"You're a sexpot. Did anyone ever tell you that?"
"Yes."
He frowned again and said, "What ever happened to my father's estate? From what you people say, he must have been a partner for something like twenty years. When he died my mother refused to take anything except enough to educate me on. What happened to the rest?"
"Why, I don't know, darling." She frowned as well. "And I should know. I'm supposed to know everything connected with Mercenaries, Incorporated."
Chapter Seventeen: Lee Garrett
When Lee Garrett reported to the office of Sheila Duff-Roberts early in the morning of the day after she had arrived, it was to find the Amazon-like secretary of the Central Committee of the World Club already deep in work. A cigarette, half an ash, dangled from the side of her mouth, and the smoke from it spiraled upward.
Sheila looked up, did her sparse smile, and said, "Good morning, darling. I rather expected you to return here after your lunch with Jerry Auburn yesterday. Do sit down."
Lee took the indicated chair and said apologetically, "We ran into some difficulty. By the time it was ironed out I felt exhausted and Mr. Auburn took me back to my suite."
"Difficulty?"
"He was attacked in the restaurant by a waiter, apparently a Nihilist. I've read about them, of course. But." she shook her blond head ". good heavens, I didn't know it had gotten to the point where they were attacking prominent people right in the open."
The other at last noticed the length of her cigarette ash and tapped it off into her improvised ash tray. Her eyes narrowed. "Nihilists! The bastards are really getting out of hand. Just recently they kidnapped one of our candidate members of the Central Committee and shot him when his wife couldn't pay a fifty million pseudo-dollar ransom. Something simply will have to be done. What happened?"
"It was terrible. The man was about to shoot Jerry-Mr. Auburn-from behind. But something made him turn and, well, Jerry knows savate and."
"What the hell's savate?"
"A method of fighting with the feet; an old French sport with some aspects of karate. Jerry disarmed the man and had kicked him unconscious before the others arrived. The manager, of course, was extremely upset. He said that the waiter was a new man who had only been there for a few days. He called the police, of course."
Sheila shook her head. "Trust Jerry to come up with something like that, fighting with his feet. Undoubtedly, he'll report on it later. With almost all of the Central Committee in Rome, we can't afford to run chances of assassination. Which reminds me: we're to have a party tonight. All of the Central Committee members and candidate members will be present. It will give you an opportunity to meet them and for them, of course, to get an impression of you. In the ballroom, beginning at nine."
Lee frowned. "Candidate member?" she said.
"Yes. You see, there are but ten members of the Central Committee, plus myself as secretary. Most of them are rather elderly. So, at any given time, there are as many as a score or so candidate members, waiting to be made full members upon the death or retirement of any of the present incumbents. One of the matters to be handled at this session is such a promotion. Grace Cabot-Hudson hasn't been active for some time, so she is being asked to retire to the position of Central Committee Member Emeritus and a new member will be appointed."
In an angry movement of a well-manicured hand, she took up another cigarette and lit it, before going on. "And it's ten to one that it won't be another woman. Male dominance still prevails in the Central Committee. You'd think that at least half the members should be female, but no. The male ego we still have with us." She snorted. Then, "Well, be that as it may, dear, I'll see you at the party tonight. Have you met any of the other members, besides Jerry?"
"I haven't had the opportunity."
"I mentioned you to Fong Hui, who has just rocketed in from Hong Kong. He'd like to meet you. Fong is the only Oriental Central Committee member, though there are candidates from Japan, India, and Indonesia."
"When did he wish to see me?"
"This morning." Sheila Duff-Roberts touched a button on her TV phone.
Almost immediately, a door leading to the back opened and a girl bustled through. She was a tiny thing, smaller than Lee Garrett and absolutely dwarfed by the Junoesque Sheila. She was a bit on the plump side, which didn't detract from her vivacity.
Sheila said, "Lily Palermo, Lee Garrett. Lee is to be my new secretary, Lily darling, to replace Pamela. But you girls can get to know each other later. Right now, I'd like you to take Lee to Fong Hui's apartment. The old fuddy-duddy's expecting her."
"Right away," Lily said. And to Lee, "My, you must have spent a fortune on that hair."
Lee came to her feet and said to Sheila, "See you at the party, then."
"Good-O, darling," Sheila said, already back at her work.
As they started down the corridor, redundant with art as everywhere in the Palazzo Colonna, Lee said, touching her hair, "Believe it if you will but it's my own and I do it myself."
"It's lovely," Lily told her and giggled. "You should have been at tepartous last night. You would have been the hit."
Lee made a moue. "Group sex turns me off," she said.
The other looked at her from the side of her eyes. "I'm surprised that Sheila is taking you for her secretary then."
Lee shrugged. "It was rather thrown at me, without my having much to say about it, though frankly, this whole World Club thing has its fascinating aspects."
"Oh, it's the most wizard job you can imagine. You're right in the middle of the most important goings on in the world. You're really on the inside."
Lee said idly, "Whatever happened to Pamela, the girl I'm taking over from?"
"I don't know. She was awfully nice. Kind of a little serious, even more dedicated than most. Irish, and she still talked with that soft brogue they have."
"What was her last name?"
"McGivern. She wouldn't take anything from anybody, not even Sheila. They'd argue hammer and tongs."
"Maybe that's why Sheila let her go."
The little girl was silent for a moment, as they rounded a turn in the wide corridor. Then she said quietly, "Sheila never fires you from any of these jobs. She might transfer you to some other position, somewhere else. But she'll never fire you."
"Why not?"
The other wasn't quite happy at the question. "Well, I suppose if the computers selected you in the first place, you have more than usual ability, and the Central Committee doesn't want to waste it. Besides." she hesitated for a moment ". you're in on so many top-secret matters that they wouldn't like you to blab them around." She rolled her eyes. "I can just see somebody who once worked for the Central Committee sitting down and writing a book about it."
Lee thought about that. She already had several new things to think about this morning. For one, she had gotten the damnedest impression that Sheila had already known about the attack on Jerry Auburn before she had told her. But then, it was Sheila's job to know everything that happened pertaining to the Central Committee members.
Lily brought them up to an imposing door, similar to that which opened into Sheila Duff-Roberts's salon. Once again, there was no identity screen. She knocked briskly, then reached down for the bright brass knob.
She smiled brightly at Lee, said, "See you later, dear," turned and tripped briskly away.
Lee entered, closing the door behind her. She blinked in surprise at the large room's decor. She had stepped from a Roman Renaissance corridor into a chamber which should have been eight thousand miles away, in a Chinese palace or mansion of the Ming dynasty. One had no doubts whatsoever that all of the exquisite furnishings, all of the art, and even the rugs, were genuine antiques. The whole room belonged in a Chinese museum.
There were two occupants-an old man behind an intricately carved ebony desk, and a girl, certainly not over twenty, wearing a sleek, long, yellow, high-collared cheong-sam. She was kneeling upon a dais, plucking a thin Mandarin melo
dy from a jong resting on the floor before her. Her slim fingers played over the instrument as though caressing a lover.
The old man was frail with a wisp of a white beard and a bald head poised forward on his long neck with great natural dignity and grace. He wore the red-tasseled, crystal-topped cap and the navy-blue gown of the scholar.
Lee said formally, after bowing, "May I trouble your chariot? My name is Lee Garrett."
His aged eyes took her in for a moment, then the slightest of smiles appeared on his yellowish parchment face. "My chariot is untroubled. Pray take an honored chair."
"I am totally unworthy."
"The unworthiness is mine," he told her. "My office is favored by your visit."
Lee sat across the desk from him and said, "It is a poor woman's delight."
"The office shrinks in humble shame before your footsteps." Fong Hui shook hands with himself, keeping his delicately tapered fingers well within his long loose sleeves.
The Chinese girl who had been playing the jong stood and trotted toward a rear door. She turned without speaking, bobbed several bows, and left.
Fong took Lee in again, the faint smile still in his eyes. "I suspect that you would have been capable of going through the formal greeting of years past in the original Mandarin."
Lee Garrett acknowledged the compliment. "Only awkwardly, Mr. Fong. My father was a diplomat. When I was a young girl he was stationed for two years in the People's Republic in Peking. He was an ardent linguist and always insisted that the family study the language of the nation to which we were posted."
"Such talents will be welcome in the position Ms. Duff-Roberts tells me you are to occupy." He smiled faintly again and let his eyes go about the room. "Undoubtedly, you are surprised at both my office and my attire."
"I have always been a great admirer of the art and culture of the Celestial Empire, Mr. Fong."
His thin voice held a touch of exasperation. "And I have long been displeased by the increasing domination of the Western culture. But I wage a losing battle. The culture of the West sweeps everything before it-its modes of dress, its food, its manners and mores. An accident of history gave the European and North American powers domination over the world for at least the present, so that the habits of the West have prevailed to the detriment of other cultures, not neces-sarily inferior. As to dress, without doubt the Chinese cheong-sam and the Indian sari are far more flattering to the feminine figure than the awkward garb of Europe. And throughout the world now, all cities are beginning to look like Cleveland, Ohio, while such architectural gems as Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Kyoto in Japan are now no longer anything but museums on a grand scale."
Lee said, "I agree with you, Mr. Fong. Even Rome now has its seven hills surrounded by sky-high condominiums and high-rise apartment buildings for the antlike existence of the proles, the slums of the welfare state."
He was obviously enjoying her company. "My dear," he said, "you seem wise beyond your years. Perhaps some evening, after adjusting to your new atmosphere, you will honor me with your presence at dinner. My chef is from Shanghai."
"I am overwhelmed, Mr. Fong. I consider Chinese cuisine the world's finest."
The old man touched his wisp of white beard and said, "And now, my dear, tell me: what are your impressions of the World Club?"
She said hesitantly, "I am somewhat overwhelmed. Its scope is much greater than I had thought. I am inclined to wonder whether it has bitten off more than it can chew. The problems seem insoluble to me."
He nodded. "When I was a boy, confronted with my youthful unsolvable problems and in despair, my father once said, 'What were you worrying about last year at this date?' And I saw on reflection that all my unsolvable problems of that time had, indeed, been solved or lost relevancy. The same might be said to apply to the long-range troubles of man. This is the year 2086. What were our difficulties one century ago in 1986? In those days, savants were aghast at the world's problems; surely they would never be solved. But let us ask the question again. Suppose that an American in the year 1986 was to look back a century to 1886 and consider the problems of that time. The Indian Wars were not quite over; Custer's forces had been destroyed only ten years before and Geronimo had kept the Southwest in a state of siege. Labor troubles were paramount, the anarchists at their peak. The Haymarket bombing killed seven, wounded sixty. The
American Federation of Labor was not yet strong. America was in an unprecedented state of growing pains. The robber barons of industry were taking over the country wholesale. Immigrants were swarming in to the point where nearly half of New York City couldn't speak English, to the dismay of the earlier-arrived Anglo-Saxons."
Lee laughed softly. "I see what you mean. By 1986, the problems of 1886 had all been solved, or disappeared. And so, is your suggestion, will be the problems of our time by 2186."
He smiled in return but then became more serious. "Tell me, my dear, what do you think of our Sheila Duff-Roberts?"
She said carefully, "I don't know her very well as yet. She seems very capable."
The old man nodded. "I am afraid that she is too prone to take on authority which should remain in the hands of the Central Committee, with the assistance of its candidate members, though I defer to the majority in retaining her as secretary." He hesitated. "Nor do I think that she should participate in the sometimes differing currents of the World Club."
He must have caught the puzzlement in her eyes and said in amusement, "Did you think that all was accord in the Central Committee, my dear? Happily, it is not. If it were, I myself would withdraw. A frozen program is seldom a valid one, certainly not over a period of time. It was one of the prime weaknesses of the Marxists back in the 19th and 20th centuries. Marx and Engels did their work as early as the first part of the 19th century. Their Communist Manifesto, written in 1848, predicted an imminent breakdown of capitalism and a proletarian victory. A century later, the capitalist system had changed and was stronger than ever. Marx and Engels had died, but most of the so-called Marxists continued to follow them as though no changes in political economy had taken place; as though such developments as fascism and the state capitalism of the Soviet Union had never raised their ugly heads. At any rate, there are conflicting opinions in the Central Committee of the World Club and I, to a degree, welcome them. When two minds meet, both learn something. An Einstein cannot meet with a moron and exchange opinions without both learning something-however little." The American girl said, "But what are these differences in opinion? I had gathered from Sheila and Jerry Auburn that the goal of the World Club is world government."
He smiled his little smile again. "It is, but there can be varied types of world government. So you have met our debonair Jeremiah Auburn. He is a young man with depths not immediately perceived by some. Indeed, there was considerable difficulty in nominating him to the Central Committee. However, his father before him was a member and such, ah, old-timers as myself and Grace Cabot-Hudson were adamant in vouching for him. The three of us have similar views pertaining to the nature of the world state to come. We had hopes that Candidate Harold Dunninger, who also had somewhat similar views, would replace her upon her retirement. Unfortunately, he was recently murdered by the Nihilists. Opposed to our view are John Moyer of the American IABI who, I suspect, sees the future government as a police state, and Harrington Chase, with his strong racist beliefs, who undoubtedly sees it as a government of whites over the rest of humanity. Some of the candidates, such as Lothar von Brandenburg, I am sure, see the future government as a dictatorship, while Ezra Hawkins, of the United Church, probably desires a theocracy. Ah yes, my dear, I am afraid that there are conflicting currents within the ranks of the World Club."
Lee said thoughtfully, "I can see that there must be ramifications that never occurred to me."
The faint sound of a muted gong came from the inner depths of the apartment and the old man smiled ruefully. "I am afraid that my physician reminds me that it is time for my nap."
The American girl stood immediately. "I must thank you for wasting so much of your valuable time on one who is so ignorant of the great problems resting upon your honorable shoulders."
"The pleasure, my dear, is mine. You are to fill an important post, privy to the innermost developments of the World Club. One cannot know the future, but perhaps one day you may even succeed to the position now occupied by Ms. Sheila Duff-Roberts."
Lee bowed formally, said, "With your permission, Mr. Fong," and turned and left.
Behind her, Fong Hui sighed softly. Old his clay might be, but he still had an eye for a superlatively pretty girl.
Lee Garrett puzzled out the route to her own suite, only twice losing her way through the rambling, twisting corridors of the Palazzo Colonna.
Inside it, she carefully locked the door before going into her small office. She checked the time on her wrist chronometer, then put her shoulder bag on the desk top. She activated a secret compartment in the leather purse and brought forth from it a device like a ballpoint stylo. She pressed a stud on its side and began moving slowly about the room, pointing the gadget here, there, and particularly in the vicinity of electronic devices such as the TV phone.
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