Gladiator-At-Law

by Frederik Pohl

  It is a matter of recorded fact that, in the middle of the

  twentieth century, the only ferries in New York Harbor which could afford to install the expensive blessings of science belonged to a line in bankruptcy. Let us rewrite the dictionary:

  bank’-rupt-cy (n) the state of having affairs managed by disinterested parties, not owners; therefore, the natural and preferred state of Big Business.

  Mundin said stubbornly:

  “All right, all right, all right! You don’t have to go through it again, Ryan. Finance is Coett’s business, not mine; and corporate law is your business, not mine; and if you all say that G.M.L. has to go into bankruptcy I’m not going to stand in your way. But I don’t like their methods.”

  Ryan shifted achingly on the lumpy couch. Mundin was getting worried about him; his skin was pale yellow, his eyes black circles. Obviously the old fool had given up food almost entirely for the past weeks. But he could still make sense when he talked. He said, “If you go to a doctor to save your life, do you complain about the taste of the medicine?”

  Mundin didn’t answer. He shook his head worriedly and paced the room.

  Norma came back from putting Don Lavin to bed. She sat down wearily and poured herself a drink. “Mud,” she growled. She made a face as she swallowed it. “I’ve poured better liquor off laboratory specimens. Mundin, what about the stock?”

  Mundin said: “Lavin—Norma—if you ask me that one more time, I swear I pick up and walk out of here. I don’t know what about the stock. Maybe we can’t deliver it. If we can’t, we can’t; I’ve had a rough day and I’m just not up to any more miracles right now. Maybe we can talk Coett and the others out of it tomorrow morning.”

  “Maybe not,” said Norma; but she looked at Mundin’s rebellious expression and that was all she said.

  It was after midnight; but Ryan needed to hear everything tha* had happened, and they all needed to plan for the next day. Mundin gave the old man a blow-by-blow account of the stockholders’ meeting and the later discussion at Hubble’s house; the three of them picked apart every word and hint of the whole exhausting day, checking and rechecking their progress.

  Norvell Bligh joined them at about one. Mundin let him in, astonished to see the little man there.

  “Just wanted to know if you need us any more tonight,” Norvell said. His voice was eager; he was enjoying this, Mundin thought, with a f aint prick of irritation—not realizing what a job, any kind of job for whatever sort of pay, meant to a Belly Raver.

  “Who’s ‘us,’ Bligh?” Norma Lavin demanded.

  “Me and the Wabbits,” he grinned. “Lana stopped me on the way in. She said to tell you the Gee-Gees had a patrol near here about ten o’clock, but the Wabbits took care of them; didn’t know if they were trying to knock off your brother or not.”

  Ryan’s sallow face was abruptly pale; but he didn’t speak. Norma said suspiciously, “I didn’t see any Wabbits when we came in.”

  Bligh looked at her. “You wouldn’t,” he said.

  Mundin said dubiously, “I guess you might as well go home, Bligh. There’s nothing more you can do for us tonight.

  “Meaning I should mind my business?” Bligh inquired. “Okay. If you need anything, all you gotta do is ask, that’s all.” He grinned amiably and headed toward the door.

  Surprisingly, Harry Ryan stopped him. “Wait a minute, Bligh. Mundin—Norma—will you come here a moment?”

  Mundin and the girl, in response to his gestures, leaned close to him. He said in an undertone, “What about seeing if he can get some, well, medical attention for Don?”

  Mundin said sharply, “Ryan, you told me we couldn’t do that! G.M.L. won’t let us, remember? Unauthorized use of conditioning techniques; fourteen billion dollars; if we break the law, G.M.L. will——”

  “Shut up, Mundin,” said Norma. “Ryan’s right. The situation has changed now. We’ve got backing from Coett, Hubble, and Nelson.”

  They battled in whispers for minutes while Bligh leaned cheerfully against the doorframe, out of earshot, watching them. It was Mundin, flushed and angry, against the other two; Mundin who objected and refused and shook his head. He said tightly, “If we did try to get Don deconditioned, this isn’t the way to do it. If we’re going to break the law, let’s at least do it privately, not by taking every derelict in Belly

  Rave into our confidence. I’ve said it before, Ryan, / don’t like dirty methods. Surely we can get Don fixed up legally some way or other—we’ve got some strength now, we’ll try for a court order, or at least an inquiry, and——”

  “And we’ll have the stock by tomorrow morning,” Ryan finished. “Good work, Counselor. Go ahead and do it.”

  Mundin said furiously, “How do you know Bligh can help us? Suppose we ask him and draw a blank? Then we’ve advertised our troubles, and we’re no farther ahead than before.”

  From the doorway Norvell Bligh called, “Let me try, Mr. Mundin; that’s all I ask.”

  Mundin glared at him incredulously. Bligh said apologetically, “Lip-reading, Mr. Mundin, remember? I haven’t been deaf for thirty years without learning a little bit. Anyway, Lana can find you a doctor, I’m sure of it. All you have to do is ask her.”

  Mundin slumped into a chair and groaned. “That’s the end,” he said bitterly. “One accomplice after another; one more loose mouth.”

  Norvell looked alarmed. “I wouldn’t say anything against Lana, Mr. Mundin.”

  “Who’s saying anything against her? But she’s only a thirteen-year-old kid. She’s bound to talk. I won’t deny that she was pretty helpful in locating Miss Lavin, but that doesn’t mean she’s a superwoman. No, I absolutely decline to have anything to do with letting her know that we’re even thinking of going to an illegal doctor.” He stopped short; Bligh had made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a choked-off laugh. “What’s the matter now?” he demanded.

  Noryie Bligh controlled himself. “Well, nothing, Mr. Mundin,” he apologized. “It’s just that you—uh—kind of underrate Lana.”

  “She’s only thirteen, Bligh!”

  “Oh, sure.” He coughed diffidently. In an ordinary conversational tone he said, “Lana, come on in.”

  The trapdoor at the head of the stairs creaked and opened; Lana, with an eight-year-old in attendance, came placidly down. Bligh explained, “You see, Mr. Mundin, the Wabbits are pretty thorough. What about it, Lana—can you find a doctor to fix the kid up?”

  It took a little time—while the eight-year-old aide-de-camp

  ran courier duty to Crib Row. “It’s a bag named Two-Ton Tessie,” Lana explained while he was gone. “She had a special gentleman friend, a doctor. And when she got picked up and conditioned he couldn’t get along with any of the other girls. So——”

  So the doctor found another doctor, a diagnostician; and the diagnostician, as a professional courtesy, found a surgeon… .

  It took a long phone call to Coett, and quite a lot of Coett’s money.

  Mundin made a disgusted noise in his throat. But they had a lead.

  Don Lavin had himself a brain tumor—just’as, once upon a time, a young lady who had made a mistake could have it rectified by means of an expensive attack of appendicitis— and there would be even a skin-deep MacBurney’s incision to prove it … which would bewilder, in the case of real appendicitis attack, a subsequent surgeon.

  The highly reputable diagnostician whose name had been given them described Don’s “tumor” as a spongioblastoma, the commonest and most malignant of the intracranial gliomas. He recommended immediate surgery … and then bought himself a new Cadillac copter with power doors, windows, ramp, and steering.

  The surgeon was even more reputable—and expensive. He extirpated the spongioblastoma in his own private hospital— or at least the hospital Tissue Committee examined what he said he had removed from Don Lavin’s skull, and this indisputably was spongioblastoma multiforma, consisting of round, elongated, and piriform cells, characteristically recalling the varie
d cytological picture in osteogenic sarcoma of bone. The surgeon then built a new wing on his hospital… .

  But that’s getting a litle ahead. …

  Chronically suspicious, Norma scowled down at her brother, mumbling under the last of the anesthesia. She said to Mundin, “He could have left Don an idiot. What better way to cover his tracks?”

  Mundin sighed. They had watched the surgery: The lights, the sterilizer, the hole saw. The wisp of scorched smell from the bone; the nerve-wrenching moment when the disk of skull

  lifted out. Insertion of anode and cathode needles, minute electroshocks that smashed this pattern, blurred that memory, shattered this reflex into jangling neuronic rubble. The three days and their fifty hours of endless tests and questions, the strobe flickers in Don’s eyes, the miles of EEG tape, the mapping of Don’s brain and its workings.

  Norvell Bligh, handy little man, looked in. “Doctor’s coming,” he said. And, faithful little man, resumed his post outside the door.

  Dr. Niessen, F.A.C.S., asked them, “Anything yet?” ‘

  On cue, Don chose that moment to open his eyes and smile at Norma. “Hello, sis. It feels better now.”

  Norma burst into tears and Dr. Niessen looked mightily relieved. “Check the block?” the doctor suggested to Mundin; but Don broke in:

  “The stock, you mean? That’s all right. Safe deposit box 27,993 Coshocton First National. No key. Identification is a picture of me, my fingerprints. And a code phrase: ‘Gray, my friend, is all theory and green life’s golden tree.’ Goethe,” he went on chattily. ‘Top used to say that one a lot after they put the boots to him. It cheered him up a little.”

  Dr. Niessen nodded and looked at the others. Norma choked, “Have you got it all back, Don? All?”

  Her brother winced. “Oy, have I! Fifty hours they worked on me. That part I don’t want to remember.”

  The doctor muttered, “Barbarous. We’re all lawbreakers here, but I’m glad you came to me. Mr. Kozloft——” That was Don. “Mr. Korioff, are you able to verify my conjecture that flicker-feedback was the principal means employed?”

  “Yep, I guess so. If flicker-feedback is them shining a light in your eyes and you go into convulsions. And there were those guys in the bottles.”

  “Bottles?” the doctor demanded sharply.

  “Yeah. Bottles. Or did I dream that one?”

  The doctor looked professionally concerned. “If it happened,” he said gravely, “you should remember. Perhaps a further series——”

  “The hell with that!” yelled Don Lavin, and it took three of them to push him down on the bed again.

  “Stow it, Don,” Norma ordered. “Doctor, what do you think?”

  Dr. Niessen shrugged. “You tell me that the main block is gone. Are there any others? I don’t know. Fifty hours is a lot of time, and I haven’t got their working charts, I can’t see what they planted down deep.”

  “That’s not very satisfactory, Doctor,” Norma said.

  “Shall I put him through a new series of tests?” They subdued Don again, and the doctor went on, unruffled, “I thought not. If there’s any trouble, bring him back; that’s all I can say.”

  Norma snapped, “And you’ll put up another wing, I suppose.”

  The doctor looked at her gravely. “I might,” he said. “I don’t suppose I mentioned to you that the whig I contemplate building with your kind donation is a free ward.”

  She had nothing to say.

  “Very well. Mr. Kozloff, I think you’ve recovered from your—ah—tumor. One of the staff physicians will check you for traveling. Come back if there’s anything new; in these spongioblastomas there is always a possibility that some malignant tissue was overlooked. And if you can possibly arrange it, Mr. Kozloff, don’t bring your sister.”

  Bligh closed the door for him. Don looked fondly at Norma. “You and your big mouth haven’t changed, have they?”

  Mundin went into the corridor for a smoke and refuge from the touching scene of reconciliation which followed. But he could hear it even out there. …

  The manager of Brinks-Fargo looked skeptical. “Naturally we’re for hire,” he said. “Now, have I got this straight? Armored copter to Coshocton First National, guarded pickup of securities from there and immediate hop to Monmouth, you four riding all the way, right?”

  “Right,” said Mundin.

  “Twelve thousand five hundred dollars,” the manager said after some scribbling. “Our biggest and best, with six guards.”

  It was paid.

  Hie pickup went off smooth as silk. A conditioned clerk handed over the little box in which were certificates of Don Lavin’s fantastic claim to twenty-five per cent of G.M.L., and Mundin examined them wonderingly as the armored whirly-bird bumped off the streets of Coshocton. Three and one-half billion dollars at par, he kept saying to himself. They didn’t talk much, all the way back to Monmouth,

  Hubble demanded: “Did it work, Don?”

  Coett said, “If that sawbones didn’t deliver after the way we strung along——”

  Nelson said, “How much did it cost?”

  “I’m all right, thanks,” said Don Lavin politely.

  “And,” Mundin added casually, “we came back by way of Coshocton. No need to horse around with duplicate certificates, gentlemen.”

  They examined the originals with awe, gloating. “We’re in,” Coett exulted. “As of the next stockholders’ meeting. Three months—plenty of time to shake up the firm and pick up what we need for a majority. My God, a majority! The hell with the proxies and the voting trusts!”

  There was a long hassle about pooled stock and irrevocable joint agreements; and suddenly Mundin, looking at the three titans of finance, saw predacious jungle animals. He bunked, and the illusion was gone; but he couldn’t help thinking of G.M.L., rapacious as it was, as some huge and helpless vegetarian beast, harried by sharp-toothed little carnivores. Even Norma felt something; because she burst out:

  “Daddy never meant——” She choked herself off, and looked wildly at the conspirators for a moment. Then she said wearily, “Ah, the hell with it. Excuse me. I don’t vote, anyhow.” And she was gone out of the room.

  “Now,” said Coett, hardly noticing her departure, “it is possible that while we are throwing G.M.L. into bankruptcy, Green, Charlesworth may take an interest. I don’t suppose it will happen. But if they shoidd show up, Charles, don’t attempt to handle it yourself. Buck it to us. Understand?”

  “Understand,” said Mundin. Green, Charlesworth. Insurance and bankers’ bankers; odd how their name kept coming up. “Is that all we have to worry about now—Green, Charlesworth?”

  “No,” Coett said honestly. “It’s a long, tough row, Mundin. Bankruptcy’s tricky, even when the corporate mass is relatively small.”

  “And you’re determined to go through with the bankruptcy?

  We can’t just try to vote our stock, or manipulate it on the market?”

  “If anything,” Coett said shakily, “would bring Green, Charlesworth down on us, that’s it. No, no, Mundin. Simple blackmail and bribe, bankruptcy and ruin—let’s not upset the applecart.” His face was actually white. But Mundin put it out of his mind and said worriedly to Don, “What was the matter with Norma?”

  “Forget it,” said Don. “Daddy wanted this, and Daddy gave his life to that—forget it. She has the idea Pop’s invention is a sacred trust, and it’s up to us to use it for the common good.” He grinned easily, but his eyes were as hooded as ever before Dr. Niessen carved into his brain. “Who do you like in the Field Day?” he asked opaquely.

  Chapter Eighteen

  mundin said, “You have to be careful. Don’t say that you represent G.M.L. You’re just acting for a business associate.”

  “I understand, Mr. Mundin,” said Norvie Bligh.

  Mundin brooded. “If we could only come out in the open instead of this cloak-and-dagger business. Well, things are looking up. You’re sure you’ve got it straight?”

 
; “Positive, Mr. Mundin,” said Norvie. He met the lawyer’s doubtful eye and, surprisingly, winked. “Well give ‘em hell, pal,” he said, and left.

  Later on, outside Candella’s private office at General Recreations, Norvie wasn’t quite so confident. This was the office in which he had had so many difficult days; these were the rooms where young Stimmens had cut his throat; that was the door through which Candella had booted him out.

  But the electronic secretary summoned Candella, and Norvie was all right again.

  Candella came bustling through the door with a huge, friendly smile plastered on his face. “Norvie, boy!” he yelled. “Damn; but it’s good to see you! How the hell have you been?”

  Norvell said curtly, “Morning, Candella.” He allowed Candella one limp touch of his hand and withdrew it.

  “Well,” said Candella heartily. “Uh—well!”

  Norvie said, “I’ll be brief. You got my message.”

  “Oh, yes, Norvie. Yes, indeed, you’re here about——” he looked around him rapidly and said in a lowered tone “—G.M.L.”

  “Speak up, Candella,” Norvell said sharply. “Yes, I’m here about G.M.L. Not officially, mind you. Not at all officially.”

  “Of course not, Norvie!”

  Norvell nodded. “And I have your promise that you’ll keep what I say hi strict confidence?”

  “Oh, certainly, Norv——”

  “Not a word to anyone?”

  “Of course n——”

  “Good. In a word, Candella, we have had complaints.”

  Candella kept his smile, but it was like the rictus of a loathsome disease. “Complaints?”

  “Oh, not about you. I have no idea how well or badly you are doing your job now, and in any case,” Norvie said severely, “that would have nothing to do with G.M.L. My associates would never dream of interfering in another corporation’s afiairs.”

  Of course not!” Cande3a agreed.

  “The complaints are about the bubble-houses, Candella. One of my associates is a rather substantial holder in G.M.L. We’ve heard—well, reports. I’ll be frank with you; we haven’t been able to track them down. But they are alarming, Candella; very alarming. So alarming that I can’t repeat them, or even hint at what they concern. You understand that, don’t you?”