Victim Prime

by Robert Sheckley

Philakis gave him a look that said, plain as day, “You’re blowing it.”

  “—not bad for cleaning floors, that is.”

  That broke them up.

  Harold disparaged course after course in words of scorn which he thought up in desperate haste beforehand in a desperate effort not to seem countrified. Some of his sallies were not bad—to call the green turtle soup a “fen of stagnant waters” was pretty good on short notice.

  Philakis took some of the pressure off him by breaking in every now and then to condemn the decor, the waiters, the service, the band, the owner, the owner’s wife, even the owner’s cocker spaniel.

  While this was going on, the Huntworld Show Bullies—four beefy men in two-piece swim suits carrying baseball bats—demolished the place, all except the corner where Harold was finishing the crêpes Suzette, which he characterized as sweet cold soup over a thin flapjack, just barely good enough for hogs.

  To end it off, everyone gave Harold a nice round of applause when he spat out the espresso.

  At last, when there was nothing left to eat or destroy, Gordon Philakis draped his arm affectionately over the owner’s shoulder and told him he’d been a real good sport. The studio would of course pay for all the damage. And as a reward for being so nice about it, Gordon Philakis presented him with a box seat for the Huntworld Games.

  “And thank you, too, Harold,” he said, “for having been a real good sport and getting right into the spirit of things. We look forward to seeing you again soon, maybe with news of your first kill.”

  36

  Albani entered his house and threw his camel’s-hair coat across a chair with a violent gesture. Without looking up from the TV, Teresa asked, “So how did it go today?”

  “Disaster. We had the Victim dead to rights, and then that damned Gordon Philakis and his stupid Huntworld Show came along and interviewed Harold. We missed a perfect setup.”

  “Never mind, dear, you’ll kill next time.”

  “I hope so,” Albani said. “It might not be so easy next time.”

  “How do you think Harold is doing.”

  “Pretty well. I think he has at least one good kill in him. I hope so. We really need a good one.”

  “Would it improve our situation?” Teresa asked wistfully.

  “Frankly, it could do me a lot of good. Quite a few people are watching me on this one. There have been rumors—don’t try to tell me otherwise—that I’m starting to slip.”

  “How dare they!” Teresa said.

  “They cite the failure of my recent ambushes as an example of my failing powers of execution and judgment.”

  “You know,” Teresa said, “they just might have a point there. There was the matter of Jeffries.”

  Albani winced.

  “And your client before that. What was his name?”

  “Antonelli. Oh, God, don’t remind me.” Albani took off his jacket and loosened his tie. “Antonelli. A really generous guy. I wanted to make it extra nice for him. I had his kill all lined up. A sixteen-year-old girl, can you imagine? A virgin! That is to say, out on her first Hunt.”

  “Children these days will do anything,” Teresa said.

  “It was so simple. Antonelli had her lined up. All he had to do was squeeze the trigger. But he paused, the bloody sybarite. Had her dead in his sights and he stopped, tasting the kill. It’s true that the girl had next to nothing on. Antonelli thought he was safe. No weapon in sight. She had counted on his response. It gave her that split second she needed in order to strangle him with her constricting hair net.”

  “I can’t imagine how she got a permit for a weapon like that,” Teresa said.

  “That’s not important,” Albani said. “What’s important is that I didn’t figure it out beforehand. It’s another blot on my record. Teresa, do you think I’m slipping?”

  “It’s not your fault,” Teresa said. “What you have to do is keep your mind on business. Has he got a chance, this Harold?”

  “Who knows? Who cares?” Albani said, waving his arms dramatically. “No, he doesn’t stand a bloody chance in hell. But he has to win. I have to arrange it somehow. Because everything is riding on this. That’s more important than someone’s stupid life, isn’t it?”

  “My dear, I’m sure it is. But you’ll think of something. Now come to dinner.”

  37

  Back at his apartment, Louvaine thought long and deeply. It was really a pity he had missed this chance at getting Harold. Jacinth came in, saw him hunched over his planning table, changed her clothes, and went out again. Night came. Louvaine made himself a light dinner of poached lobster tails on toast points.

  Later, Souzer came over, poured himself a drink, sat down in a chrome-and-leather sling chair, and waited for Louvaine to notice him.

  Presently Louvaine stirred. He went to his writing desk, found his address book, flipped through it, came to an entry, pursed his lips, nodded.

  “Souzer,” he said.

  “Yes, boss?”

  “You know Horton Foote, don’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you know where to find him? Right now, I mean?”

  “He’s probably down in Clancy’s Bar near the Trocadero, drinking and feeling sorry for himself.”

  “I want you to go out and bring him to me. Immediately.”

  “Sure, boss. But you know that Foote is bad news. He’s also about the worst enemy you’ve got on this island.”

  “That’s what makes him so perfect,” Louvaine said.

  “I see,” Souzer said. He didn’t, but there was no sense asking. The boss liked to keep his little secrets.

  He started to the door. Louvaine said, “Oh, and one thing more.”

  Souzer paused at the door. “Yes, boss?”

  “On your way down, tell the doorman to have them gas up my car. Not the Buick, the Mercedes.”

  Souzer wanted to ask what the plan was, but he knew better. Louvaine would tell him when he wanted to. He went out.

  Louvaine spent the next hour on the phone, calling friends all over the city. He had just finished the last, an hour later, when Foote arrived.

  Foote was a little man in his late thirties with a brown seamed face. He was wearing a soiled white suit, snap-brim fedora, and open-weave sandals.

  “Take a seat,” Louvaine said. “Help yourself to a drink. You’re probably wondering why I asked you here.”

  “That’s the only reason I came,” Foote said. He helped himself to Louvaine’s best bourbon.

  “I know that you hate me,” Louvaine said. “You think I killed your brother unfairly in a Hunt some time ago. Isn’t that right?”

  “Well? Didn’t you?”

  “Just between us,” Louvaine said, “yes, I did.”

  Foote was caught without an immediate answer to this. He nodded and said, “Well, I thought so.” He wished he could get angry.

  “You weren’t too fond of your brother, as I recall it,” Louvaine said.

  “I hated the son of a bitch and wished him dead!” Foote cried passionately. “But what has that got to do with it? I can’t let people go around knocking over members of my family. How do you think it looks?”

  “Well,” Louvaine said, “I’ve asked you here now in order to make it up to you.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?” Foote sneered.

  “Through satisfying two of your greatest loves.”

  “And what are they?”

  “Well, one is money.”

  “Money,” Foote said, and the sound of the word was like honey in his mouth. “Are you proposing to give me money?” His expression had brightened considerably.

  “Certainly not,” Louvaine said. “That would be demeaning for you.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would,” Foote said sadly.

  “What I propose is to let you work for it.”

  “Oh,” said Foote, still disappointed.

  “But you’ll be working at your second-greatest love.”

  “Which is
?”

  “Treachery.”

  Foote leaned back in his chair. Life was not hopeless after all. There were some days when things seemed to break in your favor and good luck came from what had previously seemed the most unlikely source.

  “How well you know me!” Foote said.

  “You really need treachery, don’t you?” Louvaine said. “You need it for your everyday existence. Otherwise you don’t feel right.”

  “It’s insightful of you to realize that,” Foote said. “My psychiatrist says I need a steady diet of treachery in order to maintain my emotional stability. He said cold-blooded murder would be good for me, too, but I vetoed that—a man could get killed trying that sort of thing. No offense meant; to each his own.”

  “And none taken,” Louvaine said. “I’m proposing to pay you five thousand dollars to do something you’ll find quite enjoyable.”

  “Make it ten,” Foote said, “and I’ll enjoy it even more.”

  “We’ll close at seven five,” Louvaine said, “because we’re old friends underneath all the hate. Eh?”

  “Done,” Foote said. “Who do I betray? Or is it whom?”

  “One of your friends, Michelangelo Albani.”

  “Albani!” Foote said. “But he and I are really close. To betray him would be really bad.”

  “Well, so what?” Louvaine said. “That’s what treachery’s all about, isn’t it?”

  “I guess it is,” Foote said. “You have a clear way of looking at things, Louvaine.”

  Louvaine shrugged modestly and outlined what he had in mind.

  Foote nodded, then had a last-minute qualm. “This could be very bad for Albani. If he fails this time he could go into bankruptcy. You know what that means?”

  “The alternative, let me point out, is that his client, Harold, kills me, thus giving Albani the bonus and the publicity he so badly needs. Would it really bother you so much if Albani went bankrupt?”

  Foote considered. “Actually, with Albani sent away as a government slave, I’d have a chance of getting Teresa. Have you seen her, Louvaine? He always leaves her at home, the sly dog. She’s the cutest thing—”

  Louvaine cut him off with an impatient wave of a manicured hand. “I didn’t ask you here to discuss dating. We are discussing money and treachery.”

  “Well, I’m your man. How do you want me to proceed?”

  Louvaine went to the wall where his awards and prizes were displayed in glass and silver frames. He removed one, took out the paper within and gave it to Foote, then replaced the empty frame.

  “You know what this is, don’t you?”

  “It’s a Treachery Card. I’ve never actually held one before, but I know what it is.”

  “Listen carefully. Here’s what I want you to do.”

  38

  Early the next morning, Albani learned through his sources that Louvaine had taken his big armored Mercedes, collected a few congenial friends, and gone out to his villa in the Esmeraldan countryside to give a pre-Saturnalia party. Albani called the Spotters’ Information Service and had them send over by messenger a set of plans for the villa and a map of the surrounding countryside. As he had feared, Louvaine’s villa was well and thoroughly guarded.

  He was considering this when the phone rang and one of his informants called in with interesting news. It seemed that one of Albani’s friends, Horton Foote, had somehow acquired a Treachery Card and was willing to sell it.

  A Treachery Card! That was the break Albani had been waiting for.

  Albani tried to telephone Foote, but the man’s service had been disconnected. Next he telephoned several of his associates. According to one, Foote had been seen hanging around the zoo, a morose figure in the long black raincoat he wore on occasions of utter dejection. Albani’s informant said that Foote had given the impression of a man so depressed he would feed himself to the lions except that he dreaded the chagrin he would feel when the beasts rejected him. Another informant had seen Foote leaning against a bollard on the Southside docks, staring at the flotsam that he was no doubt contemplating becoming a part of.

  * * *

  “He sounds in pretty bad shape,” Albani said to Harold over lunch. “He sounds suicidal, and that’s good for us. We ought to get that card for a good price.”

  “I don’t understand,” Harold said. “What’s a Treachery Card?”

  “It’s something the government issues from time to time on a random basis. With a Treachery Card, you can get anyone to go against his basic loyalties. It’s the key to getting into Louvaine’s villa without Louvaine learning about it.”

  “And then?” Harold asked.

  “And then you blow him away, of course.” He looked at his watch. “Three o’clock already? We’re going to have to hurry. The party is tonight. According to my information, Louvaine will be returning to the city in the morning to get ready for Saturnalia. You have to get to his villa tonight in order to catch him by surprise. If we miss this chance, things might get awkward.”

  “All right,” Harold said. “I’m ready.”

  “First we have to find Horton Foote. We’ll split up. I’ll see if he’s still at the zoo. You look for him at the Southside docks. As soon as we have that card, we go out and finish Louvaine off.”

  39

  Albani was in a foul mood as he got behind the wheel of his white Lamborghini and set off in the direction of the zoo. He was more than a little depressed. He suspected that he had done it again— bet on a loser, staked his remaining credibility on an idiot who didn’t know enough to be scared and couldn’t move fast enough when an opportunity presented itself.

  It was true that newcomers to the Hunt often did surprisingly well against experienced Hunters. Something about Esmeralda’s perennial atmosphere of risk tended to habituate longtime Hunters to the ever present peril. They got careless.

  But Louvaine, despite appearances to the contrary, was wary and ingenious. One of his early kills had been a masterpiece of its kind. Disguised as a surgeon, he had shot down his sad-eyed Latvian Victim inside the operating room at the Sisters of Mercy Hospital before the white-sheeted man could open fire with his double-barreled prosthetic. What could Harold do that would come up to that? It was probably too much to expect a really stylish kill from a hayseed. But if he got that Treachery Card he would still have a chance.

  So intently had Albani been thinking about his problems that he had been driving automatically, paying only the most cursory attention to the traffic signs. He realized his mistake when a siren sounded behind him. He pulled to the curb and a police car pulled in behind him. A policeman got out. He wore a pressed khaki uniform, polished black boots, sunglasses, and a Sam Browne belt from which dangled two holstered .44 magnums.

  “Going a little slow back there, weren’t you?” the cop said with deceptive mildness. “Didn’t you read the roadsign?”

  “Yes, officer,” Albani said. “It said ‘Dangerous curve ahead—speed up.’ And I was going to speed up, but my foot slipped off the pedal and the brakes locked. It could happen to anyone.”

  “I’ve been watching you,” the policeman said. “You’ve been going ten miles under the speed limit all through the city. Whatsamatter, you trying to make fun of our reckless-driving law?”

  “Certainly not! said Albani. “I’m one of the wildest drivers on this island.”

  The cop gave him a fishy look; he had heard it all before. He walked around Albani’s car checking for violations. It was Albani’s bad luck that he hadn’t been maintaining his car in approved Esmeraldan fashion. Now the cop found that all his lights and blinkers were working, in open violation of the Unsafe Driving Act.

  “That’s it,” the cop said. “I’m issuing you with a Reckless Driving Obligation.”

  Albani pleaded in vain as the cop fitted the special equipment to his car’s computerized operating panel. He begged for a postponement, even offered a sizable bribe. But it was his bad luck to have gotten his summons on a Bribeless Tuesday.
<
br />   When the equipment was in place the cop looked at him through the car window, making sure his seat belt was not in place.

  “Good luck, buddy,” he said. “It’s only a ten-minute fine and traffic’s not too heavy today.”

  The cop moved out of the way as the special equipment took over, slamming down Albani’s accelerator. The car took off in a screech and stink of burning rubber.

  Word of a Reckless Driving Obligation gets around fast. Cars, trucks, and buses ran themselves up onto the sidewalks. Pedestrians ducked into doorways and into car-raid shelters as Albani hurtled down the thoroughfare in his hot Lamborghini.

  He managed to hang a screaming left turn onto the main highway out of the city. Acceleration pressed him back in his seat as he cut in and out of traffic. The wobble command kicked in, sending him fishtailing across the highway, into a field, and back onto a secondary road. Albani wrestled the steering wheel like a man trying to subdue a python, stabbing intermittently at the brakes, trying not to burn them out.

  The climax came when he saw, a hundred yards ahead of him, a traffic jam snarling up all the available roadway. Albani threw the car into a four-wheel drift and closed his eyes.

  At that moment his Obligation elapsed and the accelerator pedal popped up. Quickly Albani pressed the parachute release, an emergency measure with which all cars in Esmeralda were equipped. He slewed to a stop a few feet from a crowded traffic intersection.

  He was able then to proceed to the zoo at a sedate pace. As a reward for having survived the Reckless Driving Obligation, drivers were granted twenty four hours of the most outlandish safety driving they cared to attempt. In Albani’s case, it was twenty miles an hour all the way.

  At the zoo an attendant thought for a long time and then, upon receipt of a crisp five-dollar bill, remembered a man who looked just like Horton Foote and had spent a long time watching the baboons. The guy had left half an hour ago.

  40