The sealer had gotten over his fright after a few convulsions, aware now that people were laughing at him and anxious to make amends.
General Loop, they all agreed, had been purloining government property and devices, and this made him a fellow criminal and so, somehow, made it all right. Whether he had done all this just to exercise a hobby or scare his fellow officers half to death was entirely beyond their interest. Madison had another theory-that manufacturers, knowing Loop was somewhat crazy, had installed the devices in the hope of getting a contract after showing what they could do. Madison had noticed different makers' names on the activating boxes; he didn't think any of this was in use or known to the government at all. He had not found a single Security Forces stamp on anything. If it were government property or even known to the government, it would have long since been taken out. But he didn't disagree with the crew; they needed all the solace they could get.
The crisis was over. The crew had slept. And Madison now had other things to do.
In a seventy-sixth floor briefing room which General Loop had probably used to address his own staff, Madison had assembled his gang here today for purposes of his own.
They looked much better now: the men had shaved and cut their hair, the women were coiffed and made up. They were gaunt but good food would handle that. The prison pallor still showed through but a few days under sunlamps would turn them a more natural color. The stink was gone!
The cooks were lounging in the doors, the rest sat on chairs and benches. And all eyes were on Madison as he stood upon the raised platform at the front of the large room.
"I have gathered you together this afternoon," said Madison, "in order to clarify for you why you are really here. I am certain some of you have probably wondered, and the very essence of a team is a common purpose.
"Now, I know some of you were curious as to what PR man really meant. It does not mean 'parole officer': I just told them that so I could spring you."
The crew sat up more alertly. It made them feel better to know that they were not in the hands of just another Apparatus officer but with one who now seemed to be saying that he had other goals and might well be a master criminal in his own right, only using the Apparatus for some crooked purpose of his own. His popularity rose.
"The actual meaning of PR," continued Madison, "is PUBLIC RELATIONS. That is the activity in which you will now be engaged."
They nodded but now they looked puzzled. They had never heard of this. The only relations they had ever had with the public consisted of victimizing it.
"As this will be your work," said Madison, "I had better explain in detail."
Madison stood up very straight. His face began to glow. His own love of his subject took over. In a voice more suited to a cathedral, he said, "PR is one of the noblest pursuits of man!"
His audience was jolted. They stared at him wide-eyed.
Madison was off. His voice contained the caress of eulogy. "Public Relations is an art that FAR transcends mere painting and crass poetry."
The audience gawped.
"It is," crooned Madison, "the magic of telling people what to think and bludgeons them to change their minds."
A roustabout called out, "Now that's more like it, Do we hit soft to stun or hard to kill?"
Madison smiled a beautiful smile. "You always hit to kill."
The gang buzzed and nodded. "Got it," came from many voices. Then someone in an aside to his neighbor confided loudly, "That's what his Lieutenant Flick said last night. He's a killer! One of the greatest murderers of all time!"
Everyone began to applaud, even the cooks at the door. Then they stood and chanted, "The chief! The chief! The chief!" Madison, an expert at timing and stage presence, knew when speeches should end. He bowed.
The tumult had died down as the people were now departing.
Madison became aware of something. No Flick. He called out, "Where is Lieutenant Flick?"
The driver footwoman said, "He's in bed. He didn't even touch me. I can't do my job. I think he's down in the mouth. Even suicidal."
Madison, in alarm, immediately passed through the halls to the apartment which had been appropriated by Flick.
The man was lying with his face to the wall. He appeared to be completely caved in. Madison had to shake him by the shoulder to get any response.
"What's the matter?" said Madison.
"Life is over," muttered Flick.
"Why?" said Madison.
Flick moaned, "Don't ever rob a man of his dreams. It's death."
Madison looked down at him. The lethargy was pronounced. He knew he couldn't live with him in this condition. He thought fast.
"Don't you have any other dreams?" he said.
Flick groaned and then at length turned over on his back. "Just one, but it's impossible. I shouldn't even think of it."
"Tell me," said Madison.
"It's a dream I get and then always have to abandon. It's to meet Hightee Heller in person." Then he groaned, "But she has billions of fans. I couldn't even force my way through such a crowd. I haven't even ever been able to afford a ticket to her personal appearances. So forget I even mentioned it. No, life is over for poor Flick." And he turned back to the wall with an awful, shuddering sigh.
Madison went over to the window. The mammoth dome of Homeview was gleaming in the late day sun. Something clicked inside his head.
Lombar was trying to find Heller. Madison also had to know.
The orderly outline of a plan began to form on the glass before his eyes in Old Century 10-point type.
1. On some off chance, Hightee Heller might know where Heller-Wister is. If so, she might be tricked into telling Madison.
2. If she doesn't know, then she might have lines she can use-unwittingly, of course-to get somebody to tell her.
3. He would have to have an excuse to see her often so she could spillthe information to him when she got it.
Then suddenly, the whole sheet jacked up and a banner, 22 point, all caps, seemed to flow across the glass:
BUILD THE IMAGE
BEFORE YOU FIT
HELLER TO IT!
"YOWEEE!" shouted Madison. He sprang into the air, he danced around the room. He knew EXACTLY how to go about it now!
"What the Hells is happening?" said Flick, afraid that Madison had gone crazy.
Madison came to the side of the bed. He put on his most sincere and earnest look. "Flick," he said, "if I introduce you to Hightee Heller in person, will you give up trying to pull off robberies?"
Flick stared at him. Then he saw from the sincere and earnest look that Madison wasn't joking. "I'd have to," said Flick. "If I met Hightee Heller in person, I couldn't pull off no more robberies. I'd be a changed man!"
"Good," said Madison. "It's a bargain, then. If I see that you meet her in person, the crimes we do from here on out are only the ones that I order. Agreed?"
Flick nodded numbly, not daring to hope.
"All right," said Madison. "Get up and get dressed. We've got work to do!"
Madison rushed out, ecstatic with his plan.
Oh, he was really on his way now! The smell of eventual victory was in the very air! He could REALLY get on with his job with Heller!
Chapter 6
The first thing Madison did was get from Flick the name of a certain type of crooked jeweler.
Flick and his footwoman got into the Model 99. Madison sprang into the back.
They flashed out of the hangar and sped across the sky, Slum City a vast smudge and sprawl in the distance, growing larger.
"I know this fellow personally," said Flick as he drove. "He's from Calabar like me. But we ain't never been in the same line really. He's rich, I'm poor. I robbed houses. He received the goods from thieves who looted tombs. The world thinks he's respectable and I know what they think of me: I got caught and wound up in the Apparatus. He married a jeweler's daughter and wound up owning a 'legitimate business.'"
Shortly Flick pointed
out a square which looked to Madison like an island in the middle of a ghetto sea.
They landed and the Model 99 in all its glitter instantly attracted a swarm of tough-looking, hooting kids. Suddenly Madison was aware that this footwoman had other uses than being felt up. She was out of the car like a tiger. She had somehow gotten hold of a stinger. Her target was the biggest boy and he got the weapon in the teeth with a shower of sparks. He didn't get a chance to recoil more than a foot when the footwoman had him by the arm. In a sort of a whirling motion, she swung him-his feet left the ground-and like a scythe, used him to take out the whole front rank of hooters.
There was the departing rush of hasty feet. Into the dying echo of the screams, the footwoman thrust the stinger in the belt of her violet uniform and stepped to the door. She opened it with a bow. "Watch your step, sir. There's garbage."
If he hadn't seen the killer look when she sprang out of the airbus or heard the wild animal snarl of satisfaction when she used the stinger, he would have been completely taken in by the sweet and demure smile she now exhibited. She appeared to be the mildest and kindest person you would ever want to meet. Ah, he thought with pleasure, he had quite a crew! Totally deceptive!
Madison, immaculately attired, stepped around the garbage-which happened to be the unconscious body of the one she had used as a weapon-and, with Flick, made his way to the jewelry store.
And that is exactly what it seemed to be: a store that sold the cheap gewgaws displayed behind bulletproof, steel-barred windows.
An old man in a black cloth cap that had a light and an examination magnifier on it directed them through the back of the store and shortly they were in an opulent office quite at variance with the rest of the establishment.
A very greasy, overfed man came forward from an ivory table to greet them. His head was a squashed oval like Flick's: maybe the heavy gravity of Calabar did this to them!
"Flick, my cousin, I am so glad to see you are still out of jail. My, look at the violet uniform! Are you in the Palace Guards?"
"Cousin Baub," said Flick, "you got to meet my new chief, Madison. We're still in the Apparatus, but there's a difference."
"Well, Cousin Flick, I did hear the Apparatus had taken over the guarding of Palace City. But is your friend here safe?"
"He's a full-fledged criminal in disguise," said Flick. "I vouch for him."
"Well, all right. Sit down, my friends. But I must warn you that we're very too full stocked up, so if you've stolen something from the palaces, I can't give you much price."
"That's very good news," said Madison, and he took a seat. "You see, Baub, we are buyers, not sellers."
"Ho, ho, Cousin Flick. We HAVE moved up in the world!" said Baub.
"Mister Baub," said Madison, "I am sure that when you receive stolen gems, you recut them and remount them so they will not be quickly recognized."
"Yes, that's true. But good stones are of such size that their refraction indexes are known and we have to be very careful."
"Mister Baub," said Madison, "I know you are a man of discretion. I want an absolutely stunning stone in an absolutely stunning setting the like of which has never been seen before and WON'T be recognized."
"Aha!" said Baub. "You're talking about the 'Eye of the Goddess'!"
"If it has a name," said Madison, "it must have been known."
"Nope," said Baub. "It can't be known. Because I just this minute invented it."
Madison laughed with delight. Here was somebody he could do business with, almost in his own line.
"A few years ago," said Baub, "over on Calabar, where everything is very big, some thieves got into a very ancient, pre-Voltarian tomb. Up to that time the tomb had been unknown, but the thieves were not. Police were on their trail and caught them and the tomb contents were inventoried and added to the National Treasury. They had rounded up the thieves and had sent them en route to an interrogation center, but the air-coach crashed in an updraft that slammed it into a hundred-thousand-foot mountain range-things are big on Calabar-and that was that. One thief, however, right at the tomb, got away. The police never knew he existed." He looked at Flick. "That thief was me."
Baub sat back, nostalgia taking over. "Oh, them were the days. I had a whole bag of stones. They had never been recorded nor listed. One by one I spent them and had myself a marvelous misspent youth." He sighed. "But that was seventy years ago and youth has fled."
He got up and went into another room which seemed to have a complex array of vaults and returned carrying a small bag of silk which he laid on his desk, and resumed his seat.
"In that haul, there was one stone I never could get rid of. I never even dared show it. I couldn't say I had found it in a stream bed because it was already cut. And I warn you that the moment it appears on the market, questions will be asked, because it is too remarkable. If it fits your purposes, here it is."
He opened the bag by laying out its sides and there, blazing on the silk, was a jewel the size of an egg. Madison moved closer. He could not credit what he saw. He blinked.
"I don't know how the ancients did it," said Baub. "And I don't know if it is natural or artificial. But you are looking at an emerald totally enclosed in a diamond. The emerald is top color and has only one flaw. The diamond is a perfect blue-white. And I can't sell you this unless you can absolutely guarantee that where it came from can be totally explained by you."
"I can guarantee that," said Madison. "How would you mount it?"
"It's too big to be anything but a crown jewel or a pendant. Following my suddenly invented name, I'd say one might put it in an oval setting, the stone held in gold like open eyelids with strings of little diamond chips to look like eyelashes above and below, and we hang it on a broad chain of gold net. It's heavy, you know. Feel it."
Madison said, "Can you put it on the front of a net gold cap so it looks like it's in the middle of a forehead?"
"Wow," said Flick. "What a blazer that would be!"
"How long to make it up?" said Madison. "I want it fast."
"Oh, I could put the old man on it. Gold net is easy to weave. Two days."
"All right," said Madison. "Now what's the price?"
"Oh," said Baub, looking shifty, "it's a momento of my lost youth. Say a hundred thousand credits."
Madison translated it to dollars. There never had been a stone worth two million that he knew of. An actor named Richard Burton had given an actress named Liz Taylor one of the fanciest stones on Earth, and though he had only read about it, he thought it had only been about a million and a half. And he wasn't going to use any identoplate for this transaction. Too risky.
Flick, however, saved him. "Oh, Cousin Baub, I thought you were a friend. You know very well you've never been able to get rid of this, and here I bring you a customer and you drive him out of the shop with a club. You don't even have to give me the 10 percent I always get on purchases I make for him. We'll give you five thousand credits and that's the lot."
"I wouldn't dream of it," said Baub.
"Listen, Baub," said Flick. "I'm family. Remember?"
Baub sighed. "Not a credit less than thirty-five thousand! Plus the setting and cap."
"Thirty thousand with the setting and cap," said Flick.
"NO!" said Baub.
"Twenty thousand" said Flick.
"NO! NO!" cried Baub. "You just offered thirty thousand!"
"Bought," said Flick. "Give him the money, Chief."
Shortly afterwards, walking back to the airbus, still ably defended by the footwoman, Madison said, "I didn't know you got 10 percent of everything I spent!"
Flick said, "Runs me ragged going back to collect it. And I just saved you seventy thousand credits, so you see I'm worth it. But on this present deal, I'm not taking any commission. I won't do anything crooked on anything connected to Hightee Heller. She's sacred! 'Eye of the Goddess'-that suits her perfectly! Now I'm actually beginning to believe that I WILL get to meet her personally!"
&nbs
p; Madison grinned as he got in. "The Eye of the Goddess" wasn't all he had planned for Hightee Heller.
Chapter 7
Two days later, Madison was on his way to see High-tee Heller. Flick had barbered and bathed himself almost down to the bone. He had polished the Model 99 until, another criminal had said, the angels on its four corners screamed. He had sternly left the footwoman home. One would have thought he was engaged in the greatest adventure of his life: he kept bubbling.
Madison hoped that he himself looked all right. He missed being in a neat Earth lounge suit, his fighting uniform. He had chosen a steel-gray business tunic and pants, devoid of any ornament, but the very shimmer of it said it cost a fortune. The sleeves, being a pointed cuff, had worried him: they might brush things off tables unexpectedly. Accordingly, he had practiced for half an hour reaching for things. He had fluffed his hair, had put just a touch of glitter in it and then brushed it until it shone. He had practiced his most engaging and ingenuous smile before a mirror for over an hour.
But that was not all the preparation he had done. He had had the horror-story writer sweating for a whole day and a night. One of the reporters had been expelled from the Royal Academy of Art and could write a little poetry.
Madison's own musical background should have been extensive but was not. His mother had planned, when he was eight, that he should have a career as a concert pianist. He had been labored over by numerous teachers until he was twelve, at which time the last one, like his predecessors all had, found Madison playing ragtime when he should have been memorizing a concerto of an austere classic nature. The man had whipped him soundly. His mother wouldn't stand for that, the man had been fired out of hand and Madison had finished his musical career with a sore bottom. He only hoped he could remember enough not to make some awful, gauche slip. He would be talking to a very accomplished musician. Details, in such an extensive caper as this, were everything.
Mission: Earth Villainy Victorious Page 18
