“Listen, Mundin,” Nelson urged. “Get him to tell you about old Crowther.”
“Damn it!” raged Hubble. “If you vultures will step aside . . .” Mundin said, “I’ll lay it on the line, gentlemen. Miss Lavin and I have to stop in the waiting room to pick up an—uh—a young lady. In five minutes, we will be at the front entrance. We’ll go along with all three of you or with any two of you. You fight it out among yourselves.”
He swept Norma out to the visitors room. Lana was perched on the receptionist’s desk, looking hostile—but not as hostile as the receptionist. Mundin asked her, “What happened to Bligh?”
“Outside,” Lana replied. “He said he’d already had a belly-full of Field Days, whatever he meant by that. This your girl?”
“Yes,” said Mundin. “This is my girl.”
The three of them collared Norvie Bligh, sitting in the Sun outside, and started toward the ranks of parked cars and halftracks. They were met by an amicable committee of three.
“All settled, Mundin,” Hubble said happily. “Coett and Nelson are coming with us.”
“Good. Where do we talk?” Hubble said joyously, “Oh, my place. You’ll like it—simple, quiet, but comfortable.”
They made quite a procession—two cars and a halftrack. They didn’t stop for anything, neither the Itty-Bitty checkpoint nor the customs shed. In well under five minutes, they were on the open road for Hubble’s place.
XIV
LANA was tugging at Mundin’s shoulder. “I want to go home,” she told him.
Mundin said peevishly, “Sure, sure.” Norma, exhausted, had fallen asleep on his arm and its circulation had been stopped for the past ten miles. The girl was a solid weight—but, he was thinking, a curiously pleasant one.
“I mean now,” Lana insisted. “I got a duty to the Wabbits.”
“I’d kind of like to go, too,” Norvie Bligh chimed in. “If you won’t be needing me, I mean.”
Mundin eased Norma’s head off his arm. She stirred, mumbled, “Arglebargle damn men think they’re . . .” and was asleep again.
Mundin flexed his arm, considering. Lana and Bligh had fulfilled their bargains. There wasn’t likely to be much need for bodyguards for the next little while—and not too much that Lana, for instance, could do, cut off from her gangs.
He said, “All right. I’ll have the driver let you off at Old Yonkers and you can get a bus or something.”
At Old Yonkers, their car stopped at an Inter-City depot. The car behind skidded to a stop beside them. Hubble, Nelson and Coett—none of whom had trusted any of the others alone with Mundin and Norma for the ride—peered out anxiously.
“Anything wrong?” Hubble yelled from a window.
Mundin shook his head and let Lana and Norvie out.
Twenty minutes later, the motor caravan reached Hubble’s house.
Quiet and comfortable it was—simple it was not. It was a Charles Addams monster in a fabulous private park in Westchester. They rolled up its driveway and parked next to what appeared to be a 1928 Rolls-Royce limousine.
Bliss Hubble was already at the door of the car, holding it open for them. “My wife,” he explained, indicating the limousine. “She makes a fetish of period decoration. Today, I see, it’s Hoover—all last week, it was neo-Roman. Can’t say I care for it, but one has one’s obligations.”
“And one has one’s wife,” said Norma Lavin, who appeared to be back to normal acid self.
“Oh, it’s quite nice,” Mundin said diplomatically. “So stately.”
MRS. Hubble greeted them with an unbelieving look. She turned to her husband with an explain-this-if-you-can air. Being a thin brunette with cheekbones, she did it very well.
Hubble said hastily, “My dear, may I present Miss Lavin . . .”
“Just ‘Lavin,’ please,” Norma said coldly.
“Yes, of course. Lavin, and Mr. Mundin. You know Harry and George. Mr. Mundin has been good enough to compliment the way you’ve fixed up the house, dear.”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Hubble, ice forming on her gaze. “Thank Mr. Mundin and explain to him that his taste matches that of the housekeeper. Suggest to Mr. Mundin that he might consider employing the housekeeper, who has been out of a job since I woke up this morning and found she had set the house for this unsightly, trashy piece of construction. Inform Mr. Mundin that when the housekeeper left—rapidly, I might say—she took off with all of the key settings, and I have been condemned to roam through these revolting rooms until my husband chose to come home with his keys so that I might change them to something resembling a human habitation.”
Hubble stiffened, thrust a hand in a pocket, brought out a set of keys. His wife took them from him, turned and swept off through the vast, gaudy rooms.
“Sensitive,” Hubble muttered to his guests.
Coett said eagerly, “We got a couple of things straight on the way over, Mundin. Now. . .”
“Harry, I insist!” Hubble said severely. “I’m the host. Let’s not rush things until we’ve had dinner.
He led the way through a majestic corridor, keeping carefully to the middle.
He said sharply, “Watch it! Stand back!”
The others, obeying his gesture, stood clear of the walls, which were in curious, shimmering motion.
“My wife,” Hubble explained with a glassy smile. “You’d think a regular bubble-house wall would be enough. No, nothing will do but full three-D illusion throughout. The expense! The stumbling home in the dark! The waking up in the middle of the night because the four-poster is changing into a Hollywood bed! She’s a light sleeper, you see . . .”
The walls had firmed up now. The old furniture was fully retracted and gone, new pieces had formed to replace them. Mrs. Hubble’s present preference appeared to be Early Wardroom—a satisfactory enough style for the flying bridge of a heavy cruiser, but not really Mundin’s idea of how to decorate a home. He pointedly did not comment on the steel-gray walls.
The dinner seemed like a very good notion to Mundin. The tadjin ahmar he had eaten at Hussein’s seemed a very long way in the past.
XV
A SHAMBLING butler, wearing sharp dress blues, served them. His presence seemed to make Hubble jumpy. The table talk was not sparkling.
“Am I to understand,” Hubble probed gently, “that Miss Lavin—that Lavin, I mean to say—was actually abducted by Mr. Arnold?”
“Doubt it very much,” said Norma, chewing. “He probably just looked unhappy and said, ‘Dear me, I wish something could be done about that outstanding stock.’ Some foot-kisser standing by set the wheels in motion. Arnold’s hands would be clean. Not his fault if people insist on exceeding their authority.”
She took another forkful of wild rice. “They had me for about a week. God almighty, what confusion! I could go and I couldn’t go. I was free to leave any time I cared to, but temporarily they thought it would be better if they kept the door locked. Sign your residuary legatee’s share of the stock to us and we’ll pay you a cool million. But we don’t want the stock, of course. It has only a certain small nuisance value. Now, lady, are you going to be reasonable or do we have to get tough? My dear girl, we wouldn’t dream of harming you!”
She scowled. “Arnold came to see me once. He kept pretending
I was trying to sell to him. I don’t know, maybe that’s what somebody told him. All I know is, I feel as if somebody hit me over the head with a lighthouse.” The shambling butler asked, “Are you at home to Mr. Arnold, sir?”
Hubble said delightedly, “No! You hear that, Coett?”
Nelson cut in, “Hold it a minute, Bliss. Are you sure you’re doing the right thing? Maybe if we all get together, we could—” he looked quickly at Mundin—“that is, perhaps all of us could freeze out the Toledo bunch.” Coett said, “Tell him to go to hell. Tell the butler to tell him, so we can hear you do it. First we settle things among ourselves—then we figure who else we have to cut in. My guess is nobody.”
“Tel
l him,” Hubble said gleefully to the butler. As the man shambled off, he turned to Nelson. “Harry’s right, George. Figure it out. You’ve got eleven per cent under your thumb, counting the voting trust. I’ve got five and a half, solid. Harry has three of his own and he influences—how many, Harry?”
“Nine,” Coett said shortly. “Heavy influence.”
“You see? That’s plenty, with these people’s twenty-five per cent.”
Mundin kicked Norma’s foot under the table, just as she was opening her mouth to ask how they had located the stock. He said rapidly, “Don’t you think we should save this until dinner’s over?”
Hubble cast an eye around the table. “Why, dinner’s over now,” he said mildly. “Let’s have our coffee in the library—it’ll be a little more comfortable.”
HUBBLE stopped at the entrance to the library and did something with a switchbox before permitting the others to enter.
“Have my own controls here,” he said proudly. “Wife has most of the house—hah-hah—she can’t begrudge me one little den of my own. Let’s see if we can’t get something more cheerful.”
The “library”—there was nothing resembling a book or microfilm in sight—shimmered and flowed, and turned into something that looked like a restoration of a 19th Century London gentlemen’s club.
Mundin tested one of the wing-back chairs and found it good. Norma was still looking at him suspiciously—but she was silent.
He said cheerily, “Now, gentlemen, to work.”
“Right,” said Harry Coett. “Before we get too deep, I want to know how we stand on one thing. I’m sure it’s just one of those crazy things that get started, but I heard somebody say something at the meeting. They said you were from Green, Charlesworth. Just for the record, are you?”
Green, Charlesworth. Ryan had mentioned them, Mundin recalled. They seemed to be something to worry about. Mundin said definitely, “We are not from Green, Charlesworth. Miss Lavin and her brother are the direct heirs of one of the founders of G-M-L. I—uh—happen to have a small amount of stock myself, as well as being their attorney.”
Coett nodded briskly. “Okay. Then it’s a plain and simple raid and we’ve got the strength to do it. I take it we are all agreed, then, that the first step is to throw the corporation into bankruptcy?”
Mundin gaped. “What?”
“Thought you were no expert,” Coett said amiably. “What did you expect, Mundin?”
“Why,” Mundin floundered, “there’s your stock and our stock and—well, majority rules, doesn’t it?”
He stopped. They all were enjoying a polite laugh. Coett said, “Do you seriously think we could vote our stock outright under the existing rules?”
“I don’t know,” Mundin said honestly.
“You can’t. The proxies won’t stand for it. A raid, yes, but handled right.”
Norma Lavin commented, “I suppose he’s right, Mundin. They’ve stopped us so far, one way and another. The only real change is that now these three ghouls know we’re alive and think they can easily take us to the cleaners.”
“Please!” protested Hubble and Nelson.
Coett, grinning, assured her, “You are absolutely correct. For the first time, I begin to doubt that we can do it.”
Mundin interrupted, “Why bankruptcy?”
They stared at him. Finally, Hubble asked, “How would you do it, Mr. Mundin?”
MUNDIN said, “Well, I’m no corporation lawyer, gentlemen—I leave that aspect of it to my colleague, Mr. Ryan, who is a member of the Big Bar. But it seems to me that our first step is, obviously, to form a stockholders’ committee and request an accounting from the present board. We can back it up, if you think it necessary, with a notification to the S.E.C. I know that Arnold’s group will stall and attempt to compromise, probably offer us some kind of board representation, something far less than our holdings entitle us to. But that’s simple enough to handle. We simply protest and file suit in—”
“Risky,” Nelson objected. Coett said, “That won’t get us to first base. I remember when the Memphis crowd tried—”
“The who?” Mundin interrupted.
“Arnold’s group. They took G-M-L away from the Toledo bunch eighteen years ago through due process, the way you’re talking about. But it took six years to do it—and if the Toledo bunch hadn’t been caught short in Rails, Memphis never would have made it. And Toledo is still strong—you saw how Arnold had to put Wilcox on the board to please them.”
Mundin said desperately, “Can’t we at least try?”
“Waste of time! We have before us an immense mass of capital. It has inertia, Mundin—inertia. You can’t move it with a feather—you need dynamite. It’s going to take time and brains to budge it. I’ll tell you how.” And he did. Mundin listened in growing bewilderment and something that came close to horror. Bankruptcy! How did you put a corporation worth fourteen billion dollars, eminently solvent, unbelievably prosperous, into bankruptcy?
He didn’t like the answers when he heard them. But, he told himself, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few golden eggs.
Coett, enjoying himself, was planning in broad, bright strokes. “Bliss, you get your chaps on the petition for composition and arrangement. We’ll spring that one ourselves, before they think of it, and we’ll want it ready. Then . . .”
Mundin, grimly taking notes, stuck through it to the end. But he wasn’t enjoying the practice of corporate law nearly as much as he had always thought he would. He wished urgently for the presence of old Ryan. And a nice full box of opium pills.
XVI
IT was nearly midnight. Mundin had never felt so drained in his life. Even Norma Lavin slumped in her chair. Coett, Hubble and Nelson were brighteyed and eager, skilled technicians doing the work they best knew how to do.
But the work was done. Mundin, yawning, dragged himself to his feet. He said tiredly, “So the first thing for me to do is set up offices, eh?”
Harry Coett sighed. “Not quite the first thing, Mundin.”
“What then?”
“Call it a matter of personal satisfaction. We’ve all heard rumors about young Lavin. I don’t say they’re true. I don’t know if they are or not. But if they’re true, we don’t get off the ground.” Mundin blazed, “See here, Coett—”
“Hold on. We’ve all had a look at that paper of yours. It’s a power of attorney, all right, and I’ve no doubt that it’s valid. But it isn’t a proxy, Mundin. It doesn’t mention G-M-L stock in it anywhere, except in the affidavit at the end—and Don Lavin didn’t sign that himself.”
“What do you want?”
Coett said, “Let me tell a fantastic story. Mind you, I don’t say it’s true. But it’s interesting. There are two young people, a brother and sister, for instance. One of them has some stock, but can’t use it. The other is—temporarily out of circulation. Let’s suppose that a smart young lawyer gets hold of them. First thing he does, he walks in on a meeting and lets it be known that the stock exists. With that as a wedge, he pries the girl loose from wherever she is.
“With the girl, he sucks in three good, dumb Joes—like Hubble, Nelson and me, for instance. With the dumb Joes in the palm of his hand, he squeezes recognition of the stock out of, for instance, Arnold. That’s pretty good work—he has the girl and he has the stock. The question is, what do the dumb Joes have then?”
God! thought Mundin. And I never believed in mind-reading! He said, “Am I supposed to take this fantasy seriously?”
“Of course not. Just for the sake of the record, before we get too far involved in any of this, let’s see the stock. Will tomorrow morning be time enough?”
“Tomorrow morning will be fine,” Mundin said hollowly. “Come, Norma.”
Hubble’s chauffeur—now driving what appeared to be an admiral’s staff car—convoyed them home. The house, from outside, had become a gray stone and ivy barracks. Mundin watched it dwindle behind them.
Since he was pretty sure th
e chauffeur was under orders to hear anything they said, they didn’t talk.
So it wasn’t until they were back in Belly Rave that Norma asked bitterly. “Well, Mundin?
Is tomorrow morning time enough to locate the stock?”
(CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH)
Gladiator-At-Law
CONCLUSION OF A 3-PART SERIAL
Swiftly now, the authors of Gravy Planet draw together this story's plot threads—into a sizzling fuse for a time bomb!
SYNOPSIS
G-M-L Homes, manufacturers of bubble houses, the greatest advance in the entire history of architecture, have become the biggest and most powerful corporation in the history of commerce. 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. 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 result of G-M-L’s breakthrough in architecture.
Charles Mundin, a criminal 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 is being nagged by his wife to adopt her 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:
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