Heller entered.
Babe faced him with cold gray eyes, all six feet six of her expressing a wish to snap at him.
"And what have you got to say for yourself today, young man? Did you or did you not understand me when I said to knock off your God (bleeped) bad publicity? Now, don't interrupt. Not fifteen minutes ago, on that phone," she pointed, "in this," she pointed at the floor, "my own living room, I have had to listen to fifteen solid minutes of the mayor's wife concerning YOU!" She pointed. "Now, don't interrupt me. I know you have some lame, contemptible, God (bleeped) cock-and-bull story made up to account for THOSE!" And she pointed at a stack of morning New York papers. "The only thing that was good about it is that she has a cold and can't talk very long!
"Now, Jerome, this carousing around with criminal reporters must cease. And it must cease at once! Now, don't interrupt me. I know I have been busy. I know that I have not taken the time to work and slave like I should to bring you up properly. But that is NO excuse at all!
"Jerome, the very idea of going to court is NOT done! It is not done at all, Jerome! It exposes one to public ridicule. It costs one respect! And you have got to get the idea you should be respected!
"Jerome, you cannot keep running around with reporters and running off to courts! Courts are crooked, Jerome. They are not places you should be in! Now, don't interrupt!
"Jerome, this is very wearing and tiring on me. I know I have been neglectful. But Jerome, you don't sue people you don't like. You get a proper heater and you rub them out. Only weaklings and fools and idiots go rushing off to courts. You want justice, the only way you get justice is to buy yourself a proper rifle, learn how to shoot it and, with a proper telescopic sight..."
"Please!" cried Heller. "Please, can I interrupt?"
"No. What do you want?"
Heller was extending a packet to her. It was wrapped in silver paper and it had a black ribbon around it. "I have a present for you!"
She took it, somewhat softened, but she said, "It will do you no good at all to try to get out of it with some gingillo. No trinket could possibly compensate for what I have to put up, with on your account from the mayor's wife! I have exhausted my vocabulary trying to tell her you are just a good boy gone slightly wrong...."
"Open it!" said Heller in desperation.
"All right," she said frostily. "Just to please you and spoil you, I will open it."
She shook a stiletto out of a sleeve holster and used it to cut the black ribbon. She knifed off the silver paper. She opened it up.
She stared at it.
She turned it over to be sure there was no mistake.
She looked back at it. She looked at Heller, her eyes round.
"The passport of GUNSALMO SILVA!"
It dawned on her.
She rushed to Heller and threw her arms around him. "You KILLED him!"
"Not exactly," said Heller, kind of smothered. "He sort of blew himself up!"
"Oh, you DARLING BOY!"
She drew back. She looked at the passport again. Then she said, "YIPPEE!" and went whirling around the room in a twirl she must have learned on the chorus line.
Then she sank down in a chair. "Ave Maria, 'Holy Joe' is at last avenged!" She began to cry.
Then after a while she bashed at her eyes with some tissue and began to stab buttons.
Staff came pouring in, looking like she had rung a fire bell. She held up the passport.
"Gunsalmo Silva is dead!"
They cheered until I had to turn down my sound volume.
She went over and showed the passport to "Holy Joe's" portrait. She reeled off a volley of Italian, telling him the turncoat was dead and his soul could now rest in peace and promising a huge Mass as soon as she could.
Then she turned to her staff. "Quick, quick, get Jerome some milk and cookies!"
She made Heller sit down in her own favorite chair. They got him milk and cookies.
Babe was planning a party and a Mass.
Suddenly she remembered. "I'm sure he will have a funeral. Yes, we must plan for that. Silva's funeral. He had a brother and uncle. Now, what can we do for Silva's funeral? A big floral display. That's it. In the shape of a black dog. Georgio, make sure it is ordered. Oh, yes. I will attend also. And I will think of some way to get the mayor's wife to attend. Now, what will I wear? White and scarlet? Maybe just scarlet. A scarlet veil.... No, no, I must get a better idea than that! Georgio, call my dress designer. Order him to design the most festive thing he can think of for a funeral! Oh, will this put the mayor's wife in her place. She'll come in something dowdy. Oh, do have another cookie, Jerome."
Italians! It took two solid hours before they even began to settle down.
At last, the important phone calls had been made and probably it was ripping all through the vast east and west and international Corleone organization that "Holy Joe's" murderer was dead. And just when it looked like the excitement was over, somebody called to state that Silva was in the New York City morgue and that there wasn't a single bone in his body that remained unbroken and it all started up again and this fact chased the other the length and breadth of the Corleone empire around the world. Telegrams of congratulations began to flood in on their basement RCA and Western Union machines from as far away as New Zealand, from ships at sea and aircraft in flight.
The coils of printout began to mound up on the floor at Heller's feet, Babe reading aloud every message, eyes bright, with animated elocution.
At length, Heller said he had to get back to New York to make sure the cat was fed. But Babe made him stay. Cats could wait. Young boys, she knew, were always hungry and she stuffed him full of lunch.
After he got through his third plate of spaghetti, he said, "There's one more thing." He took out of his pocket a card I had seen him remove from Black Overcoat's wallet. I suspected that that was the major reason he had come to Babe's. "Can you tell me who this man is?" Babe read it. She frowned, thinking. "Inganno John Scroccone? I seem to have heard it. I can't remember where. Geovani!" And when he appeared, "Put this into the computer and see what you get."
Geovani came back from the basement. "He's the chief accountant of Faustino Narcotici, body lice on a louse."
"Jerome!" said Babe, shocked. She looked at him. "You are associating with the wrong people! Jerome, you must continue to be careful of your reputation."
I wondered for a moment why he didn't tell her he had killed the guy. And then I realized that Heller really hadn't told anybody anything at all.
With a shock, I became certain he knew he was being watched. He was afraid of being caught in a Code break. The grenade! That was why he couldn't and wouldn't tell even Bang-Bang how Silva had died. No grenades of such power and type existed on Earth. That would have to be it. Any normal man would have bragged and bragged about it. And he was being so close-mouthed it was even slopping over into not mentioning the other three hits!
"Jerome," she said, "I faithfully promise to stop neglecting you. Blood will tell and you proved that today. But upbringing has a lot to do with it, too. Now, as a good mother, I should pay more attention to your vital needs and of course resist temptation firmly not to spoil you at the same time. You are so accustomed to my shameful neglect that you were even going to leave here, unfed, and continue to run about in rags like some street urchin."
She got out a pen and poised it over the snowy linen tablecloth. "Now, first, of course, you need a brand-new wardrobe." She wrote that down. "And then a string of polo ponies—that encourages you to be a gentleman when you hit other boys over the head with a mallet. Yes, definitely polo ponies." She wrote that down. She thought a bit.
Heller would have spoken but she sensed it and shushed him with a hand gesture. "Oh, it's wintertime. You will need some new ice skates." She wrote that down. "And then, of course, it will soon be spring. So you will need a new baseball bat."
Heller would have spoken again but this time she shushed him directly. "No, no more racing cars. Not on
e, Jerome. You may think this is harsh but my ears cannot possibly stand to hear one more word about racing from the mayor's wife!"
She thought for a bit. "I was going to add the old Capone villa in Miami Beach but you're getting that for Christmas and I want to keep it as a surprise. Part of being a good mother is not to spoil a boy all at once."
She checked her list to see that she had everything down. She said, "Good." She drew a big circle around the notes on the tablecloth. "That settles it. Now, with your new wardrobe, you'll have to have something very quickly for the Silva funeral.... A red tuxedo and cape. Yes, that will do. It won't clash with my gown. Here, have some more cookies, Jerome."
A faint honking had been going on, from out in the street. Babe suddenly yelled, "Geovani! What the hell is all that honking out there?"
Geovani popped in. "It's a New York taxi. He says he's been waiting for the kid here for three hours."
"Well, blood of Christ, pay the (bleepard) off! You think I'd send Jerome back to town in a public cab? Tell Battitore to get out my limousine! You think my own son is some kind of a bum? And you tell that Battitore to get the back seat nice and warm. You want Jerome to catch cold?" She turned to Heller. "Now, what were we talking about? Oh, yes. An increase in allowance..."
That was too much! Outraged at all this attention and adulation Heller was getting, I turned off the viewer and hid it from my sight. There is a point where even masochism pales.
I thought I'd better see what the radio and TV had to say about this "mighty deed" he was bragging to everybody about. I listened to several news broadcasts. Aha! Not a mention of it!
I stretched my credit with the news vendor and got the afternoon papers. There had been nothing in the morning papers. But in one afternoon one there was a little notice wedged in amongst the latest fashions. It said:
MIDTOWN CONTEMPORARY GARB
A body identified as that of one Gunsalmo Silva by dental plates and fingerprints, was found in the small hours of last night on Fifth Avenue, apparently having fallen from the Baltman and Company roof. Silva was clothed in what had apparently been a woman's black dress. One wonders if this is the latest fashion trend now emerging.
That put things in their proper perspective. The newspapers never lie. They always tell the exact truth in things of this kind, and things of all kinds, for that matter. The Rockecenters and Madisons take care of that!
I felt a little better. I was no longer twitching and I didn't have to keep my mouth tight to suppress the tiny screams which sought to issue from my throat.
My lot was very difficult. I was broke. Heller and some unknown had robbed me. Miss Pinch didn't have a clue as to how to be a petty-cash cashier.
Somehow, trembling, abandoned and alone, I would struggle further along the sadistic road of thorns some people laughingly call life.
Lacking a crystal ball, I thought no further shocks lurked ahead, at least today.
I was wrong!
PART THIRTY-TWO
Chapter 1
Sirens were sounding in the street. There seemed to be an awful commotion going on. Despite the cold, I went out on the terrace and looked down at Fifth Avenue.
Military vehicles! Drawing up around the hotel!
White-helmeted and -belted MPs leaping out to set up a machine gun on the corner!
I drew back. A movement on a nearby building caught my eye.
Snipers in white helmets and belts!
They were laying their weapons directly at this terrace!
My Gods, I gasped—the U.S. Army has discovered I'm an extraterrestrial! They've got me trapped! They're closing in!
I hastily withdrew inside the penthouse.
A thundering on the door!
I'm dead!
Bravely, as one walks the last mile, bare-chested to the bullets, already in so low a state I did not care whether I lived or died, I threw the door open.
It was a bellhop.
His face was chalk white.
"Is a Mr. Inkswitch in?" he said.
Life without money wasn't worth living anyway. "Why not?" I said.
Crash!
Out of the stairwell, out from around the potted palms, out of the elevator, came MPs with assault rifles, running low.
They knocked the bellhop aside like he was a rag doll!
They burst past me!
They overturned the chairs, smashing them!
They yanked open closet and bathroom doors, leaping back with rifles pointing in case anyone came out.
They fired short bursts into mattresses!
They jabbed their rifles into clothes.
They raced out on the terrace with a crash of potted palms and took positions commanding the surrounding terrain.
An officer stood firmly before me. He was backed up with two MPs who had their Colt .45s on me. He gave a signal. An MP began to shake me down. He got my wallet. He handed it to the officer.
The officer looked at it. He held it to the light. He compared pictures. He gave another signal. A soldier grabbed my hand. He produced a pad and inked it. He got my fingerprints. He gave them snappily to the officer.
The officer compared them to a card he had.
In a cavalry voice, he shouted, "FOHwud, HO-o!"
There was a roar and rattle.
A cart of equipment was rushed in, the cannon wheels rumbling on the carpet and tearing it to bits. Three men were pushing it. They stopped it in the center of the room. One of them rushed out on the terrace and held up a chromium-plated pole.
Another officer came in. He knelt by the cart. He picked up an instrument. He barked into it and waited tensely.
The pause gave me an instant to read their uniform badges:
U.S. Army Signal Corps
The officer at the cart said to me, "This is ultra-secret. You could be shot for disclosing that you have seen a satellite-enscrambled decode-recode. Not even the Russians know we have it. Do you swear you have not seen it?"
I raised my inked-up hand and swore.
"Good," he said, "here is your party." He handed me the instrument.
A voice said, "Alo. Kto eta gavarit?"
I handed the instrument back to the Signal Corps officer. "Don't you have the wrong number? I think he just asked me who was speaking in Russian."
"(Bleep)!" said the officer. He got on the line again. He talked very fast and hard. Once more he handed me the phone.
A voice said, "!Diga! ?Con quien hablo?"
I tried to hand the instrument back to the officer. "Somebody just answered me in Spanish. I think he wanted to know who he was speaking to."
"No, no," said the officer. "You've got the right party."
I put the instrument back to my ear. The voice repeated, "?Con quien hablo?"
"Inkswitch," I said.
"Ah. Espere un momento, por favor." So I waited a moment. It was more than a moment, but that's how the Spanish are. Funny, though. I didn't know enough Spanish to spot accents but it sure wasn't Spain Spanish. A lilting sort of speech like he was singing. Cuban?
"Well, that sure took them long enough!" Voice on the phone. New England twang. Bury!
"Where are you?" I gasped.
"Central America," said Bury. "Somebody killed the Director of the CIA and there was an outbreak of peace down here. I had to fly in to review treaties to see which ones could be broken. It's not too bad, though. They really have some great snakes down here. You ought to see them! But that isn't what I called you about. The matter is pretty high security so I had to bypass the National Security Agency. Besides, there aren't any phones in the jungle here. Is the U.S. Army Signal Corps still in the room, there?"
"Yes," I said.
"Well, tell them to move out of earshot. This is highly classified stuff."
I told them and they went out onto the terrace and into the hall, guns drawn and ready to defend their equipment in case of attack.
"The area is clear," I said.
"All right," said Bury. "I got a call
about an hour, ago on the facsimile satellite hookup. He was on personally. You know who I'm talking about."
Yes, I certainly did. I realized with alarm that Del-bert John Rockecenter himself had been through to Bury.
"Inkswitch," said Bury, "you've let Madison get out of hand! You-know-who is hopping mad!" I could hear him shaking newspapers at the phone. "Raving, Ink-switch, raving!"
I chilled. When Rockecenter raves, governments fall.
"He kind of got it wrong," said Bury. "He thought the news said the kid was setting up a rival oil company and was violating family policy by introducing competition. It's that Miss Peace: she reads him the papers and she can't spell. So Madison has got it all screwed up. That kid is his client, not Octopus. Madison is out of his field, getting into legal. Justice mustn't be allowed to get out of hand. I know, I'm a lawyer. And that's the real catastrophe in this. We can live with most of this but one item in it really needs to be objected to and no overrule! And this is the real reason you've got to get Madison under control, Inkswitch. Have I got your full attention?"
I told him he surely had.
"Inkswitch, right there in the same news story, he committed a felony. He mentioned Swindle and Crouch along with Boggle, Gouge and Hound. Listen, Ink-switch: Boggle, Gouge and Hound are a bunch of cheap ambulance-chasers, and even whispering Swindle and Crouch in the same news story could ruin our reputation. It's a clear-cut case of attempted manslaughter. Madison has gone too far! It's pretty serious, Inkswitch. That's the real reason this call has got to be so secret. Do you grasp the need for a tight, unviolated lawyer-client relationship here?"
I said that I did.
Bury said, "Now, I can't call Madison. He'd just plead the Fifth. So you have to handle Madison. If you don't, we're liable to get a summary judgment with no reprieve. Got it?"
I said I certainly did.
Bury said, "Good. Is there anything else on the docket?"
"Well, yes," I said. "They changed cashiers and I can't get paid."
An Alien Affair Page 12
