Black Genesis

Chapter 1

In the room, Mary Schmeck was still restlessly asleep. Heller threw his loot down on his bed. He lifted his two suitcases up on a long bureau, side by side, and unfastened the straps.

I was going to get a look at their contents! Maybe the platen was right on top!

Foolish hope. There were no rocks but there sure was a wild medley of little tubes and boxes and coils of wire. What a junk heap!

Heller got out a small tool case and two small vials. He picked up the two obsolete Nikon cameras and put them on a table. He inspected the edge of a label, then put some drops under the edge and the gold and black NIKON lifted right off! He did the other one.

Then he took two small cases from the grips and opened them. The time-sights! Both of them! Indeed, the tug was planet bound! I knew the Apparatus could never pry another one out of the Fleet!

From the second vial he took a bit of what must be glue and put it on the label backs and in a moment, glaring on the side of each time-sight was NIKON.

They looked now like two Super 8 motion-picture cameras!

He put them back in their small cases and back into the grip. He threw in the two obsolete ones as well.

Then he got out the candy he had made on the ship. The wrappers were a bit different but not remarkably so.

He had what must be three pounds of it! He mixed it into the other candy sacks and then started packing the bags all through the other grip. Very unneatly, too.

Then he packed the broken fishing rods and reels hit or miss through everything. He added the tangles of line in snarls and coils in and over the other contents. Then he took the bass plugs and the weights and began to jam them in anywhere and everywhere.

What a MESS!

And I thought Fleet guys were always so neat!

He had to let the suitcase straps out to accommodate all the extra. He neated up the athletic carry-all and he was ready.

He had picked up a sweet roll, a container of milk and another of coffee while I was in my other room praying. He gently tried to wake up Mary Schmeck. She fought him off, trying to go back to sleep. I could see her pupils were contracted. She wanted nothing to do with the roll or the milk or coffee.

“We’ve got to leave,” said Heller.

This got to her. “Washington,” she said.

“Yes, we’ll be going through Washington, D.C.,” Heller replied.

She muttered, “There’s sure to be some junk in Washington. There always is. It’s full of it. Get me there, for Christ’s sakes.” She tried to get up. Then she screamed, “Oh, my God! My legs!” They were drawing up in knots. She fell back whimpering.

He picked up all the luggage, went out and put it in the back seat. Then he returned and carried Mary Schmeck out and put her in the front seat. He laid her shoes on the floorboards. He put the milk, coffee and the roll in the drink tray.

He had the key in his hand and didn’t know what to do with it, didn’t realize you just left it in the door and slipped away. There was a cleaning woman, an old black woman, coming out of the room next door.

Oh, my Gods! He walked up to her and handed her the key! Drawing attention to himself. You NEVER do that! And then he compounded the felony. He said, “You know what road to take to Washington?”

She had not only seen him now, she knew where he was going! And the first thing police do when they’re searching for a criminal is check the motels! She said, “You jus’ follah Yew S. 29. Charlottesville, Culpeper, Arlington and cross the Potomac and there you is. Mah sister, she lives in Washington and I don’t know what the hell I’m doin’ down heah in Virginia wheah we is still slaves!” I thought to myself, I doubt she’d dare say that to an adult Virginian. Slavery has its points! I almost drifted off thinking about Utanc and then something else happened that recalled me firmly and nervously to duty.

Heller backed out the car, leaned out the window and said, “Thank you, miss, foh a very nahce stay.” And the woman smiled, stood there leaning on the broom and in a moment I could see, in the rearview mirror, that she was staring after the car. And more. I saw the newspaper which hid the license plate blowing off in the car’s wake. For sure she would remember that car. (Bleep) Heller!

No, no, I mustn’t (bleep) him! I must pray he would get through!

He had no trouble whatever in finding U.S. 29 to Charlottesville. He tooled along the four-lane through the lovely Virginia morning, admiring the view. The Cadillac was purring, surprisingly smooth, especially on this smooth road.

It was promising to be a very hot August day and he began to fool with the air conditioning. He set it at seventy-three degrees on the dial, got it functioning on automatic and after a bit, when apparently the hot air had blown out of the car, closed the windows. It was amazingly quiet!

A white board fence fled by. A big sign:

Beyond it were some animals in the field, leaping and prancing about. Apparently he added something up. He laughed. “So those are horses!” Then for some idiotic reason, he patted the Cadillac panel ledge. He said, “Never mind, you chemical-engine Cadillac Brougham Coupe d’Elegance. I like you even if you don’t have any of those things under your hood.”

I will never understand Fleet guys. Compared to a Voltar airbus, an Earth vehicle is a farce. And he knew it! Then I had it. Toys. Anything was a toy to Fleet officers, from landing craft to battleships to planets. They just have no respect for force! No. Then I really had it: fetish worship.

He found he could drive with one knee and leaned back, arms spread out along the top of the seat. It made me nervous until I realized I was 105 degrees of longitude away.

But another shock was in store. He glanced at the speedometer and it was doing SIXTY-FIVE! The speed limit is fifty-five and all those roads have signs that say they are radar patrolled!

I saw he was not driving by the speedometer: he was running with the traffic — some big trucks and passenger cars — and by and large was doing sixty-five. But cops love to pick one car out of such a clump and arrest it. I went and got some more sira.

He got through Charlottesville all right. And then Mary Schmeck, who had been in a twitchy, comatose state, woke up.

“Oh, I feel awful!” she moaned. “My legs are killing me! I ache in every joint!” She was thrashing about, obviously in a bad state. “How far are we from Washington?”

“We’re almost to Culpeper,” he said.

“Oh,” she moaned. “It’s still a long way yet!”

“Only about an hour,” said Heller.

“Jesus, I hurt! Turn on some music. Maybe it will redirect my focus intensity.”

Heller fiddled with the radio and finally got some jazz. A song came on:

Mary moaned, “Oh, my legs!”

“Oh, my God,” said Mary.

“Turn that off!” Mary shrieked.

Heller turned it off. I was very sorry he did so. It was the first pleasant thing I had heard for days!

Mary was covered with goose pimples. “I’m freezing!” she cried out, writhing.

Heller quickly turned the thermostat up to eighty.

Long before it could have warmed up, Mary said, “I’m roasting hot!”

Heller turned the thermostat down again.

She kept it up, thrashing about. It was obvious to me what was wrong with her. She was in the third stage of withdrawal symptoms. People sure do complain about them.

“I can’t get my breath,” she was panting now. Well, that’s normal, too, for somebody who has a bad heart. But still, respiratory failure is the usual cause of death in morphine addiction and it would be no different for its derivative, heroin. The lung muscles cease to function. And in her case, since she’d been complaining of a bad heart, I wondered idly whether she would die in the car or in the next motel.

Then it was I who almost had respiratory failure. What if Heller had a dead prostitute dope addict on his hands! With his assumed name!

Oh, Gods! He’d be front page in every tabloid dirt sheet in America! And what Rockecenter would do was awful!

I couldn’t count on Heller to do the right thing. In espionage, he simply would have known enough to haul up out of sight and dump her in a ditch and leave her quick. But no, here he was, doing the wrong things as usual! He was trying to help her!

They were through Culpeper. Suddenly, the girl said, “You got to find a toilet! Look, that service station ahead! Stop there! Quick!”

Fourth stage. The diarrhea had hit her!

Heller zoomed into an unfrequented service station and Mary was out of the car like a shot, racing to the women’s room. I prayed they wouldn’t stay there long, exposed to view from traffic.

Heller told the gawky country boy attendant to “fill up the chemical repository” and the lonely boy made out that Heller meant gas. The usually idle boy then figured out for himself that Heller’s early education had been neglected.

With careful instruction, Heller got taught to service the car: steering fluid, brake fluid, transmission fluid, correct radiator coolant, windshield wiper water with Windex in it, oil and the right and wrong kinds of oil, gas and the right and wrong kinds of gas. Apparently nobody in his whole life had ever listened to this country boy before and he really went flat out to educate a “younger Virginia kid,” even though he seemed disappointed to find that Heller hadn’t stolen the car.

The kid exhausted the subject of tires and then got bright. He said the car needed a grease job and the differential checked. He said it would only take a short while to grease it up. And onto the rack he drove it and up into the air the car went. Sure enough, the differential was half empty. And sure enough it needed grease and the airhose and greasegun pumped away. Heller marked where all the fittings were. And then he got worried about the girl and went to find her.

Mary was crumpled up on a toilet seat, passed out. Somehow, Heller roused her and got her to straighten herself up.

Then voices outside. Heller peeked through a window.

A cop car! Virginia State Police!

I turned up the gain. The cop was saying, “…man and a woman. They went up this road someplace last night.”

“What kind of a car?” said the gawky country boy.

The officer consulted his sheet. “Cadillac. Same color as that one you got on the rack.”

I went white. There went Heller and no platen!

“Could be that they passed when I was off shift,” said the country boy.

“Well, you let me know iff’n you do see’m, Bedford,” said the state policeman. “They’re wanted awful bad!”

“Always willin’ to oblige, Nathan,” said the gawky country boy. And when the cop drove off, going back down the road toward Culpeper, the boy added, “You cocky son of a (bleepch).”

He got the Cadillac down off the hoist and Heller came out, carrying Mary. He put her in the front seat.

The gawky country boy was all smiles. “I knew you stole it!” He looked Heller up and down admiringly. Then he said, “I was going to remove and grease the wheels but that can wait. I got an idea you better be goin’.”

The Cadillac had only taken ten gallons of gas. I was amazed. Then I realized it had just been a clever psychological ploy on the part of the girl to call it a gas hog.

The bill, in fact, was not all that great. And Heller paid it with a twenty-dollar tip. Count on Heller! He’d be broke soon which was another hurdle I’d have to cross. I couldn’t just have Raht or Terb walk up to him and hand him money. They must be somewhere on this road but I couldn’t contact them when they were moving.

Mary had to go to the can again and the boy instructed Heller how to wash windows: Never use a grease rag, only paper. Never use a wax glass cleaner. Amazing, he’d already been tipped!

Heller got the girl straightened out and back in the car once more.

“Next tahm you come by,” said the gawky country boy, “stop off and I’ll show you how to tune the engine.”

Heller really thanked him and when they drove away, there was the boy by the pump, waving. Heller blew the horn twice and they were on their way to Washington.

And Washington, I groaned to myself, was just about the most over-policed city in the world!

I wondered if I should start writing a will. I had several things: the gold coming, the hospital kickback due and Utanc. Trouble was, I’d nobody to leave them to.

I never felt more alone and prey to the winds of fate than I did as I watched the road through Heller’s eyes to Washington.

Chapter 2

Following the complex signs, Heller negotiated the various confusions the traffic departments of that area planned in order to prevent Americans from ever getting to their seat of government. He refused invitations to use State Highway 236, to go over to U.S. 66, to take State 123 and wind up in the Potomac River. He ignored directions to take U.S. 495 — which is really U.S. 95 and bypasses Washington entirely. He even defeated the conspiracy to confuse the public on U.S. 29 to believe they were on U.S. 50. He steadfastly rolled along on U.S. 29, even untangled the parkways alongside the Potomac River without winding up at the Pentagon — as most unsuspecting public do — and presently was rolling over the Memorial Bridge. A masterpiece of navigation that he shouldn’t be doing any part of!

The Potomac River was a beautiful blue. The bridge a beautiful white. The Lincoln Memorial at its end, an impressive piece of Greek architecture glowing white in the afternoon sun.

And Heller had trouble. Mary was flailing about to a point where it was almost impossible to drive. She was bending over with cramps. She was letting out small screams. She was striking out with her arms. And she was saying over and over, “Oh, God, my heart!” alternated with “Oh, Jesus, I’ve got to have a fix!” And neither prayer was getting any attention whatever from the deities of that planet.

Heller was watching her and trying to hold her down more than he was watching traffic. The giddy and foolhardy spin of cars and trucks around the Memorial circle may not disturb the calm majesty of Lincoln’s huge statue inside, but it is designed to shatter less immortal nerves.

It was evidently plain to him that the combination of Mary and the traffic was a lot too much to cope with just now. He spotted a turnoff into the park which lies to the southeast of the Lincoln Memorial itself.

It is a very beautiful park: an unfrequented road and a pleasant pedestrian walk stretch out beside the Potomac River, separated from it by a wide expanse of lawn. It is one of the most quiet and lovely spots in Washington. The only trouble with it is the CIA uses it to try out their agent recruits in hidden sleuthing!

I freaked! Heller was stopping! I mourned my fate to be handling somebody without the slightest training in espionage. He should have known that Voltar agents have orders never to go near that park!

He had seen the drinking fountains which are paced every few hundred feet along the walk. He had probably sensed the false peace imparted by the beautiful willow-like trees between the path and water’s edge. He may have been attracted by the abundance of parking places. It must have been a hot day in Washington but the lawns were deserted here.

He stopped. Mary was in a momentary coma. He got out and went to the drinking fountain. He had an empty paper coffee cup. He managed to figure out how you turned on the fountain and rinsed and filled the cup.

At the car, he said, “Maybe drinking some water would help.” And, indeed, he was right. Withdrawal brings on heavy dehydration. He wouldn’t know that but he could probably tell from her dry and swollen lips.

She managed to drink a little bit of the water. Then suddenly she turned sideways, got her feet on the ground and, still sitting on the car seat, began to vomit.

He held her head, speaking in a low, concerned voice, trying to soothe her.

In his peripheral vision I saw the side and saddle of a horse moving up the road.

Heller looked up. A mounted National Parks policeman went about fifty feet back of the car, stopped and turned his horse around. He sat there looking at Heller and the car.

I thought, well, Gris, you should have made out your will because here we go! Heller has had it!

The park policeman was fishing a hand radio out. He began to speak into it.

I hastily turned up the gain. “…I know I’m supposed to use numbers to report.” Someone on the other end, his traffic controller, must be giving him a hard time.

Mary was trying to vomit some more but didn’t have anything to throw up.

The park policeman was saying, “But there ain’t any code number for a bullet hole in a license plate!… All right! All right! So it’s 201, suspicious car!”

Mary couldn’t sit there anymore. Heller opened the back door and pushed some baggage around. Then he got Mary and moved her to the back seat.

“…Yeah,” the mounted cop was saying. “Kid and a woman in it. No, I don’t know who was driving. I didn’t see them until after they’d parked… No, hell! I’m not going to… I’m ALONE here! I’m just Park Police, not James Bond! They could be a CIA plant or something… No! Shots would scare my horse… Well, send the God (bleeped) squad car then!”

I prayed Heller would get the Hells out of there. But he was bathing her forehead with bits of cool water on his redstar engineer’s cloth. I was so agitated I didn’t even write it down as a possible Code break.

In no time at all, a D.C. squad car slinked up near the horse. Two D.C. cops got out and talked in whispers to the mounted patrolman. I could barely pick it up. All I caught was “…those are Virginia plates so phone them in for a check.”

One of the cops was on his radio. Then the two of them, wide apart, walked toward the Cadillac.

Twenty feet away, the nearest cop drew his gun. “You, there! Freeze!”

Heller stood up straight. I prayed, no, no, Heller. Don’t do something crazy! At that range they can kill you! And I don’t have the platen!

The nearest cop was motioning with his gun. “All right, kid, move over there and lie down on the grass, belly to ground.”

Heller moved to the spot and lay down. He kept his head turned toward the cop.

“All right,” said the cop. “Where’s your driver’s license?”

There was a scream from the car. Mary had come to with sudden energy. “It’s in my purse! That kid is just a hitchhiker. This is my car!” It was nearly too much for her. She sank back panting, holding her chest.

I realized now she was not a true psychologist. The whole purpose of the subject is to throw suspicion and responsibility on others either to get them in trouble or to protect yourself — which amounts to the same thing. But even though it was a violation of psychology behavior rules, I gratefully accepted the help.

The first cop detoured over toward the car and dug around to find her purse. He found it and looked at her license.

“Oh, God,” moaned Mary. “Please, please get me a fix!”

The effect was electric. “A hop head!” said the first cop. He made a signal to the other cop to cover Heller and then began yanking the suitcases out of the car. He was going to look for dope!

He opened the sports carry-all, rummaged in it and then threw it aside. He grabbed one of Heller’s cases, unstrapped it and flopped the back up.

“That’s the kid’s baggage,” moaned Mary.

The cop reached in. He said, “Ouch, God (bleep) it!” He pried a multihooked bass plug off his hand and sucked his finger. Gingerly, then, he held up an old fishing reel and stirred at the mess of line. He said, “Cameras and fishing gear. Jesus Christ, kid, you sure do an awful job of packing. You could ruin some of this stuff.” He slammed the case closed.

The other cop was well back with a gun on Heller.

The first cop opened Heller’s second case.

“Jesus!” screamed Mary. “Get me a fix! Can’t anybody hear me?” And then she leaned out of the backseat and began to dry vomit.

“Candy!” cried the first cop. “Dope concealed in candy!” He turned to the other cop. “You see, I knew there’d be dope here. They hide it in candy!”

He gingerly evaded more fishhooks and untangled a candy bag from fishing line. He opened the bag and took out a piece. He got a jackknife from his pocket and cut the sweet in half. He touched one of the halves to his tongue.

Disappointed, he threw the cut pieces and the paper in the general direction of a Don’t Litter! sign. He got another bag open and did the same thing.

“Ah, hell,” he said. “It’s just candy-type candy.”

The second cop said, “Joe, I figure if there was any dope in that baggage, this dame wouldn’t be going through withdrawal.”

The first cop closed Heller’s grip and then hauled out Mary’s suitcase and got it open. “Hurray!” he shouted. “I knew it! Here’s a dope kit complete!” And he held it up so his partner and the park patrolman could see it. “This is illegal as hell even if there is no dope! I knew I could catch them out!”

Oh, Heller, I prayed. Just keep on lying there. Don’t do anything.

Mary had come out of a spasm of dry retching. She tried to get to the first cop, “That’s my kit! I’m a doctor! My diploma is right in that bag!”

The first cop didn’t even bother to push her back into the car and she collapsed, dangling half out of it.

The first cop disgustedly found it. “She’s right.” He dropped the suitcase shut and stood up. “Aw, (bleep), there’s no smack here.”

The second cop gestured with his gun to Heller. “You can get up, kid. You’re clean.”

I sagged with relief. I knew exactly what the prisoner felt when they told him he had been reprieved.

Heller got to his feet. He went over and tried to get Mary back into the car.

Heller suddenly saw a plain, green sedan quietly roll up and stop. The first cop said, “Oh, (bleep). It’s the FBI.”

Two very tough-looking characters got out. They wore box coats. Their hats were gangster-type hats.

As one, they drew and flashed their I.D. folders.

The first one had a puffy face and a sagging lower lip. “I’m Special Agent Stupewitz, FBI.”

The second one said, “Special Agent Maulin, FBI.” He was a huge, hulking brute of a man.

Stupewitz walked up to the park patrolman and the two DC. cops. “This is out-of-state business — Federal! Move aside!”

Maulin went around to the back of the car and read the license. “This is the car, all right. Look at that bullet hole!”

Stupewitz gestured a Colt .457 revolver at Heller. It looked like a cannon. “Stand up and face that car, kid. Put your hands on the roof and spread-eagle, legs apart.”

Heller did as he was told. That artillery could have blown him apart!

The first D.C. cop said, “He’s just a hitchhiker. This is the woman’s car.”

Maulin said, “Filled with bags of dope.”

The second D.C. cop said, “There’s nothing in the bags but cameras and fishing gear. There ain’t even any dope in the candy.”

Stupewitz said, “You’ve got it all wrong, brother. That’s why you locals have to have the support of the FBI. Without us, you’d just breeze along in total peace!”

Maulin said, “We got the whole story from Virginia.”

I thought, well, Gris, it’s too late to make a will now! Heller will be finished so quick, there won’t be time.

Stupewitz had his gun trained on Heller. “What’s your name, kid?”

Mary came to, threshing about. “Don’t talk to them kid!”

Heller didn’t answer Stupewitz.

Stupewitz said, “Kid, do you realize it’s a felony not to give your name to a Federal officer?”

Heller didn’t answer.

Stupewitz made a signal to Maulin. Maulin drew his gun from his back belt, trained it on Heller from a distance. Stupewitz stepped up to Heller and began to frisk him.

I was certain I knew what was coming now. It was too late even to pray.

Stupewitz got to the papers in Heller’s jacket. He yanked them out. He looked at them.

Suddenly Stupewitz drew off to the side, away from the other cops and Heller. He made a frantic beckon to Maulin. Maulin kept his gun on Heller but sidled around to get close to Stupewitz.

I frantically turned up more gain. I got wind in the trees. I got some birds. I got the far-off siren of an ambulance getting louder. But I couldn’t make out anything Stupewitz or Maulin were saying as they examined the papers. I could see them whispering but as they were using their lips the way criminals do, talking from the side of the mouth, I couldn’t even read the words.

An ambulance came up. It was marked GEORGETOWN HOSPITAL.

The attendants offloaded in a flash of white and stretchers. They opened the opposite door of the car, looked in at Mary and then grabbed her. She was so far gone, she didn’t even fight. She did manage a faint, “So long, kid.”

Heller, despite FBI orders, ducked down his head and yelled, “NO! Don’t kill her!”

An attendant glanced up from trying to get Mary straight so they could get her out of the car and onto the stretcher. “Kill her? You’re dead wrong, sonny. She needs our help. We’ll take good care of her.”

Heller said, “You promise not to kill her?”

“Sure, kid,” said the attendant. And they had Mary on the stretcher. Stupewitz sidled to the attendant, whispered something, showed his badge. The attendant shrugged.

Heller looked toward Maulin. “Can I put her bag in that ambulance?”

Maulin made a tight wave with his gun. Heller got her purse and bag, walked over to the ambulance and put them in. The ambulance rolled away with Heller staring after it.

Stupewitz came back. He was pointing to the government car. “Get in there, kid.”

Heller didn’t. He walked over and closed his bags and put them in the trunk of the Cadillac and locked it, pocketing the separate key. Stupewitz then urged him into the front passenger seat of the government car.

Maulin got under the wheel of the Cadillac. He drove off.

Heller said, “NO! Our car!”

Stupewitz said, “Stop worrying. It’s going to the FBI garage.”

The DC. cops and park patrolman were muttering and shaking their heads.

So was I!

Stupewitz started the government car and they sped away.

The jaws of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had closed on Jettero Heller. And the worst of it was, typically, they didn’t even realize they had the fate of the planet between their vicious teeth! Stupid (bleepards)!

Chapter 3

They got out at the FBI building on Pennsylvania Avenue and someone whisked the car away.

Stupewitz said, “Don’t try to run. You could get shot.”

But Heller was not running. He was looking up at the gray-green marble facade and spelling out the HUGE, raised, gold-lettered sign that said:

The letters were feet high and it spread so wide he had to turn his head to read it.

“Are we going to call on J. Edgar Hoover?” said Heller.

“Don’t be a smart (bleep), kid.”

Heller said, “But I really never heard of him.”

That got to Stupewitz. “Jesus! They sure don’t teach history anymore!” He came very close to Heller and thrust his puffy face forward. “Look, you heard of George Washington.” He pointed a quivering finger at the huge sign. “Well, J. Edgar Hoover was ten times what Washington ever was! The REAL savior of this country was HOOVER! Without him, the real rulers of this country couldn’t run it at all!” He gave Heller a hard shove toward the entrance and muttered to himself,

“Jesus, they don’t teach kids anything these days.”

Via elevators and stairs, pushing from time to time, Stupewitz got Heller into the first of a small pair of offices that adjoined. Stupewitz pushed Heller into a chair with an unnecessary “Sit there!”

Maulin came in. Stupewitz glared at Heller. “You’re in serious trouble. You better not get any ideas of trying to run out of here because there are guards and guns all over the place. Be quiet and be good!”

They went into the second office but the door was ajar. They were whispering so I turned up the gain. I couldn’t get what they were saying because, in some adjacent office, someone was being beaten and screamed now and then.

Heller had a partial view of Stupewitz through the slightly open door. The agent was at a desk, working with a phone. Maulin’s huge bulk was attentively leaning over behind him.

“I want to talk to Delbert John Rockecenter, personally,” said Stupewitz into the phone. “This is the FBI… Then put me on to his confidential secretary.” He covered the phone and said to Maulin, “Rockecenter is in Russia arranging some loans to keep them going.” Then to the phone, “This is the FBI in Washington. We have a matter here…” The screams in the adjacent office drowned the next words. Then he covered the phone and said to Maulin, “They’re putting me on to Mr. Bury, one of the attorneys from their firm, Swindle and Crouch. Bury handles all such matters.”

They waited. Then Stupewitz got his connection. “Hello, Mr. Bury? I got one hell of a surprise for you. Is this a totally secure, confidential line? Oh, bug tested just this morning. Good. Now listen. We are Special Agents Stupewitz,” and he rattled off a whole series of identification and addresses, “and Maulin,” and he rattled off Maulin’s. “Now, have you got all that for sure?”

Apparently Mr. Bury had. So Stupewitz spread out Heller’s papers in front of him and began to read. He read the birth certificate, the diploma, the grades. “Got all that? I just wanted you to know there’s no mistake.… Yes, we have the boy right here. To prove it, here’s his description,” and he rattled it off. “…no, he hasn’t talked to anybody. We made sure of that.”

Stupewitz now shot a gleeful grin back at Maulin. Then he said into the phone, “Now, don’t be upset, Mr. Bury. But he’s wanted in Fair Oakes, Virginia, for assault and battery of two police officers, both hospitalized… yes, he apparently did it with an iron bar when they weren’t looking… yes, amounts to attempted murder. Also suspicion of car theft, speeding, refusal to halt. Fugitive… Right. And apparent possession of narcotics… Right. And the Federal offense of seeking to smuggle them across state lines… Right. And, as a minor, cohabitation with a known prostitute… Right. Also the Mann Act — crossing state lines for immoral purposes… Right. And refusal to divulge identity to a Federal officer.”

I realized Heller could get life, the exact original thing planned for him.

Apparently some smoke was coming out of the phone. After a moment, Stupewitz went on. “Wait now, Mr. Bury. I’m just telling you this. The woman won’t talk. We have the records, we have the car, we have the boy… No, no reporters know anything about this. The name was not even known in Fair Oakes… No. We’re the only ones who know.”

Stupewitz was now the one listening. Mr. Bury must be talking hard and fast. “…Yes, Mr. Bury,” said Stupewitz. “…Yes, Mr. Bury… Yes, Mr. Bury… Yes,

Mr. Bury.” Then there must have been a long speech. Stupewitz gave Maulin an evil grin and nodded to him. Then he said into the phone, “No. No records or copies of anything here. The local police know nothing and we won’t even report it to the Director.” He nodded as though Bury could see him. And then, all over again he gave all the identifying details and home addresses of himself and Maulin.

Stupewitz ended off with, “Yes, Mr. Bury. And you can be very assured that D.J.R.’s son is perfectly safe here in our hands; there won’t be a whisper to the press or anyone. We are, as always, completely at the service of Delbert John Rockecenter. You got the idea, Mr. Bury. Good-bye.”

He rose beaming from the phone. He and Maulin did a war dance round and round, laughing.

Maulin said, “And we were going to retire in a few years with nothing but our pensions!”

And Stupewitz said, “He’ll hire us for sure. No other option!”

I was flabbergasted. These two crooked agents were using this case to forward their own advancement! They were blackmailing Delbert John Rockecenter! And what made it all the more criminal was that D. J. Rockecenter practically owns the FBI anyway!

And what made it even more stupid was that they actually thought they really had Delbert John Rockecenter’s son.

Lombar’s planning had taken a new twist!

But wait. This didn’t get Heller off the hook. I hadn’t worked it out yet just how, but there was real death in Heller’s future now.

Chapter 4

The phone rang and the two crooked agents stopped their war dance and Stupewitz answered it, said something back and hung up.

The two came into the room with Heller. He had been sitting there quietly, his eyes occasionally straying to a bloodstain on the wall. I doubted he could have heard the phone conversation in anything like the clarity I had, if at all, and he must be wondering what they were going to do with him.

Stupewitz said to him, “Listen, Junior, that was your old man’s personal family attorney, Mr. Bury, of Swindle and Crouch, New York. Your dad is over in Russia, bein’ wined and dined and he won’t be home for a couple of weeks.”

Maulin said, “You just sit tight, Junior. There’s a little delay before you can go.” Maulin sat down at his desk and looked into a basketful of reports. I understood now that this was his office and the other one was Stupewitz’s. They must be pretty highly placed in the FBI to have private offices.

Stupewitz went to the door to leave. “I’ll handle the rest of this,” he said to Maulin. “You keep your eye on the kid.” He started to leave again and then stopped. He called back to Heller, “You can stop worrying about that hooker. She’s dead.”

My viewscreen seemed to jolt. Heller said, “Why did you have to kill her?”

“Kill her?” said Stupewitz. “She was D.O.A. at Georgetown Hospital. Heart attack.” Then, innocence itself, he said, “You’re lucky it was in the ambulance or you could have been charged with conspiracy to murder.”

Maulin said, “Big H killed her, Junior.”

Heller said, “I been meaning to ask somebody. What’s a ‘fix’?”

Stupewitz started for the door again. “Oh, this kid is too much for me! You grab it, Maulin. I’ll get the rest done.” He was gone.

With a weary shove at his basket of papers, Maulin leaned back and looked even more wearily at Heller. “No (bleep), kid. You don’t know what a fix is? What the hell did they teach you at…” He had Heller’s certificates on his desk and looked, “…Saint Lee’s Military Academy? How to tat and knit?” He glanced at his watch and then shoved his basket further away with a detesting hand. “We got lots of time to kill, and as you’ll be giving orders to this place yourself someday, I might as well begin the education of an All American Boy! Come along.”

Pushing Heller ahead of him, Maulin plowed along down stairs and through halls. “Don’t talk to people,” he warned. “I’ll answer any questions they ask.”

Evidently, the building was huge. It was a long way down one corridor. Heller was clickety-clacking along.

“For chrissakes, Junior,” said Maulin, annoyed by the noise. “Why are you wearing baseball spikes?”

“Comfortable,” said Heller. “I got blisters.”

“Oh, I get it. I got corns myself. Here we are.” And he halted Heller at a door marked Drug Lab and shoved him through.

They were faced with yards and yards of wall racks on which assorted glass jars rested. A technician was crunched over a table, heating some water in a spoon, needles lying about.

“Now the Drug Enforcement Agency handles drugs,” tutored Maulin in a gravelly voice, “but we still got our own drug lab. We’re really in charge of the government and sometimes we even have to shake down the DEA. There’s practically every known kind of drug in these jars.”

“Do you sell them?” said Heller.

The technician looked up in alarm. He said, “Shh!” Then he looked closer at Heller and said to Maulin, “What are you doing bringing a smart (bleep) kid in here, Maulin? This isn’t part of the public tour.”

“Shut up, Sweeney.”

The technician bent back over his Bunsen burner grumbling. Maulin said, “Now, kid, the trick is to know all these drugs by sight and smell and taste. Just start at this bottom row and go along in, jar by jar, noting the labels. But for chrissakes, if you do any tasting, spit it out! I ain’t going to be accused of turning you into a drug freak.”

Heller went down the rows, doing as he was told. A couple of times, Maulin made him rinse his mouth out at the sink, holding him by the back of the neck the way you do a willful child.

Heller, being Heller, was making very rapid progress. But I was worrying. It was obvious they were detaining him and, knowing the FBI, it had skulduggery in it — stupid skulduggery but skulduggery just the same.

“Hello, hello, hello!” said Heller. He had a big can with brown powder in it and was examining it. “What’s this?”

“Oh, the label’s off it. That’s opium, kid. Asiatic…” Maulin looked at it closer. “No, Turkish.”

Now, at any other time, I would have freaked out at Heller being shown just that. But I was sort of dulled by the shock of events.

“What does Afyonkarahisar mean?” said Heller, startling me out of my wits.

“(Bleep), I don’t know,” said Maulin. “Where’s it say that?”

“Here on the side,” said Heller. “It’s kind of dim.”

“I didn’t bring my glasses,” said Maulin. “Sweeney, what does Afyonkarahisar mean?”

“Black opium castle,” said Sweeney. “Western Turkey. Why?”

“It’s on this can,” said Maulin.

Sweeney said, “It is? There’s some black balls of it in the next jar from the same place. And that white jar down the line contains some of their heroin. (Bleep), now you got me lecturing.” And he went back to work.

“You see,” said Maulin learnedly, “there is a flower called a poppy and it has a black center and they scrape it and get a gum. They boil that and they get opium. They chemically process it and they get morphine. Then they chemically process that and they get heroin. The white heroin is Turkish and Asiatic. The brown heroin is Mexican… Sweeney, where’s some of that drug literature? No sense me wearing my lungs out.”

Sweeney pointed to a cabinet and Maulin opened it. “(Bleep),” he said, “they been using it for toilet paper again.” He seemed baffled. Then he had a bright idea. He was reaching in his pocket. “Sweeney, go on out to the newsstand and get me one of those paperbacks on drugs.” Then he suddenly stopped fishing in his pocket. “Hell, what am I doing? Here I am standing next to the U.S. Mint and was about to spend my own dough. You got any money, kid?”

Heller reached in his pocket and drew out his roll. The way he did it was the first indication I had had that he was rattled. He had tripped into a preconditioned habit pattern. Voltar gamblers — and Heller sure was one, as I knew to my grief — have a mannerism in handling money. They insert a finger in the center of the roll and let the two ends of the bills come up through their fingers and it looks for all the world as though they are presenting exactly twice as much money as they are actually holding.

Maulin looked at it. “Jesus,” he said. Then, “I suppose this is your weekly allowance for candy.” He plucked at the presented fistful. “Let’s see. The book is about three bucks. Add two for Sweeney for his trouble. I’ll take this fiver. No, on the other hand, you are probably hungry, so Sweeney can bring back some food: I’ll take this sawbuck. No, come to think of it, Sweeney and me are also hungry, so I’ll take this pair of double saw-bucks.” He apparently couldn’t think of anything else, so he threw the money at Sweeney whose former hostility seemed to have evaporated.

“What do you want to eat, kid?” said Sweeney.

“Beer and a hamburger,” said Heller, apparently recalling Crobe’s diet advice.

“Aw, kid,” said Maulin, “you are a con man. You know God (bleeped) good and well we can’t buy beer for a kid your age. Tryin’ to edge us into a felony? Bring him milk and a hamburger, Sweeney. I’ll take a steak sandwich and beer.”

Sweeney was gone and Heller went back to learning the more than two hundred different types of drugs on the shelves.

I had resigned myself to Heller knowing now what we did in Afyon. What I was worrying about was why they were delaying Heller. The FBI was totally out of character, so it was some kind of a ploy. They had something else going.

Sweeney came back with the required items and shortly Maulin and Heller were back in the former’s office. Maulin ate his steak sandwich in one large bite and washed it down with beer.

Heller sat nibbling his and looking at the book. It was titled Recreational Drugs and it said it contained “everything you need to know about drugs.” It said it was recommended by Psychology Today, so I knew it must be totally authoritative. There was everything in it from aspirin to wood alcohol.

So Heller, being Heller and a long way from knowing enough to put on a show the way a real spy would do, simply started “reading” it which, for him, was ingesting a page the way Earth people ingest a word. He still had a sip of milk left when he came to the end of two hundred and forty-five pages. He put the book in his pocket and finished his milk.

Maulin said, “What the hell? Oh, I guess you’re just too nervous to read. I can understand that.” He looked at his watch and seemed worried. Then he had a bright idea. “Tell you what, Junior. They have public tours through this building every hour or so. But we won’t wait for one of those. I’ll take you on one.”

Why were they delaying him? They were using the approach “Detain subject without arousing his suspicions.”

Maulin took him down to the exhibit of gangster guns and weapons. I was interested myself, thinking I could pick up some pointers. Maulin even took some out of their cases.

“Are all these weapons chemical?” said Heller.

“Chemical?” blinked Maulin.

“I mean, none of them electrical?”

“Oh, you dumb kids. Reading a bunch of Buck Rogers comic books! If you mean do gangsters have any laser weapons, no. We caught somebody trying to sell us some a few years back and I think he’s still doing time. They ain’t legal, kid. Besides, powder is best. Now, you take this sawed-off shotgun: it’ll blow a man in half! Completely in half, kid! Ain’t that great?” He picked up a burp gun. “Now, you take this: point it down a crowded street and it mows down dozens of innocent bystanders. Totally effective.”

They moved on to some views of modern bank robberies and Heller inspected them. Maulin showed where the bank security cameras were placed, told him about marked money packs, alarm buttons, alarm systems, police techniques and how the FBI always, without fail, caught each and every bank robber that had even tried to shortchange a teller. And Heller was so interested that Maulin even got an alarm system and showed him how it was rigged and could be disabled. “Your old man, being your old man,” he said, “has a vested interest in all this, so I hope you got it.”

Heller had gotten it, no doubt of that!

Maulin showed Heller, next, the FBI laboratory and all the most modern scientific investigative techniques including those on the drawing board. I didn’t like that as it was edging over into things Lombar had forbidden us to teach Heller. And I was relieved when they came off of it.

The erratic “tour” was certainly not the scheduled public tour, even to the point of Maulin shouldering through a couple of small mobs of sightseers to show Heller something of special interest.

They finally came to the “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” and Heller got an education on how people were spotted and traced. And how the FBI never, never failed to find them every time.

Shortly, Maulin had him back for an out-of-sequence look at the gangsters of the 1930s. “Now,” he said, “here were the real gangsters. They weren’t the cream puffs you find around today. They were really, really gangsters. And you got no idea how hard it was to catch them. But Hoover solved all that.”

Maulin pointed at a death mask and a display of photos. “Now, take Dillinger there. He never had any record at all. Just one minor charge. But Hoover made him a famous man.”

He got around in front of Heller and wagged a huge finger at him. “Hoover had the greatest imagination in history. He used to dream up,” said Maulin proudly, “the God (bleepest) dossiers for people. Total inventions! Right off the top of his head. Pure genius! And then he could go out and shoot them down! In a blaze of glorious gunfire! A master craftsman! He taught us how and we are left with the heavy responsibility of carrying on this magnificent tradition!”

Heller waved his hand to include all of the most advertised criminals in history. “He got all these the same way?”

“Every one,” said Maulin proudly. “And he included the general public, too, so don’t think this is complete.”

“Hey,” said Heller. “There’s a really vicious one!” He was pointing.

Maulin blew up. “God (bleep) it, kid, that’s HOOVER!”

He was so upset that he simply stalked off. Heller clickety-clacked along behind him. Then, fitting his mood, Maulin went down some stairs and shoved Heller through another door. It was a firing range!

I was apprehensive. I knew they were up to something. I hoped it wouldn’t include shooting Heller on the premises!

There were targets at the other end of the room and guns and ear protectors on the counter. I held my breath. I prayed to Heller not to get any notion of grabbing a gun and shooting his way out of the building.

“Where’s the agent that does the public demonstrations?” demanded Maulin of an old man that was cleaning some guns.

“Hey? Oh, there ain’t any more public demonstrations today.”

Maulin socked some ear clamps on Heller and picked up a gun. He fired a round at the targets and it seemed to make him feel better. He turned to Heller. “You’ve classified on revolvers, of course.”

“I’ve never shot one of those,” said Heller.

“Military school!” snorted Maulin. “I knew all they taught was to tat and knit.” But he proceeded to instruct Heller. “This is a Colt .457 Magnum revolver. A shot from it will go through a motor block and then some.” And he showed Heller how to swing its cylinder, inspect it, load and unload it, and even how to carry it. Then he picked up a Colt U.S. Army .45 and showed Heller all about that.

Maulin looked at his watch and frowned. Obviously he had to delay Heller longer. “Tell you what, Junior. I’ll give you a little demonstration of real marksmanship. Now, first, I take a look at a wanted poster here. And then several targets jump up and I have to select which one is the wanted man and put a bullet in his heart. If I shoot the wrong man, I get another chance.”

He picked up a poster, glanced at it. He drew his own gun. He had the technician push some buttons. Face after face popped up. Maulin fired. He shot the wrong man.

“I told you to see an eye doctor, Maulin,” said the old man.

“Shut up,” said Maulin. “Hit the buttons again.” He gripped the butt of the gun with both hands. He sighted carefully. He shot the right man.

“Here, Junior. You try it. You’ll see it ain’t so easy.”

Gods, all Heller had to do was shoot the two of them and walk out. In the spot he was in, it was the textbook solution.

Heller looked at a wanted poster and put it down. The targets popped up. Heller fired and hit the right man, dead center. Nothing marvelous for a Fleet blast-gun expert.

“No, no, no,” said Maulin. “Jesus. Don’t ever pull a trigger before you raise the gun to eye level. But I don’t blame you for being nervous. And don’t get cocky about accidental hits. They don’t happen in real battles. Now hold the gun in both hands, spread your feet apart to get steadiness. Now sight carefully down the barrel. Good. Now we’ll give you another chance. Hit the buttons, Murphy.”

Heller with great pains did exactly as he was told. He hit the right target dead center.

“There, you see?” said Maulin. “That’s what happens when you get good instruction. Now you want to try this Army Colt?”

Heller fired an assortment of weapons and finally, with a sigh of relief, Maulin, looking at his watch, said, “It’s time we went back to my office.” They left but Maulin used the whole long route to lecture Heller about the power and majesty and total world dominance of the FBI. It was just an act to cover up what they really intended. For I knew that, by now, whatever trap they were party to had been arranged.

Chapter 5

Maulin, puffing a bit from his exhaustive lecture on the glories of the FBI, had no more than entered his office when Stupewitz’s phone rang. Maulin pointed to a chair and used the hand signal with which they order dogs to sit down and rushed to answer.

I didn’t need to turn up the gain. “Maulin here,” he bawled. Then, in an extremely polite tone of voice he said, “It’s all right to tell me. I am Agent Stupewitz’s partner. I think he gave you my name.” Then he grabbed a pad and started to write. Finally he said, “Yes, Mr. Bury. It’s all under control here… Oh, he’s fine, Mr. Bury… No, he hasn’t talked to anybody else… Yes, Mr. Bury… Yes, Mr. Bury. Thank you, Mr. Bury.” And he hung up.

Stupewitz came in and he and Maulin whispered briefly together. Then they put Heller in a chair with two chairs facing him and Stupewitz turned on a bright light in Heller’s eyes. The two agents sat down.

“Me first,” said Stupewitz. “Junior, we reported to Virginia that a wrecked Cadillac with your license plates was discovered in Maryland. We also said it had a body in it answering your description that was burned beyond recognition. The people concerned did not have your name; the hooker is dead. So you are in the clear. So don’t never mention that incident again and make liars of us. You understand?” he added severely.

The light was blinding Heller. But I suddenly realized with relief they were not interrogating him. They were briefing him! They just didn’t know how to talk to anybody any other way.

“Now, here,” continued Stupewitz, “is your car registration. It now has District of Columbia plates. The motor and body serial numbers have been changed. It is in your name now. We know you were the one who originally paid the dealer for that car, so don’t get the idea we’re doing anything illegal. Got it?”

Heller took the registration. It had a little slip fastened across the top of it that said:

All or any police: In case of contact, call Agents Stupewitz or Maulin only, FBI, D.C.

“We won’t bother with insurance,” continued Stupewitz. “But if you’re in any accidents, with your name you could be sued for your shirt. So drive carefully. No more crazy hundred-mile-an-hour chases. Got it?”

Heller got it.

“Now, here,” said Stupewitz, “is your driver’s license.”

Heller took it and, against the glaring light, saw that it had another little slip on it.

All or any police: In case of contact, call Agents Stupewitz or Maulin only, FBI, D.C.

I suddenly realized what they had done: they had put “tail plates” on the Cadillac. In the computers used by all police departments, if those “tail plates” came up, the reply would read: “This car is under surveillance by the FBI. If spotted, report it to Agents Stupewitz or Maulin, FBI, D.C.” It amounted to the FBI having a continuous tail on him!

“Now, here,” said Stupewitz, “are all your papers back.” And he gave him the birth certificate, diploma and grades. Heller put them in his pocket.

Maulin got up and hauled an old, tattered Octopus Oil Company road map out of a cluttered desk drawer. He sat back down.

“All right,” said Maulin, opening the map and putting his phone notes on it. “Mr. Bury wanted to be sure you had money and I said you did. Mr. Bury says you will probably be tired — he’s quite concerned for your welfare. So you are to go to Howard Johnson’s Motel in Silver Spring, Maryland. You leave here, go up Sixteenth Avenue, over the District line and the motel is right here. See it?”

Heller was studying the map. And I suddenly knew the why of the delay. It was not the FBI. It was Mr. Bury. Somewhere up that route, he had arranged a hit! I tried frantically to figure out how he would do it.

Heller had it. Actually, he probably had every road and byway on the east coast now.

“Good,” said Maulin. “Now, he said some reporters had gotten wind of your refusing to come home this summer. Some crazy tale that you wanted to live your own life. Maybe join a baseball team or something. So he said that under no circumstances were you to register in a motel or hotel under your right name as he wanted no news release until you were reconciled with your family and you had talked with your father who is out of the country now. Got it?”

“Don’t use my own name,” said Heller. “Got it.”

Oh, that Bury. He knew (bleeped) well there was no Delbert John Rockecenter, Junior! He was going to avoid any crazy newspaper stories by simply murdering the imposter. Rockecenter certainly had the resources and was not slow to use them. But how was he going to do it? And where?

“All right,” said Maulin. “Now, tomorrow morning, you drive up to U.S. 495, the circle highway around D.C., and you turn off to the left onto U.S. 95. You go on that highway straight across Maryland, then across Delaware to this point where you go to the right on U.S. 295 across the Delaware River and then you’re on the New Jersey Turnpike. You just follow along — actually you can’t get off it. Now, you see here, just north of Newark, the turnpike splits? Well, there’s a Howard Johnson’s Motel right here,” and he put an X on the map. “You’re supposed to be there by about 4:30 in the afternoon. It’s only a four-hour trip. No speeding! Don’t register. Just go in the dining room, sit down and have an early supper. An old family retainer will be waiting there for you and will guide you home. Got that?”

Heller said he had.

“Now, Mr. Bury said to tell you you were in no danger whatever, so not to do anything silly. In fact, he said to tell you that Slinkerton will be tailing you all the way so you won’t get scared.”

“Slinkerton?” said Heller.

“That’s the Slinkerton Detective Agency, the one your dad uses. They’re the biggest in the country,” said Maulin. “You won’t see them but they’ll be there.” He laughed suddenly. “I think he’s making sure you won’t run off again, no matter how many hookers you meet!”

Stupewitz said, “Shall we go down to the car now?”

They went down to the FBI garage and there was the car. Heller checked the trunk: his gear was undisturbed. He glanced at the new D.C. plates, front and back. Then he got in.

Stupewitz said, “So it’s good-bye, Junior.”

“Thank you,” said Heller (was that an emotional tremor in his voice?), “for making it possible for me to go straight.”

Maulin laughed, “Save your thanks until you get your hands on your old man’s money, Junior.”

The agents both laughed and then, the way Americans do — talking in front of children as though the child isn’t there — Stupewitz said to Maulin, “He’s a good kid, Maulin. A little wild but okay.”

“Yeah,” said Maulin, “you can see his family’s stuff in him. But all these kids is tamer than we used to be.”

They both guffawed and waved to Heller as he drove off.

I didn’t wait to watch Heller wrestle with the evening rush hour of Washington. I went plunging down the side tunnel that led to Faht’s office. It’s a long way and I was totally out of breath when I burst through the secret side door.

“I’ve got to contact Terb!” I shouted.

Faht opened a drawer and handed me a report. It was their daily radio transmission. It had come through at the rate of five thousand words a second, using hyper-band. It contained, however, no five thousand words. It was very terse. Heller had gotten his birth certificate, beaten up two cops, was found by Terb again through bugs in Lynchburg, had gone to Washington, been arrested by the FBI and now was safely in their hands, probably about to be imprisoned as intended.

The Hells he was! I knew a lot more than Terb or Raht!

“I’ve got to contact our people!” I blared at Faht.

Heller was going to be killed! Within the next day or two. And I didn’t have the platen! I had to get word to Terb to get into those motel rooms quick and ransack that baggage!

Faht shrugged. “They don’t have a receiver-typer.

They’re bulky and you didn’t order them to take one.”

Oh, my Gods! I slumped in a chair. The worst of it was, I couldn’t even talk to Faht or anybody. They must not know how I knew or they could get in on the lines and maybe do something wild!

“I might get word to them in New York,” said Faht helpfully. “They’ll probably report in there at the end of the week if they’re out of money.”

They weren’t ever out of money. They had it by the bucket load!

I only knew three things for sure. One: Bury was going to have Heller killed, whatever else Bury was up to. Two: Soltan Gris was going to be executed if Heller was. Three: Earth population was going to be slaughtered if they interrupted Heller’s communication line and I, right now, was part of that population!

I started to ask Faht if there was a good mortuary in Afyon. At least I could have a decent funeral. But I didn’t even dare say that.

I slogged through the long, long tunnel to my room. My future looked even darker than the tunnel, and no room at the end of it — just a tomb, even an “unknown grave.”

Chapter 6

Without hope, I watched my viewscreen as Heller entered the Silver Spring, Maryland, Howard Johnson Motel. I should have been relieved, for it meant that, with luck, I myself could end, for a few hours, the marathon of sleepless vigil he had been putting me through.

He wasn’t looking behind him as he should have. He didn’t scan the desk or waiting area for suspicious figures. He was taking no precautions any normal agent would take.

He simply clickety-clacked up to the desk, told them he wanted a room for the night, laid down thirty bucks and wrote his new car license number, plain as day, on the registration form — he didn’t falsify it or even make it illegible. And then he spurred me into near fury.

With a flourish, he signed the register, “JOHN DILLINGER!” He even put the exclamation point on it! A fat lot he’d learned at FBI headquarters: John Dillinger was one of the most famous gangsters of the 1930s. Pure sacrilege!

He threw his bags carelessly in his room as though he hadn’t a care in the world. He washed up and soon clickety-clacked outside — not even looking into the many shadows — walked around the building and came into their restaurant.

Heller sat down. An elderly waitress promptly came over and told him he was in the wrong seat. She made him move to another booth in the corner with a flat white wall behind him. She fiddled with the lights until he was totally illuminated. And he didn’t even register that she was putting the finger on him! He just busily puzzled away at the menu. And a Howard Johnson menu has nothing on it to puzzle about: they’re all the same, numbers and pictures, from coast to coast!

The elderly waitress had gone off but now she returned. She took his baseball cap off his head and put it in the seat beside him, saying, “Young gentlemen don’t eat with their hats on.”

“I’ll have a chocolate sundae,” said Heller.

She stood there and she said, “You will have a Number 3. That’s green salad, fried chicken, sweet potatoes and biscuits. And if you eat all that, then we will talk about a chocolate sundae.” She imagined Heller was going to protest. She said, “I have boys of my own and you are all alike. You don’t realize you have to eat good food to grow!”

She didn’t fool me. She had for sure put the finger on Heller for someone. Helplessly I wondered if it would be a bullet or knife or arsenic in the chicken. Maybe, I thought, with a faint stir of hope, it was just a finger to identify. But she had certainly done a workmanlike job and a beautiful cover-up. One comes to learn the hallmarks of a real agent.

The food came. Heller peered about at other plates to see what others were eating. Then he seemed reconciled and fell to, even doing a creditable job of handling his utensils. He even picked the pieces of chicken up and ate them with his fingers, a thing he would never have dreamed of doing on Voltar! But although he was absorbing culture, he was also making mistakes. I realized that in D.C.; and here, he was talking in an Ivy League accent. He thought, apparently, that he was out of the South and this wasn’t so. Maryland is as south as the fried chicken he was eating. He wouldn’t be in New England unless he went just north of New York City. He was too crude and rough in his nonexistent command of tradecraft.

He had finished his meal, wiped the grease off his mouth and fingers when his attention was attracted by a movement on the other side of the room. It was hard to see as the lights were so strong in his eyes. Just a shadowy figure.

Then I froze. The figure had something held before its face. Was it a gun?

There was a bright blue flash! It was extremely brief.

My viewscreen went white with overload!

Then there were black spots dancing on it and I could not see even what Heller saw, if he saw anything.

The scene cleared. The black spots faded. And Heller was just sitting there, looking into the room. There was no figure there now.

The waitress came to him. “My, my. You ate it all. You have been a good boy, so you can order your chocolate sundae.”

“What was the flash?” said Heller.

“Oh, the cashier’s desk lamp just blew out. Did it hurt your eyes?” And with motherly concern she rearranged the lights near him so they would not shine in his face. Sure enough, the cashier was fiddling with her desk lamp.

Heller got and finished his sundae, paid his check with a generous tip and went clickety-clacking off around the building to his room, once more not even looking in the shadows. I was dealing with an idiot!

In his room, which he had entered without a fast door-swing-back and sudden spring, he did not check his baggage to see if it had been tampered with. He simply adjusted the air conditioning — no inspection for a gas capsule — and sat down in an easy chair and read the drug book again.

He did something then which put me into an idea conflict. On the one hand, he must NOT be killed until I had the platen. On the other hand, he would HAVE to be killed if he really penetrated what our Apparatus Earth base was all about.

Heller got up and found two ashtrays. He turned out the right-hand pocket of his jacket into the first and the left-hand pocket into the second. He was carrying DRUGS!

I couldn’t understand it. Then I realized he simply had taken a small handful out of each of two jars at the FBI drug lab!

He opened up his suitcase and took out a little vial. It only had a tiny amount in it, a few specks of powder. Then he took out another vial and it, too, had a tiny amount in it.

There actually had been drugs in his suitcases when the DC. policeman searched them! Microscopic amounts but drugs all the same! Where had they come from?

He inspected the vials. Then he put the contents of vial one into the ashtray over at the edge. He put the contents of vial two into the second ashtray over at the edge.

He went over to the light and held ashtray one to his eye.

The granules were suddenly HUGE!

It was Turkish opium!

He did the same with ashtray two.

It was Turkish heroin!

Then he went over to the long French doors to a porch which served as the motel room window and with a bit of fiddling got them open.

He took a book of matches and lighted one. He dropped it in the ashtray. And, of course, the opium began to burn and smoke like mad.

He coughed and put a plastic table mat over it.

He lit the heroin the same way.

He coughed some more and put a mat over the ashtray to put it out.

The room went sort of wobbly for a moment on my screen. Naturally. He had had a whiff of opium smoke followed with a whiff of heroin smoke.

Heller went outside on the balcony and took a lot of rapid breaths of fresh air. Then he ran in place a bit, breathing noisily. Of course, the wobble in the view cleared up.

He went back and dumped both ashtrays in the toilet,

washed them, washed out the vials, thoroughly dusted out his coat pockets and put everything away.

He satisfied himself that there was no trace of either one left anywhere.

But, all in all, it was a pretty amateur performance. No dope addict would ever waste drugs that way. And although you can burn heroin, it is too expensive a way to imbibe it. One has to shoot it into the blood to get the maximum good out of it.

Even though it was probably a hot night, he left the window open. Looking for something to do, he found and read The Fine Art of Angling for Beginners. Finishing that, he tackled The Fine An of Baseball for Beginners.

It was not yet eight. He got interested in the TV set. He got it on. He got a picture. And then he kept pummeling and picking at its switches. He got it all out of kilter and finally got it back in again. I couldn’t figure out what he found wrong with it. It was working, sound and picture.

Somewhat impatiently, he went through the whole routine again. There was a sign that said if the TV didn’t work to call the desk and he approached the phone. Then he apparently thought better of it and slumped in a chair. He addressed the set: “All right. You’re the first viewer I ever met I couldn’t fix. So just go on hiding your 3-D control. I’ll look at you anyway!”

A movie was just coming on. The title was THE FBI IS WATCHING YOU!

He sat through all manner of shootings and car chases and wrecks. The FBI wiped out all the red agents in America. It then wiped out all the Mafia in America. It then wiped out the U.S. Congress. I could tell Heller was impressed. He kept yawning and, psychologically, that is a sure sign of tension building up and releasing.

The Washington, D.C., local late news followed.

Whites had been mugged. Blacks had been mugged. Whites had been raped. Blacks had been raped. Whites had been murdered. Blacks had been murdered.

There is a law in America that TV must cover everything impartially without showing bias and they had racially balanced the program up pretty well.

There had been no slightest mention of any incident in Potomac Park. There hadn’t even been a line about a Mary Schmeck, a junkie, dying on the way to a hospital — such deaths are too common to even get notice.

Heller sighed and shut off the TV.

He went to bed.

It was just past six in the morning in Turkey. I, too, turned in. But I couldn’t sleep. He had not even put a chain on his room door or locked the French doors to the balcony. He had not even placed any sort of a weapon under his pillow!

He was going to be hit. That was for certain. Somewhere on the path he was taking, Bury had it all arranged. There was no IF about it. There was only WHEN?

An idiot had me on a chain and was leading me straight to my death! Maybe I would go as anonymously and unremarked as Mary Schmeck. The thought saddened me.

Chapter 7

For a man about to be hit, Heller certainly was relaxed the next morning.

There was a small buzzer on my viewer which sounded when reception intensified, if you remembered to set it and I certainly had! At 2:00 P.M. Turkish time I was blasted out of bed by it. It was 7:00 A.M. in Maryland and Heller was up and taking a shower. At least he was still alive, though I was unconfident that it would be for long.

He was splashing around in the shower. His Fleet passion for cleanliness grated on my nerves. It had been just as hot in Turkey as it had been around Washington I was sure. I didn’t have air conditioning and I was certainly more sweaty and dirty and rumpled than he had been, yet I didn’t have to take any shower! The man was clearly mad.

I went out and got a small boy by the ear and hurled him in the direction of the cookhouse and, shortly, I was back hanging over the viewer, wolfing kavun, or melon, and washing it down with kahve, the Turkish name for coffee, which is a cousin to hot jolt. I was so intent that I was gulping it down with sade and omitting mineral water swallows between sips the way you are supposed to do. The fact was forcefully called to my attention when my already raw nerves began to leap peculiarly. I dumped in the sugar and drank about a quart of water very quick. But my nerves were still jumping.

It was absolutely horrifying to watch what Heller was doing — or, more correctly, what he was not doing!

He made no baggage inspection — he simply got out a clean set of underclothes and socks from the carry-all and put them on, thus denying me any real inspection of his suitcases.

Dressed, he did not look up and down the hall before he stepped into it. He gave not the slightest glance around corners before he rounded them. He did not inspect the parking lot as he passed it for new, strange cars. And he did not even look over the restaurant when he entered but, with indecent carelessness, walked over to a booth and sat down.

A teen-age girl with a ponytail came to wait on him. He said, “Where’s that elderly woman that was here last night?” Evidently the stupid idiot had formed some attachment — mother fixation no doubt!

The dumb girl went off to ask the manager of all things! She came back. “She was just temporary. You got no idea how the help shifts around in these motel chains. What’ll y’have?”

“A chocolate sundae,” said Heller. “That’s to start. Then… what’s these?” He was pointing at a picture.

“Waffles?” said the girl. “They’re just waffles.”

“Give me five,” said Heller. “And three cups of hot jo— coffee.”

I made a hurried note. Although I realized it was quite plain that he was imitating the accents of the people he talked to, he had almost strayed into a Code break. When I had the platen, those could be used to hang him high!

She came with a big, gooey chocolate sundae and he demolished it. Then she came with five separate plates of waffles and spread them around and he demolished those. Then she came with three separate cups of coffee. He emptied the sugar bowl of cubes into them and demolished those.

She was hanging around, not giving him his check. “You’re cute,” she said. “It’ll be fall semester soon. You going to sign up with a local high school?”

“I’m just passing through,” said Heller.

“(Bleep),” said the girl and stalked off. She came back with his check. She had put all the items on it. She was very frosty and uppity. Even the dollar tip didn’t seem to matter. She must have been looking at his back as she left the table but her voice came through clearly. “I never get the breaks.”

Heller said to the cashier, “I understand your lamp blew out last night.”

“Which one?”

“This one,” said Heller, tapping it.

The cashier asked the manager who was fiddling around with the cigarette display. He said, “Oh, yeah. Outside fuse. But it didn’t blow. The fuse got pulled somehow.”

He bought a whole bale of daily papers and went back to his room. A golden opportunity had been missed, I realized suddenly. I cursed Raht and Terb. They were somewhere within two hundred miles of him or I wouldn’t be getting a picture. They were depending on the fact that his clothes and suitcases were bugged to keep him ranged. I could have kicked them for not demanding a receiver-typer. Yes, I knew it was illegal for them to pack around more than a small transmitter that looked like an alarm clock. But they should have said, “(Bleep) the regulations, Gris must be served!” They hadn’t. A pair of (bleepards), both of them. A golden chance to ransack his baggage had been missed! If I had that platen, I wouldn’t be going through all this!

He got out a spin brush, filled its fluid container and washed his teeth and I was so bitter about the suitcases that I almost passed over a real Code break. That spin brush might even have a Voltarian manufacturing plate on it! Not that anybody on this planet could read it, but it was still a Code break. His obsession with cleanliness was going to ruin him yet. I didn’t even own a spin brush: they cost three credits.

With suitcases dragging from each hand and the carry-all under one arm and the mass of newspapers under the other, he went down to his car.

And did he carefully inspect it to see if it had been set up with bombs? No! He just put his baggage in the back, the newspapers in the front seat, started up and started off. I had turned the volume down in case there was an explosion.

He went up to U.S. 495 and, tooling along comfortably, got onto U.S. 95 and, at a leisurely fifty-five, rolled across the beautiful leafy green of Maryland, admiring the trees and fields and not even glancing into the rear-view mirror to see if he was tailed. That beauty he was impressed by was deceptive. I knew there was death waiting on that road!

He got into Delaware, admiring it down to the last huge barn. I didn’t know why he was looking so thoroughly at all these chicken factories with their huge signs. Snipers wouldn’t be concealed in them. Then suddenly a truck — glaringly labelled Delaware Chickens Corp. — swerved around to get ahead of him (he was dawdling), and he drove up so close to it he almost rammed it and then hung hard on its tailgate. It was a truck full of live chickens and he was looking them all over.

“So,” he muttered, “that’s what a chicken is!”

Hopeless! Absolutely hopeless!

Past Greater Wilmington Airport, he turned to the right onto the huge Delaware River Bridge. But was his mind on his business? No!

He stopped his car! Halfway across the span, disregarding traffic and horns and brake squeals, he stepped on his brakes!

A trailer-truck slued sideways frantically and blocked all lanes!

He got out. He left his car right there in the right lane, motor running, and got out! He gave only the slightest glance to the pandemonium he had abruptly caused.

He went over to the bridge rail and looked down at the Delaware River.

“Holy, jumping blastguns!” he said in Voltarian. Just like that!

And what was he looking at? He was looking down at the brown, roiling water. And what was there to see? Nothing but oil slicks and old floating tires and dead cats. Of course, I will admit the Delaware River is pretty big as rivers go and it looks bigger as at this point it becomes Delaware Bay and then part of the Atlantic.

The huge truck driver that had almost rammed the Cadillac now couldn’t get out because of the stacked up traffic. He came roaring at Heller, shaking his fists. I only saw him on peripheral vision. Heller wasn’t looking at him. He was looking northeast, up the river. The noise was absolutely deafening. Honking horns and angry yells and this truck driver. I had to turn down the gain.

Heller ignored the raised fists and profanity coming at him. Right into the middle of a tirade about “you (bleeped) kid,” Heller said, “Is there a city up there?”

“Jesus!” exploded the truck driver. “Where the hell are you from?”

And Heller was so intent on whatever he was thinking about, he said, “Manco.”

Then, into the middle of an “I don’t care if you’re from hell” sort of thing, Heller said, “I asked you, is there a city up this river?” Yikes! It was his piercing, high-pitched Fleet voice! I hastily lowered the gain some more.

The truck driver said, “Philadelphia, you (bleeped), ignorant…”

And into the middle of that, Heller pierced, “Is this their sewer?”

“Of course it’s their God (bleeped) sewer!” screamed the enraged truck driver.

“Jesus,” said Heller in English. And he just ignored the man and the crowd and the fists and went back and got in his car and drove on.

Heller was shaking his head. “Must be a hundred million people in that town and no sewer system. POH-LLU-SHUN! Jesus!”

As I say, he wasn’t tending to business. Any passing sniper could have shot him.

But I had him now. He had actually told an Earth-man where he was actually from! I started to write it down and then thought I had better reread Code Number a-36-544 M Section B. I dimly remembered it could be interpreted as “making an alien aware that a landing had taken place on his planet.” I couldn’t be sure. Had the truck driver been aware of Heller’s definitive answer? I couldn’t find the book.

When I sat down to watch again, Heller was on the New Jersey Turnpike, tooling along at fifty-five. He was relaxed once more. He had all his windows up and the air conditioning on, so it must be a hot day.

The traffic was very jammy. This turnpike is one of the most overloaded highways in the world, carrying almost triple what it was designed for and despite the high price of gasoline and cars and consequent traffic reduction, the trucks were clogging its dozen lanes. Oranges from Florida seemed to be the biggest part of what Heller was trying to flow along with.

He drove for some time and then, possibly because he thought oranges might have an odor — a trailer had evidently been strewing the road with them after a collision — he opened his window.

He sniffed.

Suddenly he shook his head as though to clear it.

He sniffed again.

Then he sneezed!

Well, of course he sneezed. The state of New Jersey, particularly along the turnpike, has one of the highest air pollution concentrations in the world. I could have told him that. Everybody knows it.

Trucks or no trucks, he fished out a notebook and wrote some percentages of sulphur dioxide and some other symbols I don’t know, but probably all noxious.

He closed his window. And then he said to the planet in general, “You’re going to have to use hacksaws pretty soon even to get a plane to move through this stuff! How can you manage to do it so fast? This area is .06 percent up even since my survey.”

He drove for a while and then he said, “I better get busy.”

But it was miles later before he acted. And what he did made no sense at all.

He went through the lousiest tail-shaking procedure I have ever seen!

Somehow he had gotten ahead of the mobs of Florida oranges. Before him lay miles of two lanes, totally empty. It was completely flat — there is no scenery on this turnpike — it was without turns.

Despite the solemn warnings of Stupewitz and Maul-in, he suddenly tramped on the accelerator and zipped the car up to ninety miles an hour! I thought, at last he’s gotten some sense! He’s trying to get away!

It wasn’t as fast as he could go. If he was trying to escape, he really should have stamped on it!

He sailed along, looking in his rearview mirror.

He was in plain view! This was no way to escape!

He clocked off three miles.

Then, still in full view, almost as if he wanted to be seen, he paid a toll and drove out through an exit gate.

He stopped. He backed the car over to the side where it could not be seen. And he just sat and watched the gate.

After a bit, he got one of the newspapers and began to read, looking up from time to time at the gate.

He found one story that fascinated him. It was in the New York Daily Scum:

Mucky Hack, veteran investigative reporter and crime exposer of the Daily Libel, was splattered all over 34th Street last night when his specially built Mercedes-Benz Phaeton was rigged for a blitz that went BOOM!

The car was worth $89,000 according to Boyd’s, the only underwriters who would touch it. It was alleged to be a gift from I. G. Barben Pharmaceutical Corp. Car fans will miss its presence in the Annual Special Car Parade at Atlantic City.

Five shops were also destroyed in the blast.

Police Inspector Bulldog Grafferty, who investigated the car bombing, issued a carefully prepared statement today: “It was a valuable vehicle. The bomb rigging was extremely expert, the work of a master. Boyd’s had required the car to be guarded by Tilt and five other independent alarm systems.

“The only possible person who could have set up the blast is Bang-Bang Rimbombo.

“Bang-Bang is an ex-marine demolitions expert left over from the last war.

“Many car bombings have been attributed to him in the past although no arrests were ever made.

“Bang-Bang is a trusted member of the notorious Corleone mob which Mucky Hack has always been exposing in his tireless reporting.

“The New York/New Jersey mob is run by the able and charming Babe Corleone, the ex of the late ‘Holy Joe’ Corleone.

“It is well known that Corleone received his gang cognomen of ‘Holy Joe’ because he would not push drugs and that Faustino ‘The Noose’ Narcotici has been making steady inroads on the former Corleone territories in Manhattan.

“Thus, the motive for the rigging of the bombs by Bang-Bang exists. The expertise bears the unmistakable Bang-Bang trademark.

“Bang-Bang has not been arrested solely because he doesn’t complete his current sentence in Sing Sing until tomorrow and was still in jail at the time of the bombing.

“Several shopkeepers were arrested for permitting the car to park in that spot.

“The case, therefore, can be considered closed.”

Mucky Hack is survived by his managing editor and an old Ford.

For the life of me I could not see what he could find of interest in this story. He could read so fast that to see him sit there looking at one news item for ten minutes was baffling.

Possibly my annoyance, however, to be honest, came from the fact that he was holding the paper folded. There was a Bugs Bunny strip that was thus only half-revealed: Bugs had Elmer Fudd in a bath of carrot juice, and not being able to see the beginning of the strip, I could not fathom how Elmer had gotten there or why. Possibly Elmer had been ill? Possibly the bath had been prepared by Elmer as a trap into which he himself had then fallen? But there was no way for me to tell Heller to open up the page so I could see. It was frustrating!

Finally Heller looked at his watch. My Gods, he was wearing a combat engineer’s watch! In plain sight! I certainly put that down as a Code break. Then I was given pause: it looks like just a flat disc with a small hole in the center. Earthmen would mistake it for an identification bracelet or something like that.

He rotated his wrist, turning the watch downward and touched it. I had noticed before that he had this as a sort of nervous habit. But this is the first time I had really remarked it. It showed that he did have nerves after all.

He yawned — another nervous symptom. He looked at the toll gate area. Not one car had come through it in all the time he had been sitting there!

“So,” he said, “no Slinkerton!”

Then it came to me in a flash what he had been up to. The Fleet must have battle tactics and he was practicing one of them. He had invited pursuit to lay an ambush. But he had no weapon, so he had probably done it because of training conditioning triggered by mounting nervous tension.

That must have been it, for he now started up the Cadillac, doubtlessly disappointed that his ruse had not worked, drove through the complexity of exits and entrances to the turnpike, got another fare ticket and was shortly on his way, rolling once more northeastward.

The traffic was quite heavy, and with all those trucks weaving in and out trying to pass each other, any normal driver would have felt he had his hands full. But Heller was taking time out now and then to read a story about “Economic Chaos Just Down the Road According to Financial Experts of Merrill Bull, Inc.”

This expert watching him knew that the chaos which was down his road was not only economic! The lamb to slaughter had a better chance, in my opinion, than this idiot!

Chapter 8

At 4:20 that afternoon, Heller arrived at the rendezvous. He had dawdled along, stopping often, but he was still ten minutes early.

He parked the Cadillac carelessly in the higgledy-piggledy lot and made his way through the turmoil of tired kids and savage fathers and mothers that usually populate such temporary stop areas on a turnpike.

He made his way into the restaurant and was shortly seated at a table. He looked around.

I froze! Directly across the room from him was a dimly familiar face. Heller’s glance passed over it but not mine! I mastered my nerves and, using the second screen, got back to that view, stilled.

The face was very Sicilian in bone structure. It was deeply pockmarked. A knife scar ran from the corner of the mouth straight back to the bottom of the left ear. The eyes were reptilian. My memory for faces is unsurpassed. But I could not place him.

Hastily, I yanked a camera from a shelf and, excluding the edges of the screen, got a close-up of that face! Rapidly, I stripped out the finished picture and, working very fast, blew it down onto Earth-type paper.

Keeping an eye on the current screen, I saw a tall, gray-haired man walk up to the Sicilian. The Sicilian showed the gray-haired man something he held cupped in his palm. A photo? Then he nodded almost imperceptibly toward Heller.

The Sicilian was acting as the finger man!

The gray-haired man drew back and idled against the wall. He was wearing a bowler. He was impeccably dressed, a three-piece suit, the vest of which was gray. He was wearing pince-nez glasses connected to his lapel with a black ribbon. He was also carrying an umbrella.

Heller ordered, got and ate a hamburger and washed it down with Seven Up. He was picking up his check when the gray-haired man approached him.

With a touch of a finger to his bowler, the gray-haired man said, “I am Buttlesby, young master. Mr. Bury wanted to be sure you were safely met. I am to show you where to go. If you are ready, may we go?” Very courteous English accent, the perfect fake family retainer.

Heller simply got up, paid his check and followed Buttlesby out.

The Sicilian passed them and, when they reached the parking lot, was getting into another car.

Buttlesby opened the door of the Cadillac for Heller and helped him get under the wheel. Then Buttlesby went around and got into the passenger seat.

“If you please,” said Buttlesby, “proceed on up the turnpike. I will show you the turns.”

Behind them, Heller saw the Sicilian’s car was following them but after that he seemed to give it no heed.

“We will be leaving your car in a garage in Weehawken,” said Buttlesby.

“Why?” said Heller.

“Oh, dear,” said Buttlesby. “Absolutely no one ever drives across the river into New York! Heaven forbid! The Manhattan traffic positively devours cars, bangs them all up, ruins them. Anyone who is sensible leaves his car on the New Jersey side of the river and takes a taxi into New York. And in New York one uses taxis.” He laughed slightly. “Let the taxis take the buffeting. Your car will be perfectly safe in the New Jersey garage.”

Heller drove along in silence.

Buttlesby began to talk again. “Mr. Bury is dreadfully sorry, but he is detained in town. He has arranged for the young gentleman to stay at the Brewster Hotel on 22nd Street. Here is the hotel card.” And he tucked it into Heller’s outside breast pocket.

“Mr. Bury was very specific. The young gentleman is expected. He is not to register under his own name but, like any young gentleman, is to register incognito. It’s what all the young bloods do when they go for a fling in town.

“Mr. Bury will call on you in person at precisely eight o’clock tomorrow morning at your hotel. He asked me to reassure you that you are perfectly safe, that no one is the least bit cross with you and that everyone has your best interests at heart. So, you will wait for him at the hotel?”

“Sure,” said Heller.

The idiot! That would be the site of the hit! Or would it be even sooner?

Buttlesby directing, they left the turnpike and went with signs pointing to the Lincoln Tunnel. But at a sign, J. F. Kennedy Blvd., they turned off and were soon in the New Jersey town of Weehawken, a very shabby place.

They rolled along to 34th Street and the fake family retainer gave more directions and shortly they were on the ramp of a large but dingy building, a garage.

The escort got out, rapped on the door three times and then twice with the handle of his umbrella and in a moment the huge mechanical door swung up, revealing a vast, dark interior.

A rather overweight young man with huge, somewhat scared eyes, dressed in paint-spattered khaki coveralls, was standing there, pointing.

Heller drove in the direction of the point.

The floor was paint-spattered. There were some battered machines evidently used in body work. But there were no other cars there.

Way back at the end there was an area cleaner than the rest and no paint spatters. Heller stopped the car.

He got out and opened up the back. Buttlesby was there helping with the baggage — he couldn’t manage all of it and Heller carried one suitcase.

The plump young man had his hand out. “The keys,” he said. “We maybe got to move it.”

Heller separated the keys and for the first time I noticed there were two sets on the ring. And then the idiot handed one set over to the young man.

They went outside and there was a taxi waiting! The driver had his cap down, possibly to hide his face. Buttlesby got the baggage into the cab and stood back, holding the door open for Heller to enter. Heller got in but Buttlesby didn’t.

“Aren’t you going with me?” said Heller.

“Oh, dear no. Cross into Manhattan when I don’t have to? Dreadful place. They ruin cars. Someone will be by to pick me up directly. Driver, take this young gentleman to the Brewster Hotel on 22nd Street. And no accidents, mind you.”

The cab drew away and behind them the Sicilian drove up and Buttlesby got in the Sicilian’s battered old car.

Shortly they were in the Lincoln Tunnel and Heller seemed more interested in the tile work that was flying by than he was in being en route to the hit spot.

As they exited from under the river, his eyes were all over the place, taking in New York. He seemed to be remarking about the fenders. And it is true that New York City fenders are the most bashed fenders in the world. He looked at dents rolling beside them and dents parked at curbs and possibly he was satisfied with Buttlesby’s explanation. I wasn’t. Bury had successfully separated the alleged Delbert John Rockecenter, Junior, from a car link that would lead back to the FBI.

They came at length to 22nd Street, which is narrow. And shortly they were drawn up before the Brewster Hotel, which is squat.

The buildings in that shabby section are only a few stories high. The garbage cans abounded.

While the Brewster may not be the worst hotel in New York, it is where the winos probably stop when they have money.

Heller removed his baggage and paid the driver — who probably already had been paid — and was shortly at the desk in the narrow excuse for a lobby.

The clerk, a man whose complexion was totally gray, looked at him with sunken eyes and then reached for a key. It must be all set up, even the exact room!

A card was pushed at him and Heller registered with a flourish. Al Capone. Address: Sing Sing.

The clerk gave him a key, not even bothering to read the registration card.

Heller squeezed his baggage into the elevator, worked out it must be the fourth floor and was shortly in his room.

What a shabby room! A double bed against the far wall. One easy chair. One straight back. A side table by the easy chair, an 1890 bathroom and a TV.

Heller put his baggage on the bed and went over to the double window. Directly across the street, the building there was exactly the same height: it had a flat roof and parapet — the exact requirements for a sniper post.

But Heller gave it no special heed. He tried to turn on the TV. The picture and sound came on but it was a black and white TV.

Heller tapped it on the side. Then he fiddled with the settings and got it all out of kilter. Then he opened a panel and found some more settings and twisted those with a tool from his tool kit.

I couldn’t comprehend what he was up to. Rigging a bomb? Doing something equally sensible?

And then it came to me. No stereo picture, no color. He thought it was broken!

He finally got the interior settings straight again and then the exterior knobs and got the picture and sound back.

He pulled the TV, which was on casters, slightly into the room and adjusted the easy chair. He had the back of that chair to the windows! My Gods, didn’t he realize that’s where the shot would come from?

And then this utter simpleton sat and watched the evening news in all its gory details.

Then he found a motion picture on the channels and sat yawning while the Mafia won World War II for America in Italy.

I did not wait for the end of that. Gripping my paper picture, I sped through the tunnel to Faht’s office.

I slammed the picture in front of Faht’s face. “Who is this man?” I demanded.

He shrugged and indicated the cabinets marked Student Files. They contain, amongst other things, a rogues gallery of customers so that we do not go adrift and sell to the wrong people.

It took me half an hour of digging — and how I longed for a proper computer system, illegal though it might be to install one on this planet.

I found him!

Unmistakable!

He had visited Turkey on two occasions to inspect the work of buyers for their mob.

It was Razza Louseini! Consigliere of the mob of Faustino “The Noose” Narcotici. The New York Mafia lot that is the outlet for I. G. Barben Pharmaceutical!

Important people.

The direct-line connection to Rockecenter’s disguised control of the drug industry!

And the consigliere, the advisor and administrative head of the most powerful mob in New York, had personally gone down to act as the finger man on Heller!

One of our best customers had been given the job of knocking off Heller!

It was just, of course, but none of these people would know any part of this connection to Heller. Lombar had known. He had quite understood the fury that would boil in the Rockecenter camp when an imposter showed up. The Rockecenter name is sacred!

I felt an awe of Lombar. He had fed Heller straight into the fire. For a moment, at the FBI in Washington, I had thought Lombar had gone wrong. But no! The power of the Apparatus chief was reaching straight through, handled unwittingly by puppets!

And then the awe turned into sickness. Heller had a contact in the Grand Council we had not known about. And I did not have the code!

There was no possible way to get Heller’s baggage ransacked in time.

This planet was a goner!

But who cared about the planet? It was I, Soltan Gris, who would be dead in the echo of a fatal rifle shot through that window!

Chapter 9

At 7:10 New York time, there was a knock on Heller’s hotel room door. A sloppy delivery boy with Gulpinkle’s Delicatessen on his coat was handing Heller a bag.

Heller took it!

“That’ll be two bucks and a four-bit tip,” said the boy.

Heller made out that this was two dollars and fifty cents, paid him and closed the door. He opened the bag and found a plastic container of coffee and two jelly rolls.

No hotel like that ever had service like this! Was the stuff poisoned? Drugged?

Heller sniffed the coffee. He broke open a roll and sniffed it. Then the (bleeped) fool proceeded to consume them. He didn’t pass out or drop dead, so I realized they had just been making sure he didn’t leave his room or walk about to be seen.

He put on a clean baseball pullover. He finished dressing and combed his hair. He spin-brushed his teeth.

He arranged the room. He put the easy chair with its back to the window, put the side table against it to the left hand. He put the straight-back chair in front of it, facing it. Then he took the two glass ashtrays and put them on the side table near the easy chair.

Then, possibly finding waiting heavy, he seemed to discover that the inside doorknob of the hall door was loose and he got a tool from his kit and worked at it. Then he unlocked the door completely.

He went over to the bed, made it and then opened both his suitcases on it, wide open!

He emptied the carryall and made a neat pile of the contents at the bed top.

The portable radio he had bought attracted his attention and he fiddled with it, getting a station or two. It seemed to amuse him that the music was not stereo. How could it be, with Earth electronics! The whole thing was made just to dangle from the wrist by a strap. He took it back to the easy chair and sat down. He listened to the morning news. Toys! All Fleet guys are crazy with toys. Here he was about to be hit and he was amusing himself with a toy. The muggings and murders and political corruption of New York aren’t news.

It was getting close to eight. He got up and went to the window. He was looking down into the street, maybe watching for his caller to arrive.

But I saw something else! By peripheral vision, I saw a man come out of a door on that other roof! A man carrying a violin case!

Heller went back and sat down. The radio came to the end of the news.

The elevator door down the hall opened. Heller, possibly because his toy was new, had to do a lot of fiddling to get the radio off. He dropped it into the top of an open suitcase, stepped backwards and dropped into the easy chair.

There was a knock on the door. Heller called, “Come in. It’s open.”

In walked the perfectly groomed Wall Street lawyer. The type is legendary. Three-piece suit in a somber gray. No hat. Impeccably neat. Dried up like a prune from holding in all the sins they commit. He was carrying a fat briefcase.

“I am Mr. Bury of Swindle and Crouch,” he said. Very Ivy League accent.

Heller gestured to the straight-backed chair. Bury sat down on it and put his briefcase beside him. He wasted no time. “Where did you get this idea?” he said.

“Well, most people get ideas,” said Heller.

“Did somebody talk you into this?”

“Don’t know anybody much around here,” said Heller.

“How many times have you used the name Delbert John Rockecenter, Junior?”

“I haven’t!” said Heller.

“Did you use it to the men who met you?”

Aha! Razza Louseini and Buttlesby weren’t in on it! They were just there to escort an anonymous somebody. Mr. Bury had kept this pretty tight!

“No,” said Heller. “No one has used it to me and I haven’t used it to anybody.”

Bury seemed to relax. “Ah, I see I am dealing with a very discreet young man.”

“That you are,” said Heller.

“Do you have the papers?”

“They’re there in my coat.”

Bury got them. He also looked in the pockets. He sat back down.

“Now,” said Bury, “did the FBI copy them?”

“They used them at the phone and they lay on a desk the rest of the time, turned over.”

Bury was becoming more and more pleased. He was almost smiling, if a Wall Street lawyer can ever be said to smile beyond a tiny twitch of the mouth corners. “And you have no more copies?”

“Search the place,” said Heller. “There’s my jacket and there are my baseball clothes and there are my grips.”

Bury got up again and looked through the sports clothes. He was looking for labels! I had more than an inkling of what was intended now.

The lawyer got to the grips. He got tangled up in fish line and then snagged a finger on a bass plug. He drew back cautiously and peeked at the contents.

The sides of his mouth actually twitching, he came back and sat down, facing Heller. “I have a deal for you,” he said. “You give me these papers and in exchange I will give you another, completely bona fide identity and twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Let’s see it,” said Heller.

Bury opened one side of his case. He pulled out a birth certificate, Bibb County, Georgia. It said that JEROME TERRANCE WISTER had been born in Macon General Hospital on a date seventeen years before. The parents were Agnes and Gerald Curtis Wister and the baby was white, blond and male.

“That is totally valid,” said Bury. “Also, the parents are both dead, there are no brothers or sisters or other kin.”

Heller made a gesture for more. Bury pulled out a Saint Lee Military Academy certified record of grades. The grades were all D’s!

“No junior college certificate here,” said Heller.

“Ah, you have missed something. This credits you with one more year than your other certificate. That gives you only one more year and you will have your full college degree of Bachelor. You will probably finish college, yes?”

“People don’t listen to you unless you have a diploma,” said Heller.

“How true that is,” said Bury. “I couldn’t have stated it better myself. So you see, you are the gainer. One more year of college and you will have your diploma.”

Hastily I shuffled through my wits to recall what the catch must be here. Then I had it. With all D’s he’d have trouble getting admittance into another college and with a missing year — and Bury had no way of knowing all Heller’s Earth education was missing — Heller would fail. But this was just gratuitous sadism on Bury’s part. He knew that grade sheet would never be presented. It told me something else about the man. He was devious. He planned against failures of his plans even when success seemed certain!

“It gives you more than you had,” urged Bury. “I am being completely fair with you.”

Wall Street lawyer fair, I told myself.

Heller was beckoning for more.

“Now, here,” said Bury, “is your driver’s license. It is for New Jersey, quite valid in New York. And notice it is for all vehicles including motorcycles. This is in exchange for the D.C. one you have handed me. See how generous I am being?”

Heller inspected it.

“Now, here is the registration for your car in exchange for the D.C. one I hold now. And these are the plates. Note they are New Jersey plates, quite valid for New York. But I will take these along and have them put on your car. You will be picking up your car, won’t you?”

Heller nodded and Bury seemed relieved. But Heller was still beckoning.

“Here is a social security card,” said Bury. “It is brand-new as you have never before had a job. You’ll find it vital for identity.”

The identity of a corpse, I told myself.

Heller was beckoning for more. The corners of Bury’s mouth twitched and he handed Heller a U.S. passport. Heller opened it and stared at the picture of himself. “Where did you get this?”

“Last night,” said Bury. “That’s why you had to stop in Silver Spring.”

“The flash at dinner,” said Heller.

“You don’t miss much. As a matter of fact, you can have the rest of the copies. I won’t be needing them now.” And he handed Heller a dozen more passport photos.

“How do I know this identity is all valid?” said Heller. “How did you get it?”

“My dear fellow,” said Bury, “the government has to provide full verifiable identification all the time. They have witnesses they have to hide, people who have risked their lives to give testimony. The State Department does it continually. And we, you might say, own the State Department. You were quite imaginative to take us on this way. But we are nothing else than kind.”

Rockecenter, kind? Oh, my Gods!

“Don’t you worry about the validity of any of this,” said Bury. “Indeed, it would be very bad for me if it were false.”

Indeed, it would be, Mr. Bury, I gritted. The identity found on a corpse gets very close scrutiny!

“Now for the money,” said Mr. Bury. And he hauled out wads of it from the left side of his briefcase. “Twenty-five thousand dollars, all in old bills, unmarked and untagged.”

Heller laid it on the side table, back of the ashtrays.

“Just one thing more,” said Bury. “It’s illegal in New York to register in a hotel under a false name. A felony, in fact.” (Oh, what a LIE!) “So I just brought up a registration blank. Sign it with your new name and put Macon, Georgia, down as the address and we’ll be finished.”

Heller took it and balanced it on his knee. “One more thing,” said Heller.

“Yes?” said Bury.

“The rest of the money in your briefcase,” said Heller.

“Oh!” said Bury, like he’d been punched in the solar plexus.

Aha, the man was also crooked. He probably had intended to keep the rest of it for himself!

“You drive a hard bargain, young man,” said Bury.

But Heller just had his palm up. Bury pulled a wad of money out of the right side of the briefcase. “It’s another twenty-five thousand,” said Bury.

Heller put it with the rest of the money, quite a pile! And then, sure as if it were his death warrant, he signed the hotel registration blank, Jerome Terrance Wister, Macon, Georgia.

Bury said, “You drive a hard bargain. But that’s not bad. You’ll really get along in the world, I can tell.”

For about ten minutes more, I said to myself. As soon as you get clear of this room, Mr. Bury, and have yourself an alibi, a bullet is going to come through that window and that will be the end of Heller! And me!

Bury stood up, “Have I got everything?” He chuckled as he showed Heller the briefcase was empty and then he put all the reclaimed I.D. and the new license plates in it, probably gloating. He carefully looked around the room. He moved over toward the door.

“One more thing,” said Heller. “Pick up that telephone and tell the clerk to go out in the street and tell that sniper on the roof to come over to this room.”

Bury went rigid. Then he grabbed for the doorknob.

It came off in his hand!

He stared at it for an instant.

Then as he dropped it, his hand darted to the inside of his coat. He was going to pull a gun!

Heller reached sideways.

He picked up a glass ashtray so fast his hand blurred.

The ashtray sizzled across the room, hit Bury a glancing blow on the arm, caromed off and shattered into a shower of glass against the door, spattering Bury.

The lawyer stepped back, arm numb. He stared at Heller.

The second ashtray was in Heller’s hand. “This one,” said Heller, “takes the top of your head off!”

Bury was shaking, he was holding his arm. He moved over to the phone. He told the clerk to go out in the street and call up to the roof across the way and tell the man there to come over quickly.

Except by the window, the room was too dark and curtained to see deeply into. Heller moved over in a leisurely fashion and took Bury’s gun.

“Just sit down there on the bed in plain view of the door. And look more relaxed.”

“I think you broke my arm.”

“Better than your head. Now, when he knocks, tell him in a normal voice to come in.”

They waited, Heller against the wall by the door.

In about five minutes there was a knock.

“Come in,” said Bury.

The door opened and a man stepped in.

Heller slammed the side of his hand against the back of the man’s neck. It catapulted him forward into Bury!

The violin case dropped.

As the man had gone by him, Heller had extracted a Cobra Colt from his waistband.

Holding two guns, Heller put the Cobra in his pocket. He stepped out, flopped the squirming sniper onto his back. The man was a thin weasel, penitentiary stamped all over his face. Heller plucked a wad of bills from his inside pocket. He riffled them.

The sniper glared at Bury. “I thought you said he was just a kid!” He was starting to get furious.

Heller stepped forward. He made a cuffing motion and the assassin flinched. And Heller had his wallet and I.D.

With his foot, Heller pulled the briefcase to him and then opened it. He took out only the car plates. “I keep my bargains, Mr. Bury. You bought some papers and you can have them. I received some in exchange and I will keep them. A deal is a deal.”

Heller moved them over off the bed and against the wall away from it. “However, Mr. Bury, I somehow doubted you were strictly a man of honor. So…”

He took the radio/cassette player out of the top of the suitcase. He hit the rewind. He pushed play. Heller’s voice came out the tiny speaker, “Come in. It’s open.” And then Mr. Bury’s voice, “I am Mr. Bury of Swindle and Crouch.” Heller spot-checked it. It was all there on the cassette.

“So,” continued Heller, “we will just put this in a safe place in case anything odd happens to me.”

“Tapes aren’t court evidence,” sneered Mr. Bury.

“So, one more thing,” said Heller.

“I’m sick of your one-more-things!” said Bury.

Heller opened the hood’s wallet. He took a notebook and, in a blur of fast writing, took down all the particulars in it. Then he read the criminal’s name aloud:

“Torpedo Fiaccola” and added his home address and social security number.

Heller took the money he had removed from the assassin. “This is about five thousand, I should judge.” He put it in the wallet, making it bulge. “It is probably half the contract price.”

He gave the wallet to the gangster. “I would not want to be accused of taking the daily bread out of anyone’s mouth. So I am buying a contract on Mr. Bury’s life.”

Bury and the gangster looked at each other and back at Heller.

“But I don’t want it executed yet,” said Heller. “If any of this I.D. turns out to be funny or if I hear any Bury bullets going past my ears, I will phone you and you can execute the contract on him. You will be paid another five thousand cash if you then execute it.” He must have smiled at the hood. The fellow didn’t know what to think.

“Oh, I can reach you,” said Heller. “I have your mother’s address and phone number here.”

The gangster flinched. I actually don’t think Heller understood that the gangster now thought Heller was saying that if the hood didn’t comply, his mother would be executed. But the gangster, I could see, took it that way.

Bury was another matter. As Heller studied him, I could see that Mr. Bury had another trick up his sleeve.

“You have nothing to fear from me, Mr. Bury,” said Heller. “You have your papers. I will keep the deal as long as you do. So let’s leave it that way.”

Heller took the shells out of the revolvers. I freaked! He didn’t have a gun on them now!

Heller opened up the violin case and inspected the dismantled sniper rifle. Then he took its supply of shells. He gave the guns and case and briefcase to them. With a screwdriver, he got a grip on the knob shaft socket and opened the door.

With a courtly bow, he signalled they could leave.

“May we never have occasion to meet again,” said Heller.

The look Bury gave him would have disfigured a brass statue.

They left.

Heller was a fool! His grand heroics might serve in another time and place but not New York, New York, Planet Earth — Blito-P3!

He should have quietly killed them both. That would have been the tradecraft thing to do!

He had humbled one of the most influential attorneys on the planet and gotten the better of Rockecenter, a thing that man never tolerates.

Then, just as if he had not made mortal enemies, Heller neatly put the doorknob back on, packed, made everything tidy. Then, as he put his baseball cap on the back of his head in front of the mirror, he said, “There’s nothing like FBI training to see you through.” And he laughed.

But they hadn’t taught him enough. Bury already had realized that any threat to Heller from anyone could be interpreted by Jerome Terrance Wister as coming from Bury. It left Bury with no other choice than, one way or another — if not at once, then at some convenient future time — to use much more adroit methods to eradicate Jerome Terrance Wister. Top Wall Street lawyers don’t ever really lose. They only postpone.

At his fingertips, Bury had at his command not only government agencies but whole governments. He could sic any of them on Heller. Money meant nothing to him. Very possibly, right this minute he was offering Torpedo Fiaccola three times what Heller had offered to give it another try. And Fiaccola, frantic at that foolish threat to his mother, as well as his disgrace today, would now listen to anything.

Heller really was dealing in a subject he knew too little about. And he was a lot too cocky! Spies are deadly things, like scorpions in hiding. They don’t walk out the door singing after they have set in motion the most powerful and vengeful machine on the planet — the Rockecenter power.

I sat and gloomed. I could think of no way to get that platen before Heller was killed. No wonder the life expectancy of combat engineers was only a couple of years of service. The life expectancy of anyone handling one, such as me, might even be much shorter!

And as I sat there glooming, a special messenger from Faht’s office rushed in with the day’s report from Raht and Terb. It said, “He registered at the Brewster Hotel and just checked out.” My Gods, I didn’t even get backup from my own men! Hells had no future like the one that waited for me!