably, “Hell, any time. Besides, he’s a friend of Arnie’s. Now what’s on your mind?”
“G-M-L Homes. Del, I think you’ve put me onto something. If it works out—well, I won’t forget.”
“Sure, Charles. Look, it’s getting late and I’ve got a couple of things to do.”
“I’ll make it quick. This election, Del—let me out of it, will you? I mean I’ll take my licking at the polls and all that, but I want to get right on this G-M-L thing, not spend my time on a sound truck or waiting for a broadcast that never happens. Besides—honestly, Del, I can’t afford it. I’m busted.”
“What’s the matter, Charles? The going getting rough?” Mundin said stubbornly, “You don’t give a damn whether I run or not and you know it. I’ve got no hard feelings. Just let me off the hook.”
Dworcas made his decision. He grinned. “Why should I get in your way? Hop on this deal if it looks so good. I’m not saying it won’t leave me short-handed—I’ve even got Arnie helping out, though God knows he won’t be good for much. So you think this G-M-L deal is actually on the level?”
Charles opened his mouth to answer, but one of Dworcas’ handymen stuck his head in the door.
He whispered to Del.
Dworcas apologized, “Sorry, Charles, but Jimmy Baker is here. Excuse me a minute.”
It really wasn’t much more than a minute, even though, when Dworcas came back, he was walking slowly and he didn’t look at Mundin. “What was I asking? Oh, yeah—if you think the G-M-L deal is actually on the level.”
“Yes, I do. At any rate, I’m going to give it a whirl.”
“Wonder if you’re doing the right thing.”
Mundin was startled. “How do you mean?”
Dworcas shrugged. “It’s a pretty serious business, practicing a kind of law you aren’t trained for. It’s your affair, though. I just don’t want to see you getting into trouble.”
“Wait a minute! What’s this about? It was your idea, wasn’t it?”
Dworcas said coldly, “Worried, Mundin? Trying to hang it on me?” He picked up his phone in a gesture of dismissal. “Take off, will you? I’ve got work to do.”
IT bothered Mundin all the way home, and it bothered him the next morning when he woke up.
It bothered him even more at the County Courthouse. He walked in with a nod to the duty cop and the cop looked right through him. He said to the assistant clerk at the counter, �
�What do you say, Abe? How are the kids?” And the clerk mumbled something and closed his window with a bang.
By then, Mundin began to catch on. He got sore and he got determined. He waited in line at the next window and asked for the records he wanted. He sent back the wrong folder they gave him first. He pointed out that half the papers were missing from the right folder when he got it. He sat in the County Clerk’s waiting room for two hours, until the secretary wandered in and said, with aggrieved hostility, “Mr. Cochrane has gone to lunch. He won’t be back today.”
He wrote out a formal complaint on the sheet of paper she grudgingly gave him, alleging that he was being illegally and improperly hampered in his attempt to examine the corporate public-records files of G-M-L Homes, Inc., and he doggedly left it with her, knowing what would happen to the paper as soon as he got out of the door.
It fluttered into the wastebasket before he got out of the door and he turned angrily to object.
The duty cop was standing right beside him, looking eager.
Mundin went back to his office to think things over.
Fourteen billion dollars . . .
BUT how the devil did they know so fast? Not from Dworcas, Mundin told himself. He could swear that Del hadn’t known the heat was on until Jimmy Baker had called him out of the room. And Dworcas had sent Mundin there in the first place. Because—Mundin flushed angrily at the thought, almost certain that it was right—because Dworcas was pretty sure that a two-bit ambulance chaser like himself wouldn’t do them any good? Then what had changed his mind?
Mundin kicked the Sleepless Secretary and went on pacing. In bell-like tones, the Secretary told him that Mrs. Mundin would remit the full balance due by Friday.
He sat down at the desk. All right, so the going was going to be tough. That figured. What else could you expect? And the harder G-M-L Homes made it, the more scared they were—didn’t that figure, too? And the more scared they were, the more chance that this whole impossible thing was on the level, that Charles Mundin, Ll.B., stood on the threshold of corporate law.
He took out a piece of paper and began to figure. They could make it rough, but they couldn’t stop him. He could get court orders to see the records. That was the obvious starting place, if only to make sure for himself that the Lavins were on the level. As long as Norma Lavin was willing to call him her attorney-in-fact, they couldn’t keep him out.
There would be a slowdown in court, naturally, but it couldn’t take more than a couple of days. Meanwhile, he could get started on some of the other angles. Don’s conditioning—there might be a criminal charge in that somewhere, if he could manage to get names, dates and places.
He reached for his model-forms book and began drafting a power of attorney for Norma Lavin to sign. She’d sign it, of course—she was an independent and difficult person, but she didn’t have much choice. Besides, he thought absently, a lot of that hardness was undoubtedly protective armor. In circumstances like hers, what could you expect?
The phone rang. He cut out the Sleepless Secretary hastily and picked up the receiver. “Mundin,” he said.
The voice was ancient and utterly lost. “This is Harry Ryan,” it quavered. “Better come out here, Mundin. I think they’ve snatched Norma!”
Continued Next Month
Gladiator-At-Law
Part 2 of a 3-Part Serial
At last, Mundin had a legal case . . . two crackpots who wanted to grab off the biggest corporation on Earth! And he had to revise the old adage to: “If you can't join ’em, lick ’em!”
SYNOPSIS
G-M-L Homes, as the result of a great architectural advance, has become the biggest and most powerful corporation in all history. Its bubble houses, rather than being on the open market, go with contract status for those with jobs.
Belly Rave or its local equivalent—and every city has one—is where those without contract status live, if existence in the wretched squalor of those brawling thieves’ dens can be called living. Neglected slums that once were suburban developments (“Picture Window, Expansion Attic for your Growing Family”), Belly Rave, the future corruption of Belle Reve Estates, and its like are the neglected results of G-M-L’s breakthrough in architecture.
Charles Mundin, a priminal lawyer, starving because he was not fortunate enough to be born into one of the corporate-law dynasties, has had only one case, that of:
Norvell Bligh, whose specialty is dreaming up bloody events for Field Days, the future equivalent of Roman circuses, and who wants to adopt his wife’s daughter Alexandra, born in Belly Rave of a previous marriage. Bligh, however, has been doublecrossed into loss of contract status and his bubble house, and has been moved into Belly Rave by a police convoy. Meanwhile, Mundin finds himself the recipient of a doubtful political favor, the case of:
Norma and Don Lavin, offspring of the Lavin who invented the bubble house and whose initial is the L of G-M-L Homes. Through legal trickery after their father’s death, Norma and Don’s 25 per cent share of all G-M-L stock has been tied up . . . and Don, the victim of severe conditioning that has left him vacant-eyed, is unable to remember where the stocks are or even to discuss the matter. He and his sister Norma live in Belly Rave with:
Ryan, an old-time corporation lawyer, whose addiction to drugs has ruined his career, but who can still act as attorney of record while Mundin does the legwork and carries out Ryan’s strategy. Mundin realizes that Ryan’s strategy is clever—for G-M-L Homes, obviously worried by it, have had Norma Lavin abducted. With her gone and her brother a psychological blank—except when G-M-L is mentioned—the case looks as hopeless as Mundin’s future and as dangerous as living in Belly Rave, where, he suspects, he may wind up before long as a permanent resident!
IX
NORVELL was lying on a cake of ice. He kept trying to explain to someone enormous that he was sorry for everything, that he’d be a good and dutiful son or husband or friend or whatever he was supposed to be, if only the someone would leave him alone.
But that enormous someone, who couldn’t have been Norvell’s father, because Norvell didn’t even remember his father, only put his hand before his mouth and tittered and looked down from a long flight of stairs, and then, when Norvell was least expecting it, reached out and swatted him across the ear and sent him skidding across the enormous cake of ice into the tittering face of Alexandra and the jagged, giant teeth of Virginia—Norvell woke up.
He was very cold, very stiff. He looked dazedly around him. The living room. But—
Yes, it was the living room. With the wall pattern off and no light except a sickly dawn from outside. All the walls were on full transparent and he was lying on the floor. The bed he had dialed out to sleep in had folded into the basic cube, dumping him on the floor. And the floor was cold.
No heat—no power—the house was cold.
He got up, wincing, and sidled hopelessly to the window control. It didn’t respond. The windows remained full transparent.
HE knew what had happened and swore between clenched teeth. The skunks! Turning off the place without a word of warning, at daybreak, without even giving him a chance to . . .
Wearily, he began picking up his clothes from the floor where a rack had dumped them when it had folded back. Through the indecently transparent windows, he saw the other bubble houses, all respectably opaqued, with only their nightlights and entry lights.
By the time he was dressed, he began to hear a clamor upstairs. His wife and daughter charged down in negligees, commanding him to do something about it.
“Get dressed,” he said and pointedly disconnected his hearing aid.
He rambled about the house while they did so. Absently, he tried to make coffee and gave up with a half-laugh when the water would not flow. The closets, drawers and dressers had rejected all their contents, upstairs and down. Pushers had calmly shoved them out and the doors had closed and locked—to him, forever. He contemplated the disordered piles of clothes and kitchenware and began to pack a tra
veling case.
Two bored policemen wandered in; the door, of course, was no longer on lock. He plugged in his hearing aid, taking plenty of time about it.
“Well?” he asked.
They told him he had plenty of time—they weren’t in any hurry. “Take an hour if you need it, bub.” They’d tote him and his family and their stuff out to Belly Rave, help him pick out a good place.
The moving had a golden moment. One of the cops helpfully picked up a suitcase. Alexandra told him to remove his filthy hands from—
The cop clouted her and explained they didn’t take none of that off Belly Rave brats.
The police car handed Norvell a jolt.
It was armored.
“You—you get a lot of trouble in Belly Rave?” he guessed.
The friendlier of the cops said, “Only once in a while. They haven’t jumped a squad car in six months, not with anything but pistols, anyway. You’ll be okay.”
They pulled away from Monmouth G-M-L Unit W-97-AR. There was no sentiment to the parting. Norvell was sunk in worry, Alexandra was incandescent but still. And Virginia had not said two words to anyone that morning.
THE car paused at the broad beltway circling the bubble-city, its motor idling, its driver impatiently talking into his radio. Finally, two more police cars rolled up and the three of them, in convoy, left the city roads for the cracked asphalt that led to Belly Rave. Once the road they traveled had been a six-lane superhighway, carrying a hundred thousand commuters’ cars, morning and night. Now it wound through a scraggly jungle and the toll booths at the interchanges had crumbled into rock piles and rust.
They bumped along for a couple of miles, then turned off into a side road that was even worse.
Collected Short Fiction Page 216
