They didn't say anything intelligent and for a bit I thought they must be talking in code. Things like "How are you, old boy?" from the diplomats and things like "Just ripping," from Heller. Unintelligible. And some diplomat, with a lift of his eyebrows, would say, "Getting any yourself?" and Heller would say, "The important people have the priorities." And they'd laugh in a sort of knowing way. Incomprehensible.
But one thing was clearly understood. He was too (bleeped) popular!
There was always a painting going on in the far corner of the lobby. Always a crowd around the artist, the girl standing, half-clothed, provocatively. I wanted to get some better looks myself and Heller never even glanced in that direction! You can't get much detail in peripheral vision.
About the only time I'd get a good look at the girl—and they were real stunners of every imaginable hue—was when one would leave the lobby. And then she had a robe on as the painting would be ended for the night. They'd stop by Heller before they got into the elevator and say, "It's going well, pretty boy. I got South Africa to say yes." Or something equally nonsensical. It was confusing. In the first place, the program called for a whore of the week and it had evidently been shifted to whore of the night! It was almost enough to give one jet lag. But he was obviously up to something, even though you couldn't keep up with him.
But it was probably better that I didn't get many looks at these girls. My own bed was empty, and although she would go out each day in her car, I saw nothing of Utanc. She had obviously erased my suffering self from her life. I did hear that the little boy was better but neither of those boys left Utanc's room.
But for all his hobnobbing with diplomats and nosing in his lecture mimeographs and texts, Heller, (bleep) him, still found time to run around.
For three whole mornings he went through the silliest routine I have ever seen.
He would take a regular cab and ride somewhere. And after a bit Bang-Bang would drive up to where Heller had alighted and come over to him and say, "Nothing." That was all.
Heller would get on a subway and ride to some station and get off. After a while, Bang-Bang would come up to him and say, "Nothing." Then Heller would walk slowly past this building or that, stopping to look in shop windows. And then Bang-Bang would come up and say, "Nothing."
I finally worked it out that they were practicing some stupid G-2 idea of tailing. But Heller was always in his red baseball cap, easy to spot. He took no evasive actions. It was either G-2 or just some silly way of exercising.
After three days Heller quit doing that. Maybe he got tired of walking and riding. Maybe he was just seeing New York. Who could follow his inane actions?
Almost two weeks had gone by with this routine of study and lobby when he made a sudden shift.
He got up early one morning. He took a train to Newark and walked into the Jiffy-Spiffy Garage. Mike Mutazione pulled his head out of an engine and they staged an effusive greeting and then chattered of this and that including a persuasive pitch by Mike to get Heller to join the Catholic Church, and Heller's defense, "How do you know my soul hasn't already been saved?" Mike didn't seem to have any textbook answer to that so they got down to business.
Heller wanted a garage to rent. And Mike told him sure, they had several nearby where they stored "hots" until they got their "faces lifted," and Mike himself drove Heller around and they looked at them and Heller chose one that could be very securely locked. And he rented it.
Then they went back to the garage and there, over to one side, was Heller's old Cadillac. It was making some progress but apparently the new engine was still being modified "for 190 miles per hour." But Heller was not interested in the new engine. He wanted the old engine that had been taken out and was sitting on some blocks.
Heller did Mike a little sketch in his disgustingly precise and rapid way. He wanted the old engine and a radiator mounted on a trailer. He wanted a gas tank mounted on the trailer. And he wanted a brake drum put around the old engine's crankshaft connection.
It baffled me. Why did anyone want an engine sitting on a trailer that wouldn't run the trailer?
Mike said, "Hell, that's easy. We got a trailer right over here that some (bleeped) fool stole. How can you change and sell a baggage trailer? You can have it. I got a couple guys idle. We can fix your rig this afternoon."
So Heller gave him some money and told him to finish it and move it into the rented garage. Crazy. He not only was making a rig that wouldn't run itself, he was also just putting it in a private garage! No wonder this Mike wanted to convert him to something. He was too insane the way he was.
Heller went out shopping after getting a couple addresses and he bought a huge tank of oxygen and a huge tank of hydrogen gas and had them delivered to the garage.
He went back to New York and went on with his usual routine that day, but the next morning, bright and early, he headed for Newark, carrying a huge bag of tools and whatever.
Heller went to the garage. There was the trailer and there were the oxygen and hydrogen bottles. He put on some white mechanic's coveralls and got to work.
He left the garage doors open. He put a spring balance on the brake drum behind the engine. He started the engine up and began to measure the spring-balance readings as he revved the engine up faster and faster. The roar and vibration and smoke was awful!
Playing. You can always count on Fleet people to play with machinery!
Then, using gloves to keep his fingers from scorching, he took the carburetor off the engine.
Then he connected regulators and hoses to the oxygen and hydrogen tanks.
He made a brass fitting that covered the place the carburetor had been and made two nipples into it and connected the hoses to it.
It was a pretty crude rig.
He even put on a gas mask to work with it.
He started up the engine!
It ran!
Then he began to fiddle with amounts from one tank to the other and began to put pressure on the brake. He kept writing down readings from the tank regulator gauges and the brake spring balance.
Using some kind of a gauge, he started sampling whatever was coming out of the exhaust pipe of the engine. He got the gauge meter to read zero by adjusting the two valves of the hydrogen and oxygen tanks while the gauge on the spring balance on the brake measured maximum.
It was late by that time. He dismantled everything, took off his mechanic's coveralls and left.
He also left me with another puzzle. What was that all about?
But I could tell one thing. He was happy. As he walked down the street to get on the train to New York, he was whistling. Some new trick he had learned.
He was making too much progress on something too fast! I knew he was doing it just to spite me, to mock me for having had to forego killing him.
I felt awful.
Chapter 3
Just when I was feeling that nothing could get any worse, the Blixo arrived. It utterly dispersed my existing confusion. It was eight o'clock in the evening, Turkish time. I had been trying to figure out what to do to avoid another sleepless night in my lonely bed when the warning panel in my secret office began to flash:
SHIP ARRIVAL
It could only be the Blixo. A sudden thought, "My gold!" began to lift my spirits. Then a sag. I had promised Captain Bolz a bottle of Scotch on arrival. He was an officer who remembered these things clearly. The bottle of Scotch I had gotten had been stolen. He might hang on to my gold!
I made a sudden, urgent telephone call to the taxi driver. "For Gods' sakes, bring me a bottle of Scotch quick!"
"It sounds bad!" he said.
"It is bad!" I said.
I hung up. I went tearing around trying to find a uniform. At the moment the panel flashed, I didn't have any clothes on. It would not do to go aboard that way. He might think I was so lacking in authority he could hold on to my gold. It would buy an awful lot of Scotch—six million dollars worth! I knew Captain Bolz.
I could find a
uniform tunic but no pants. Then when I found the pants, I had mislaid the tunic. I found my cap underneath the mattress. I couldn't find my rank locket anywhere.
The place looked like a hurricane had struck it. But I managed to get pants, tunic, boots and cap assembled and on. Maybe he wouldn't notice the lack of a rank locket.
I heard the taxi coming. I went into my bedroom. The driver rushed in and thrust a bottle at me: Haige and Haige. Counterfeit Scotch. Made by Arabs. They can't spell.
"This is bad Scotch," I said.
"It's a bad situation," he said.
It would have to do. I got him out of there with a fistful of lira.
I went tearing down the tunnel from my secret room to the hangar.
They hadn't dollied the Blixo into position yet. I waited.
Finally, they got all two hundred and fifty skinny, battered feet of her off to the side of the landing pad and plunked a wobbly, far-too-tall landing ladder up to her airlock. They got another one. It didn't fit either. The Blixo spacers put their own landing gangway out. I got aboard.
Captain Bolz was in his cabin getting into a sloppy-looking civilian suit, ready to have a night on the town. He was buttoning a ragged shirt across his hairy chest. I handed him the Scotch. He let go of the shirt. He chomped his teeth down on the cap and tore it off. He had a long, long drink. He shuddered and went a trifle popeyed.
"Gods!" he spluttered. "Gods, but that's good." He took another swallow. He said, "Well, Gris, how are you?"
I reached into my pocket and got the key to the storeroom where I had locked in my gold.
"Your passengers arrived in great shape. Somebody named Gunsalmo Silva was in deepsleep so he wasn't heard from. Prahd Bittlestiffender, he just stayed in his cabin the whole way, studying like fury. That little (bleepard)—what's his name, Too-Too?—I had to put him in irons: it wasn't him, it was the crew, they kept trying to get at him to sleep with. So, it's all in order. So, if you'll just stamp a few papers, they're yours and so's the cargo."
I promptly got out my identoplate and began to stamp. Shortly, I noticed my wrist was getting tired so I looked at what I was stamping. The last half of the pack was blank gate passes so he could land contraband on Voltar. I stamped them.
He grinned. "We understand each other," he said. "Now if you'll let my mates do the unloading, I'm on my way. Have some Scotch. No? Then here I go and the Gods help Turkey." He was gone.
He must have shouted at his spacers as he left for here was a mate to help me. We opened the locker. And there it was! Nine beautiful cases. Eighteen fifty-troy-pound bars of gold! Allowing for difference of gravity-Earth being only about five-sixths as massive—this was only seven hundred and fifty pounds of gold. At twelve troy ounces to the pound that was nine thousand ounces. Gold at the moment was selling at seven hundred dollars an ounce. So I was looking at six million, three hundred thousand dollars worth of gold! Shows you that crime pays after all.
I grabbed a couple of hangar helpers and soon the gold was trundling up my tunnel to my secret room. I went in, threw a blanket over the viewer and then let the helpers pack it in a corner. It didn't take up as much space as you'd think. They, of course, didn't know what it was. The cases were all marked as medical and radioactive.
I was about to shut the door on them and gloat when a messenger came up.
"They want to unload the rest of the cargo! Where does it go?"
I closed my room and went back down the tunnel. They were discharging boxes and boxes and boxes of Zanco material.
Oh, Hells! The hospital! I had forgotten to check if the hospital was complete!
I found a phone and got the contractor. "Of course it's complete!" he said. "I've been trying to get in touch with you for days."
Aha! So I was rich there, too! I got my mind off it. "Where's the keys?"
"Faht Bey has them."
Better and better. I sent a messenger for Faht Bey.
"Trucks," I said. "I need trucks! All this goes to the new hospital!"
"All that?"
I looked again. They were still unloading! They had a mountain-sized pile already and they were still unloading! This was not correct.
I grabbed an invoice sheet out of the hands of a mate. It turned out to be three invoice sheets. One from the goods used at the Widow Tayl's, one from my original purchase and then a third!
My Gods! There was no end to what crooked things superiors will do. Lombar had quadrupled the Zanco order to make another million and a half credits in graft for himself! There were enough cellological supplies here to take care of an army. Two armies! And they had quadrupled all the extra odd bits I had ordered blind as well. There was no telling what was in this growing pile. It must have strained the tonnage capacity of the Blixo!
Then it suddenly struck me. The dirty crooks. They hadn't given me my extra thirty-thousand-credit personal rake-off! I was about to rush off and write them an angry letter but Faht Bey said, "You mean all this goes to the hospital?"
"Yes, yes. Overpaste the labels. Get your hangar crews on it."
"But you'll mess up all the markings," he said.
Oh, Hells. Details, details.
I said to a mate, "Where's that Prahd Bittlestiffender?"
The name was unknown to him but I described him and the mate went up and let him out of his cabin. Tall and spindly, he came gawkily down the gangway, burdened with recorders and baggage.
"You're in charge of the hospital! These labels can't be seen in public. Change all the labels and get this stuff into trucks."
"Hello, Officer Gris," he said. "I can speak Turkish. Listen. I'm speaking Turkish now. Does my pay start now?"
I started to rush off again to write my angry letter.
A mate stopped me. "Where do we put this one?"
They were carrying a stretcher. Somebody in deepsleep. The vicious face of Gunsalmo Silva, no better in repose. "A cell. Any cell. Don't wake him up. I'll take care of him later."
I tried to rush off again. Two spacers were leading somebody out. He was in chains, wrapped up in cloth with a lock on it. He could barely walk. He had a sack over his head.
The mate asked, "What do we do with him?" He pulled the sack off his head. It was Twolah, Too-Too, from my office. The second he saw me, he started to cry.
"Put him in a cell," I said. "They'll show you where the detention cells are. Incommunicado, completely."
I tried to rush off again. A spacer said, "He's got about two hundred pounds of papers in his cabin. What do we do with those?"
"Put them in my office. And don't produce anybody else out of that ship. I'm busy!"
Finally I got away.
I went and wrote the nastiest burning letter I could possibly write! To Zanco. They owed me thirty thousand credits and were trying to gyp me out of it! Not only that, I told them they had denied me the opportunity to buy gold with it! Villains!
And only then did I feel better. The Blixo had arrived. I foolishly thought my troubles were over. They were just beginning!
Chapter 4
My gold had arrived so I was sleeping peacefully in the dawn.
Karagoz was shaking my shoulder violently.
"Sultan Bey!" he was saying. "Come quick. Maybe riot!"
I got out of bed, got on some pants and boots and a turtleneck sweater. I went tearing out after Karagoz.
Faht Bey was in a car by the gate. He was holding the door open. It was barely light enough to see his face but what I saw was ashen.
"The hospital!" he said and the driver raced toward it.
"They've been gathering since before dawn. They heard the hospital would be opened today."
"Who?"
"The mothers."
"Why?"
"Because of the sign."
I said, "That doesn't sound like much trouble to me."
"No?" he said. "If we lose the support of mothers in this district our supply of birth certificates will dry up! So be careful how you handle them."
"M
e handle them?" I said. "What about the rest of the Apparatus here? Isn't that your job?"
"It's your hospital. You didn't clear it with the Officer's Council."
"I have to do everything!" I wailed.
"And be careful how you handle the picket line," he said.
"What picket line?"
"The local doctors and their assistants."
When we arrived at the hospital, there was a huge mob. They were mostly mothers and children. They were standing there docilely the way Turkish people do. They are a very docile people, particularly just before they explode. They are obedient to the will of Allah. But Allah apparently wants holy wars at the first chance.
I pushed my way through them. There was a lot of coughing. Tuberculosis is endemic in Turkey. Eyes turned my way. Diseased eyes. Trachoma is also endemic in Turkey. There was the occasional twisted limb and the inevitable sores.
The hospital was surrounded by mounds of raw earth—it had not been landscaped. But the building itself was imposing—spreading and low. It was approached by some broad steps and a wide walk and a big front door.
A huge white board was nearby. It had a red crescent moon on it. On most of Earth they use a red cross on ambulances and such, but in Turkey it's a crescent, the symbol of rebirth.
There was another big sign. It said:
WORLD UNITED CHARITIES MERCY AND
BENEVOLENT HOSPITAL
Mudlick Construction Company
I could see nothing wrong with this. What riot? Faht Bey always exaggerates so.
I went up the broad steps, pushing through the crowd standing on them. I collided with the picket line!
"Stop!" said an overbearing man carrying a placard.
"Anyone crossing this picket line is an enemy of the Turkish national pride." He pointed at the placards they were carrying.
The crude placards said:
UNFAIR TO ORGANIZED MEDICINE!
NO SCABS! DOWN WITH CHARITY!
The doctors and assistants carrying them looked very tough.
There was a pedestal on the flat place at the top of the steps. Probably it was for a statue not yet arrived. Faht Bey was pushing at me from behind to get up on the pedestal. I had no choice. I mounted up.
Mission: Earth The Enemy Within Page 14
