Gladiator-At-Law

by Frederik Pohl

  Bligh considered. “Well,” he said, “Virginia’s pregnant.”

  Mundin was genuinely shocked. “Norvie, I am sorry!” he exclaimed. “I hope you’re not going to do anything fool—

  Bligh grinned. “Oh, no, nothing like that,” he said cheerfully. “The kid’s mine. First thing I did was drag her to an immunochemist and get that settled. Good thing; I would’ve broken her back. And how’s your girl?”

  “Huh?”

  “Norma. Or Lavin.”

  “Oh, no, Norvie. You’re dead wrong there. We can’t stand each other and——”

  “Sure, boss,” said Bligh soothingly. “Say, Charles, can we raise the allowance for the Wabbits? Lana’s been hinting. And my kid says they’ve really been working.”

  “Why not? How is your foster-daughter, by the way?”

  Bligh grinned. “I’m almost proud of her. Came home five days running, beaten to a pulp. Sixth day, not a mark on her. She’s a Burrow Leader in the Wabbits now. And she closes her mouth when she chews, and she calls me ‘sir.*”

  Mundin felt a sudden flash of insight. “That’s why you’re still living in Belly Rave, isn’t it?”

  Bligh got defensive. “Well, now, maybe that’s part of it. But actually there’s sometLing to be said for BJly Rave. When you can install a water tank and a generating system and fix your place up—it’s kind of lively.” His voice rang with civic pride. “I’m looked on as a kind of community leader, Charles. We’ve organized a real volunteer police force in our block—not one of those shakedown squads. And——”

  Mundin, grinning, said, “Who knows? One day it may be Norvell Bligh, first mayor of New Belly Rave!”

  The little man was suddenly gray. He fiddled defensively

  with the earpiece of his hearing aid. “Well, make a Joke out of it if you want to,” he said slowly. “The fact is they like me, I’m doing something for them, in a small way, sure, but something. And something has got to be done for these millions of outcasts. From the inside, Charles! I’m a funny-looking little man and I’m deaf and you automatically thought Virginia put the horns on me when I said she was pregnant. So what are you doing for Belly Rave, big man?”

  Mundin choked and started to apologize; but Bligh waved him to silence. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Here’s Washington.”

  The Museum of the National Association of the Builders of the American Dream was the by-blow of a long forgotten public-relations campaign with an added dash of non-profit-foundation tax evasion. The slickers who had sold the campaign to the businessmen were dust; the inspirational ads forgotten; but what can you do with a granite building full of junk and professors and janitors? You can ignore it and go your sensible business way. Of all this Mundin was reminded as he entered the shabby anteroom of the director’s office.

  His withered secretary said to the gentlemen from Monmouth, “Dr. Proctor is a very busy man. You must go away and telephone for an appointment.”

  Mundin said gently, “Please tell the director that it is hi connection with a rather substantial donation. We don’t expect to be hi the city long… .”

  The director came flying out of his office, beaming.

  The attorney introduced himself. “Of the law firm of Ryan and Mundin,” he explained.

  “Yes, indeed, Mr. Munsen! Even here, even in our remote and dedicated corner of the world, we have heard of your firm! Might one ask the name of——?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Oh, I quite understand, Mr. Munchkin! And the, ah, amount——?”

  “Flexible,” Mundin said firmly. “My client has commissioned me to inspect the museum and report to him on which departments seem most deserving of additional support.”

  “Ah! Pray allow me to guide you, sir. Just through here is the Collection of Coelenterates——”

  Mundin said blandly, “I think we would prefer to see the Hall of Basics first.”

  Dr. Proctor very nearly frowned. At the last minute he changed and merely looked confidential. “For the general public,” he said, nudging Mundin. “Mere engineering. Gimmicks and gadgets, eh? Not important, though perhaps of some limited interest to the engineer, the sociologist, that sort of quasi-scientist Now, our Collection of Coelenterates, just through——”

  “The Hall of Basics, please?”

  “Mr. Monkton! A tourist trap, I assure you. On the other hand, the Coelenterata—which happen to be my specialty, I might add——”

  Mundin said sadly, “Norvell, I’m afraid Dr. Proctor isn’t really interested in our client’s bequest.”

  Bligh said, “Too bad. Well, luckily the copter’s waiting.”

  Dr. Proctor sputtered and led them to the Hall of Basics. They gravely studied the spinning jenny, the first sewing machine, the first telegraph, the first telephone, the first airplane, the first Model T, the first atomic pile, the first G.M.L., the first segment of Belt Transport.

  They stopped before the G.M.L. bubble-house, beaming approvingly—except for Dr. Proctor. Tourists were ambling through it. It was a minute or so before they could get close enough to read the plaque.

  #342371

  The First G.M.L. Home Ever Erected Donated by Mr. Hamilton Moffatt, “Father of the Bubble-House.”

  This G.M.L. Home, moved to the Institution from its original site in Coshocton, Ohio, was fabricated in the plastics factory of Donald Lavin. Electrical circuitry and mechanisms are designed and installed by Bernard Gor-man. It has stood for more than five decades without a scar or a malfunction. Chemists and Engineers estimate that, without any sort of maintenance, it will last at least 1,000 more years, standing virtually forever as a tribute to the immortal genius of—

  mr. hamilton moffatt

  “Do tell,” murmured the attorney. The crowds of tourists began to thin out and the director glumly started to lead them through the bubble-house.

  “Hell with it,” said Mundin. “Let’s go back to your place.”

  In Dr. Proctor’s private office Mundin looked at the small, dusty, and dubious bottle the director exhumed from an umbrella rack, and shuddered. He said decisively, “No, nothing to drink. Dr. Proctor, I think I can definitely state that my client would be interested in donating one hundred thousand dollars as a fund to be divided at your discretion between the Hall of Basics and the Coelenterata.”

  “Dear me!” Dr. Proctor leaned back in bis chair, fondling the bottle, his face wreathed hi smiles. “Dear mel Are you sure you wouldn’t care to—just a very small—no? Perhaps, do you know, perhaps I will, just to celebrate. A very wise decision, sirl It is, believe me, most unusual to find a layman who, like yourself, can at once perceive the ecological significance and thrilling morphology of the humble coelenterate!” He tipped the bottle into a dusty water tumbler and raised ft in toast. “The Coelenterata!” he cried.

  Mundin was fumbling hi his briefcase. He produced a check, already made out, a typed document in duplicate and a flat can that gurgled. “Now,” he said matter-of-factly, “pay close attention, doctor. You, personally, are to dilute the contents of this can with one quart of ordinary tap water. Fill an ordinary garden sprayer with the solution and spray the G.M.L. Home in the Hall of Basics with it, covering all plastic parts from the outside. It shouldn’t take ten minutes, if you have a good sprayer. Naturally, you will make sure nobody sees you doing it. That should be easy enough, hi your position; but make sure of it. And that will be that.”

  Dr. Proctor, eyes bulging, coughed and spluttered four ounces of tinted grain neutral spirits over his desk. Choking Ť
  Mundin said calmly, “I’ll take your questions hi order. I am talking about one hundred thousand dollars. What is hi that container is something worth one hundred thousat-d dollars. You should do it because of one hundred thousand dollars.”

  I

  Dr. Proctor wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, almost spe
echless. “But—but—if you assured me that the fluid would be entirely harmless——”

  “I’ll do no such thing! Where I come from you can get away with doing quite a lot of harm for one hundred thousand dollars.” Mundin smiled frostily. “Come now, doctor. Think of one hundred thousand dollars! Think of the ecological significance and the thrilling morphology. And then sign this receipt, and then take the check.”

  Dr. Proctor looked at the check. “It’s post-dated a month,” he said tremulously.

  Mundin shrugged and began to repack his briefcase. “Well, if you’re going to quibble——”

  Dr. Proctor snatched the check. He scribbled his name on the receipt and, with a quick, furtive movement, dropped the flat can of fluid into his desk.

  In the copter Mundin and Bligh looked at each other. “Right on schedule, Charles,” Norvie Bligh said gravely.

  The attorney shook his head, marveling. “Yes, Norvie. Right on schedule.”

  They were back in the offices of Mundin & Ryan, Attorneys-at-Law, before close of business. And Norvie Bligh had not yet sat down when Mishal came hunting him with news that he had a visitor. “Bring him in, Mike,” Norvie ordered the Ay-rab. “No, wait a minute. I’ll get him.”

  Norvie flustered out to the waiting room. “Arnie!” he said eagerly. “Come in, come In, come in!” He piloted Arnie by the elbow down the halls, around the corners, through the labs and recreation rooms, chattering and ignoring Arnie’s bulging eyes. There was a shorter way; but it didn’t lead past the labs and recreation rooms.

  “Beer, Arnie?” Norvell asked, in his own office. He pushed a button; Miss Prawn came in and dailed the beer for them. “Not those chairs, please; something more comfortable.” Miss Prawn dialed two enormous armchairs.

  Arnie said, swallowing his beer with some difficulty: “I imagine you realize that I’ve gone pretty far out on a limb for you.”

  “Oh, no, Arnie! Please! How do you mean?”

  Arnie shrugged, covertly looking around the enormous

  room. “Oh, nothing I begrudge you,” he said. “After all, friendship is what really counts. As We Engineers say, ‘You brace my buttress, and I’ll brace yours.’” He set bis glass down. “And when you asked me, as a friend, to get you the file numbers and locations of the G.M.L. units, why naturally I did it Though I confess I never expected,” he went on moodily, “to stir up such a ridiculous fuss about perfectly trivial records. Corporate secrecy that hampers an able technological man is inefficiency, and inefficiency is a crime. Still, anything to oblige you and Charles Mundin.”

  “I never expected you’d have any difficulty!” Norvie lied. “But you got them?”

  Arnie raised his eyebrows. “Naturally, Norvell. And microfilmed them. I have them right here. But——”

  “Let’s see them,” Norvell said bluntly.

  He finally got his hands on the microfilm and riffled through the index tables. All there, on film—lots of it. Serial numbers. Dates. Locations. Maintenance histories. “Arnie,” he said gently, “stand up, will you, please?”

  The engineer frowned, “What’s the matter?” He stood up.

  Norvell Bligh put the microfilm hi his desk. He said, “Arnie, you didn’t get those as a favor to me. You got them because you thought it would get you a better job.”

  Arnie flushed and said severely, “Norvell, a friend doesn’t——”

  “Shut up, Arnie. Remember what you said about ‘destructive testing’ the other day?” Bligh demanded. “Well, let’s try some.”

  He swung. In the next three minutes he took quite a clobbering about the head and ears, but when the three minutes were up Arnie was on the floor, trying to stanch a nose that ran with blood, and Norvell was still on his feet.

  “Good-by, Arnie,” he said, happily, ringing for the guide. “Mishal will show you the way out.”

  He made his way to the chem lab that operated behind locked doors and tossed the film onto the desk where Mundin was sitting, watching the flow of golden fluid Into enamel-lined cans. Mundin snatched it up testily. “Keep it away from that stuff, for God’s sake!” he cried.

  Norvell grinned. “I guess we better,” he agreed. “If this get ruined we’ll have trouble getting any more out of Arnie. I beat him to a pulp.”

  Which was a considerable exaggeration; but pardonable under the circumstances.

  Mundin, holding tight to the arms of the seat, said, “Norvell, are you sure you can fly this thing? After all, it’s a lot bigger than the ones General Recreations——”

  Norvie Bligh said briefly, “Don’t worry about a thing.” The helicopter zoomed straight up from the landing stage into the night. Apparently from sheer joy of living, Norvie buzzed the tallest nearby building before locking the course for Coshocton, Ohio.

  He turned around casually in the pilot’s seat. “Well, that’s that. Play a game of cards? It’s a long trip.”

  Mundin shook his head. “I’m a little jumpy,” he admitted.

  “Oh, everything’s going to go off all right,” Norvie said reassuringly.

  The little man had changed more than somewhat in a few weeks. Now all Mundin hoped was that The New Norvell Bligh really could fly a copter as advertised, well enough, at least, to get the night’s dirty work out of the way.

  Bligh cheerfully switched on a dome light and began reading a magazine. Mundin leaned back and tried to relax, thinking about the things that had happened hi one crowded, tense week.

  Everything seemed to be running smoothly. Ryan, packed to the eyebrows with new and expensive drugs, walked and talked like a man, though collapse would come, sooner or later. Still, he was happy; and, more important, he was keeping the Lavins under control. Nonna Lavin was even helping, to some small extent; and Don was catching up on his months of quiescence with a protracted bout of hell-raising. Still, he was always on hand when needed; Norma made sure of that.

  And the three silent partners—Hubble, Coett, and Nelson— had complimented Mundin on the way he was spending their money. At the last meeting Hubble had been worried by only one thing, he said.

  “Speak up, Bliss,” Mundin smiled. “We’ll certainly try to straighten it out.”

  “Oh, it’s not your end of it, Charles,” Hubble said slowly. “Actually, it’s ours. We can’t get through to Green, Charlesworth.”

  Coett scowled; Hubble turned on him warningly. “Now, Harry, don’t start that again. How can Charles run things intelligently unless we level with him?”

  Green, Charlesworth, thought Mundin. Again. “Level with me about what, Bliss?” he asked.

  Hubble shrugged. “It’s just some kmd of an abnormal situation, Charles, that’s all. The three of us just don’t seem to be getting through to Green, Charlesworth. Oh, we’re doing business with them. But not, you know, any kind of real communication.”

  Mundin thought of Captain Kowalik, unnerved and jittery because Commissioner Sabbatino didn’t talk to him any more. He said: “Do I run into Green, Charlesworth anywhere along the line?”

  They smiled politely and said no, that wouldn’t be likely. Green, Charlesworth did nothing on the operating or manufacturing end. They were money men. “But,” Buss Hubble said, trying to appear unconcerned, “if they should show up, Charles, don’t try to handle it yourself. Get hi touch with us.”

  Nelson nodded worriedly. “Frankly,” he said, “we don’t know where they stand on this thing, Charles. Bliss and I rather think they wouldn’t give a damn one way or the other. Harry thinks they’d be all for us, not that they vote any G.M.L. stock, you know, but they have, well, moral influence.” He swallowed. “But we can’t get through to them.”

  Mundin asked, “Want me to go calling on them?”

  They smiled ghastlily and shook their heads. Hubble said abruptly, “My guess is that they’re onto us. That they know every move we make and just haven’t committed themselves. Yet.”

  Mundin looked around at the three Titans, wonderingly. He asked, “When you say ‘they,’ who do you mean, e
xactly?”

  A three-cornered wrangle developed. Coett believed that Green, Charlesworth was essentially the top men in the Memphis crowd plus the organic solvents crowd and the New England utilities. He himself was, actually, most of the Southwest crowd and practically all of the inorganic chemicals crowd.

  Nelson, who was New England and nonferrous metals, believed that Green, Charlesworth was, essentially, California, coal-oil-steel and mass media.

  Hubble, who was mass media and New York, said that couldn’t be. He thought that Green, Charlesworth was essentially money.

  On that everybody agreed. Worriedly.

  “Look,” said Mundin, “I just want to get this straight in my mind. Would we scuttle this whole project if Green, Charlesworth came out against it?”

  They looked at him as though he were a two-year-old. “If we could, boy,” Harry Coett said grimly. “Don’t even talk about it. I doubt it could be done; unscrambling eggs is child’s play compared to stopping a thing like this. At the very least, we’d lose really serious amounts of money… . But I’m confident that it’s simply a matter of getting in touch with them. After all, we’re taking a step forward. And Green, Charlesworth has always been on the side of progress.”

  “Reaction,” said Nelson.

  “Middle-of the-roaders,” Hubble insisted.

  Mundin demanded, “But who are they? Where are they? Is there a real man named Green and a real man named Charlesworth?”

  Hubble said, “Their offices are in the Empire State Building —the whole building^” He coughed. “I fibbed to you that time we passed the Empire State Building. I apologize. I didn’t know you very well hi those days.”

  Mundin’s eyebrows climbed. “But in New York? I thought the whole city was condemned after the bombing.”

  Hubble shook his head. “I suppose that’s what they want one to think, Charles. They’re there, all right. You can see the lights in the building at night—the only one in the city. It isn’t a beacon as most people suppose. And as for a real Mr. Green and a real Mr. Charlesworth—no. Or I should say, probably no. The firm name is a couple of hundred years old, so—— But I admit I’m not sure. When you go there you never see anyone important. Clerks, junior executives, department heads. You do business with them; and there are long waits, weeks sometimes, while they’re ‘deciding policy questions.’ I suppose that means while they’re getting their instructions. Well—congratulations, Charles. Now you know as much about Green, Charlesworth as anybody else. Just remember, if they turn up anywhere, or you encounter anything, well, anomalous