Deathwish World

by Mack Reynolds

  “Yeah,” Roy said in resignation. “From now on, we’ve got to assume that anything that could possibly kill us, will.” Mary Ann glanced over at him, her eyes sad, but she said nothing.

  Roy glanced at his diminutive manager. “What was that about you asking the IABI for protection? And about the guns? I didn’t know you’d requested gun permits for the boys.”

  “I haven’t,” Forry told him. “But it sounded good over the air. Bring home to the viewers the toughness of the spot you’re in. At that stage, it was just as well the IABI didn’t know where we were, even if they did want to guard us. They’re undoubtedly infiltrated by the Graf’s organization, and we’d have put ourselves on the spot. And asking for gun permits for them would have revealed the fact that Ron, Billy, Les, and Rick were lined up with you and that might have led to tracking us down. If the IABI denied we’d asked for protection, nobody would believe them.”

  “You’re quite a Machiavelli, Forry,” Ferd wheezed.

  Les had served them drinks and they settled back in satisfaction. They all felt the tensions of the past few days.

  Forry said, taking out the last pack of cigarettes he had bought in Nassau, “I hope that soapy manager can come up with tobacco as well. I’ll have to order that, too, before the night is out. That’s all I’d need, some doped cigarettes.”

  He looked over at Ron. “You know this place better than any of the rest of us. Go around and decide what rooms each of us should have. Give Roy the most strategically located one—you know, the one that’s furthest from both of the elevator and staircase.”

  Dick stood and walked over to the French windows that opened onto the hotel’s roof. There was an extensive garden, largely of potted plants, a swimming pool, a sun deck, tables, and folding chairs. He said, “What’s to prevent a chopper from settling down out there with a few of the Graf’s lads in it?”

  “Nothing,” Forry growled. “We’re going to have to post a full-time guard outside.”

  Dick turned and looked at him. “There’s only four of us.”

  Forry nodded. “I know.” He looked at Roy Cos. “We’re going to need another four of your Wobblies. Have you got four more like Ron, Les, Dick, and Billy?”

  The Wobbly national organizer sighed. “There aren’t as many of us as all that, you know, and we’re not all young, unattached, strongarm types. And probably a lot of the membership don’t even agree with what I’m doing.”

  “All right,” Forry said sourly. “But we need at least four more guards, preferably familiar with guns.”

  “Guns? What guns?” Dick said bitterly. “Just one of the Graf’s pros with a shooter could blow the asses off us all.”

  Forry looked at him. “By tomorrow we’ll have guns. You can buy anything in this country if you have enough credit, and as of tomorrow, we’ll be openly spending Roy’s million a day. As an old-time crime reporter, I have a few contacts. Gyrojets all right?”

  “Yes,” Dick said, happier now. “Both handguns and assault rifles.”

  Roy said, “I’ll get together with the boys and we’ll try and pick four more guards.” He turned to Mary Ann and Ferd and said, “How’d the broadcast go over?”

  Mary Ann said, “Well, good and bad.” She glanced over at Forry. “For one thing, his presentation isn’t too good. His appearance is, well, poor. A hero can’t be pale and dumpy.”

  Forry ran his eyes over the Wobbly organizer, who was grimacing, and nodded. “I should’ve thought of that. There’re injections these days that can darken his complexion, or we could use a sunlamp. And we can have him massaged and dieted down to the point where he doesn’t look so lardy.”

  “Hey,” Roy said in protest.

  They ignored him.

  “There’s another thing,” Ferd Feldmeyer said. “That first speech was good enough, perhaps. It summed up the Wobbly program. But we can’t just repeat it over and over again. We’ve got to have fresh material.”

  “Like what?” Dick asked, in rejection. “I thought it was swell. Gave the movement’s stand exactly. That’s the point of the whole thing.”

  The speechwriter shook his head. “You can’t just keep hitting the viewers over the head with a flat statement of what you want. You’ve got to come up with new, exciting stuff; something to keep them coming, wanting to listen in to future programs.”

  Ron said, “But we’ve got nothing else to say.”

  Ferd took another pull at his cognac. “Then we’ve gotta find some exciting details. Almost anything that’s a current issue, something they aren’t doing right under this so-called welfare state.

  “Take VD—various drugs have been developed up over the years to combat venereal diseases. First the sulfas. They were tremendously effective when first discovered, but in a few years, new strains of gonoccocci had developed that were immune to sulfa. Then the antibiotics like streptomycin came along, but the germs adapted to them and eventually thrived. Well, suppose we put our scientists to work on a whole series of new antibiotics. Then, on D-Day, everybody in the country would take the new antibiotic, whether or not they had ever had any venereal disease. Every man, woman, and child, including the president and Roman Catholic cardinals. Later, one of the other new antibiotics would be given everybody, to nail the germs missed that first time. And from then on, nobody would be allowed into the United States of the Americas until they’d had their antibiotics. This is a half-assed description of an idea some researcher wrote, and I may have some of it wrong. But I know smallpox was eradicated. I bet VD could be.”

  “Great,” Roy said, “but it has nothing to do with fundamental social change. It could be done under any system.”

  “But the thing is,” Ferd said patiently, “to get to the people, you’ve got to participate, take a strong stand on everything from pollution and depletion of natural resources to ending war, women’s rights, race problems, and all the rest. Your stand should sound more sensible than anybody else’s, or else more Godly. And you’ve got to sound off about it, louder and more insistently than anybody else. If you’re ever going to get a following, that’ll be how.”

  The identity screen on the door buzzed. Ron and Billy popped to their feet.

  “That’ll be the first load of food and guzzle,” Forry said. “You boys supervise it. Roy and I’ll go into our rooms so that nobody’ll recognize us.”

  “I’m going to bed anyway,” Roy said. “I’m bushed to hell and gone and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that tomorrow’ll be a busy day.” He paused and added in deprecation, “I’ve got a suspicion that the rest of my life is going to be a busy day.”

  It was a half-hour later that a knock came at Roy Cos’s bedroom door. He was lying on his back in bed in his pajamas, hands under his head, staring at the ceiling. Beside him, on the night table, was a drink he had brought from the living room. It was untouched.

  He looked at the door and said, “Come on in.”

  Mary Ann was clad in a simple white nightgown and sturdy bedroom slippers. She carried a half-empty bottle of Scotch. Her hair had been combed out and her face glowed as if freshly washed—or freshly made up.

  Roy said, his tired hazel eyes puzzled, “Hello, Mary Ann. Something up?” He came to one elbow.

  “That should be my question,” she smiled, and closed the door behind her. Her face had a flush which, Roy decided to his surprise, brought a wistful beauty to her ordinary plainness. Mary Ann Elwyn would never be thought of as a pretty girl but her femininity was there, now that she had discarded her brisk office efficiency.

  She brought her eyes up and to his and the flush deepened. “I thought you might be lonesome,” she said, her voice low.

  Roy stared at her. Plain, Mary Ann might be, but even the dreary nightclothes she wore couldn’t disguise the healthy womanly body. Her breasts were high, her waist taut, her legs surprisingly long. Roy hadn’t noticed those legs before. It seldom occurred to men to scrutinize the Mary Ann equipment.

  For a moment, he couldn’t
remember when last he had bedded a woman. It had probably been one of the Wobbly members.

  Roy said, after running a hand through his faded brown hair, “Sit down, Mary Ann.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed and again avoided his eyes.

  He said, “Look, there’s obviously no future in me. If we happen to get caught up emotionally—well, I won’t be able to feel grief.”

  She didn’t say anything to that.

  He said, an edge in his voice, “I don’t want charity, Mary Ann.”

  She looked up at him. “Then you’re a fool. I do, Roy. I’m lonesome, too.”

  He said quickly, “I’m not exactly the romantic type. I know what I look like, what I am. Those four boys guarding me are more nearly your own age. And they’re all good, healthy…”

  “Oh, shut up,” she said. She threw back the bedclothes and squirmed herself in beside him, after tossing her bathrobe to the foot of the bed and kicking off her slippers. “I’m not interested in boys. I’m interested in a loving man.” She flicked off the night table light. “And you’re the most loving man I’ve ever met, Roy Cos.”

  Chapter Fourteen: Frank Pinell

  Frank and Nat Fraser got off the metro at the Odeon Station and started up the street. As in practically all large cities these days, vehicular traffic in Paris was at a minimum though pedestrians and bicycles occupied the streets even at this time of night in Left Bank, still the home of artists and Sorbonne students.

  Nat Fraser looked over at his younger companion approvingly. He said, “Cobber, you look like a regular toff in those new duds. A little on the Frenchy side, gawdstrewth.”

  Frank snorted at the tall, gawky Australian. “They ought to look good, you ponied up enough credits to outfit me.”

  “Nothing’s too good for a cove working for the bloody Graf.” Nat looked up at a street sign. “Rue Monsieur Le Prince,” he read. “That’s it.”

  Frank said, “Who’s this Colonel Boris Rivas?”

  “Old-time mercenary. Mostly Africa and Near East. Last time I saw him was in Yemen. He had a contract there with some fifty commandos and a few hundred ragheads. Too bloody-minded by far for my liking, cobber. I was done on the bone but I did a bunk instead of joining up.”

  Frank frowned. “Now I really need a translation.”

  “I don’t go for finishing off women, kids, and old folks. Fair dinkum, I don’t. Rape, killing civilians, looting—old Boris gets his lollies out of it. Bad business. If the situation pickles, you might have to depend on those women and old coves. Hide you, feed you, if they’re lucky enough as to have anything to eat. Maybe nurse you, if you’ve copped one.” He looked up at a sign over the doorway of a dilapidated building that looked a good two centuries or more in age. Hotel Balcon.

  “This is it, cobber. Just follow me bloody lead. Rivas is competition to the Graf. This is his last bloody chance. He comes in with the mucking organization, or the barstid’s had it, and that’s the dinkum oil.”

  “You mean we, uh, shoot him?”

  The other grinned cheerfully. “More likely he’d shoot us first, cobber. But we’re here under a bloody flag of bloody truce. Let’s go.”

  The hotel lobby was no more impressive than the outside of the building. It had the odor of long decay. Its lone occupant was a bent old man behind the desk, obviously the concierge.

  “What room’s Rivas in, cobber?” the Aussie said.

  To Frank’s surprise, the old man spoke English. “Top floor. Room 505.”

  “Too right,” Nat said, and made a gesture with his head. “Get your arse out of here.” The old-timer studied the set of Nat’s jaw, then scooted out a door behind his desk.

  Frank looked at him in surprise.

  “He’s been paid,” Nat said, heading for the stairway. There was no elevator.

  The building was five stories high and Nat Fraser had obviously been in third-class French hotels before. At each landing he pushed a button in the wall which turned on a low wattage bulb just long enough for them to reach the next landing. The management of the Hotel Balcon did not waste electrical power.

  On the fifth floor, the pressing of the light button gave them just enough time to find room 505. Nat Fraser knocked on the door and the hall light flicked off before the portal opened.

  A huge black was there, almost as tall as the Australian and, if anything, broader of shoulder, deeper of chest. He was the blackest man Frank Pinell had ever seen—actually ebony in complexion—yet his face was more nearly European than Bantu. He was a beautiful physical specimen and his movements belied his size; he moved like a black leopard.

  Nat said, “The colonel is expecting us.”

  The black opened the door wide without change of expression. Room 505 turned out to be a small suite. Since doors were open, it could be seen that there were two bedchambers and a bath. The place was better furnished, more comfortable than would have been expected of the Hotel Balcon.

  The room they had entered was filled with chairs, a table, files, piles of papers, maps, and correspondence. Behind an old metal desk sat Colonel Boris Rivas. Rivas sat straight in his chair, his posture military. His face was dark and somewhat oily, so that he looked more like a Greek or Turk than a Frenchman. His black hair was streaked with gray and looked as though it could use a shampoo. He was on the brawny side, and wore his civilian clothing uncomfortably.

  His dark eyes gleamed dislike but he said, in passable English, “Sit down, Fraser.” He looked at Frank, sent his eyes over to Nat again, but then brought them back to Frank, whom he took in at greater length. “And who is this?” he demanded.

  Nat had taken one of the comfort chairs, crossing his long legs. Frank sat down in the other. The big black leaned against the wall and watched them, his face still expressionless.

  The Australian pushed his bush hat to the back of his head and said, “The arrangement was that there be two of us and two of you. Fair dinkum. This is Frank Pinell, one of the Graf’s newest boys. Frank, our cheeky cove behind the desk is Colonel Boris Rivas. Who bloody well promoted him to colonel, nobody seems to know.”

  “That’s enough provocative talk, Fraser,” the colonel snapped. “And this is Sergeant Sengor, long ago of the Senegalese Airborne Commandos, my right-hand man—and bodyguard.” The colonel brought his eyes back to Frank and said, “You wouldn’t be related to the late Buck Pinell, would you? There is a resemblance.”

  Frank wrinkled his forehead and said, “My father’s name was Willard.”

  “He was a mercenary?”

  Frank said uncomfortably, “Could be. I was very young when he died and I was told very little about him.”

  “If you’re the son of Buck Pinell, I’m surprised to see you in the employ of Brandenburg. Pinell was a man. The Graf is a wolf.”

  Nat said, “Cooee, who’s giving with the mucking provocative talk now?”

  Rivas ignored him. “I’ve always suspected that Graf Lothar von Brandenburg was responsible for Buck Pinell’s death.”

  “Pull your head in,” the big Australian growled. “A fine bloke you are to throw such narky nonsense around. You’re crazy as a kookaburra if you think the Graf did Buck in. They cobbered up with each other when they were both no older than joeys.” He looked over at Frank. “I never met Buck Pinell meself; before me time, gawdstrewth. But if he was your father, he was a wowser, from all they say.”

  The colonel hit his desk a double rap in impatience. “Shall we get on with it?” he said. “You contacted me for a meeting. Very well, what do you have to say? I warn you, I will not be intimidated by Brandenburg’s cheap threats.”

  Nat Fraser grinned at him. “The Graf wouldn’t spend his bloody time on a cheeky zany like you, Rivas. Peter Windsor sent us, strewth. The mucking message is simple enough for a dingo to get it through his block. The mercenary business is too bloody small for any competition. So Windsor says this is your last mucking chance. You and your whole bloody outfit are invited to join up with Mercenaries, Inco
rporated.”

  Boris Rivas’s dark face went darker still. He made little attempt to conceal his rage. “Or else?”

  “Windsor thought you’d know,” Nat said easily.

  “Fraser, you can take this message to that pig Windsor. I am in control of all contracts in this part of Common Europe. I shall continue to be. I am not afraid of the Graf. His organization hasn’t handled a sizeable mercenary operation for years. His contracts these days are almost all individual hit jobs which, of course, are more in keeping with his talents. Sergeant, see the gentlemen to the door!” Boris Rivas pushed out of his chair and made his way over to his improvised bar where he sloshed a sizeable drink into a highball glass, adding no mixer to it before knocking it back.

  Without speaking further to the French mercenary, Nat Fraser came to his feet and made a gesture with his head to Frank. “Let’s do a bunk, cobber. This bloody arse is asking for it, strike me blind if he isn’t.”

  The sergeant, his face still empty of expression, opened the door for them.

  When they were gone, the colonel, still in a rage, snarled to his guard, “We’ll see about Nat Fraser, the lickspittle. That Windsor scum has his gall sending two of his gunmen to try and intimidate me. Me! Why, I’ve seen more combat than Brandenburg and Windsor put together.”

  He sat down again at his desk and angrily dialed on his TV phone.

  When the face appeared, he snapped, in French now, “Captain Bois, get over here with as many of your lads as you can assemble within a few minutes, to man my hotel. The Graf has thrown down the gauntlet. We’ll have to confer. I’m getting in touch with Major Dupres and Captain Flaubert as well. There’s a possibility that we might have some trouble with that Australian swine, Fraser.”

  The face on the screen was that of a thin man, somewhat bucktoothed and now looking cautiously unhappy. “What did Fraser have to say? Dupres informed me that you were to meet with him.”