Gladiator-At-Law

Chapter Twenty-Three

They worked through the night—hard—and they found the cabby they were looking for by dawn.

"Sure, mister. The kid with the con? I hacked him. Right to the artists' entrance at Monmouth Stadium. Friend of yours? Some kind of a dare?"

They tried to bribe their way into the arena, and they almost made it. The furtive gatekeeper was on the verge of swallowing their cock-and-bull story and palming their money when the night supervisory custodian showed up. He was a giant. His eyes shone.

He said politely, "I'm sorry, folks. Unauthorized access is prohibited. However, lineup for bleacher seats begins in a couple of hours, so—Hello, Mr. Bligh. I haven't seen you around lately."

"Hello, Barnes," Norvie said. "Look, can you possibly let us through? There's a fool kid we know who signed up on a dare. It's all a silly mistake, and he was muggled up."

The giant sighed regretfully. "Unauthorized access is prohibited. If you had a pass—"

The hackie said, "I don't mind waiting, folks, but don't you have better sense than to argue with a con?"

"He's right," said Norvie. "Let's try Candella. He used to be my boss, the louse."

The taxi whizzed them to General Recreations's bubble-city and Candella's particular pleasure dome. Ryan snoozed. Norma and Mundin held hands—scared, without erotic overtones. Bligh looked brightly interested, like a fox terrier. Hubble, hunched on a jump seat, mumbled to himself.

Candella awakened and came to the interviewer after five solid minutes of chiming his bell. Obviously he couldn't believe his eyes.

"Bligh?" he sputtered. "Bligh?" This time, no fawning on Bligh of G.M.L. The word had been passed.

"Yes, Mr. Candella. I'm sorry to wake you, but it's urgent. Can you let us in?"

"Certainly not!" The interviewer bunked off. Norvell leaned on the chime plate and Candella reappeared. "Damn it, Bligh, you must be drunk. Go away or I'll call the police!"

Mundin elbowed Norvell away from the scanner eye. "Mr. Candella—" in his best hostile-witness voice "—I'm Charles Mundin, attorney-at-law. I represent Mr. Donald Lavin. I have reason to believe that Mr. Lavin took a release and is now in the artists' quarters at Monmouth Stadium, due to appear in tomorrow's—today's, that is—Field Day. I advise you that my client is mentally incompetent to sign a release and that therefore your organization will be subject to heavy damages should he be harmed. I suggest that this contretemps can be most quickly adjusted by your filling out the necessary papers canceling your contract with him. Naturally, we're prepared to pay any indemnity, or service fee, that may be called for." He lowered his voice. "In small bills. Plenty of them."

"Come in," said Candella blandly.

The door opened. As they entered he muttered, "My God, an army!"

The house intercom said in a female voice, "What is it, Poopsie?"

Candella flushed and said, "Business. Switch off, please, Panther-Girl. I mean Prudence." There was a giggle and a click. "Now, gentlemen and miss—no, I don't care what your names are—let me show you one of our release forms. You, you said you were a lawyer, have a look."

Mundin studied it for ten minutes. Iron-clad? Water-tight? No. Call it tungsten-carbide-coated. Braced, buttressed, riveted, welded, and fire-polished. Airtight, hard-vacuum-proof, guaranteed not to wilt, shrink, sag, wrinkle, tear, or bag at the clauses under any conceivable legal assault.

Candella was enjoying his face as he read.

"Think you're the first?" He snickered. "If there's been one, there's been ten thousand. And each one that got away with it at first caused an overhaul job on this release. But there hasn't been a successful suit for thirty years, Mr. Attorney-at-Law."

Mundin pleaded, "The hell with the law, Mr. Candella. The hell with the bribe too, if you don't want it. Think of the kid. It's a humanitarian matter. The kid's got no business in there."

Candella was being righteous. "I'm protecting my company and its stockholders, Mr. Whoever-you-are. As a policy matter we can allow no exceptions. Our Field Days would be a chaos if every drunken bum—"

Mundin was about to clobber him when Norvell unexpectedly caught his arm. "No use," the little man said. "I never saw it before, Charles. He's a sadist. Of course. Who else would hold his job and enjoy it? You're interfering with his love life when you try to take one of his victims away. We'll have to go higher."

Candella snorted and showed them pointedly to the door.

In the taxi again, Mundin said meditatively, "We could hook them for damages, of course. But they don't care about that. Bliss, I guess this is where you take over."

The financier flipped through a notecase and reached for the phone as they rolled back toward the Stadium. He snapped, "Sam? Mr. Hubble here. Good morning to you. Sam, who's in charge of General Recreations—the outfit that puts on the Monmouth Field Days? I'll wait." He waited, and then said, "Oh. Thanks, Sam." He hung up the phone and told them, looking out the window, "Trustee stock. Held by the Choate firm. And we know who they run errands for, don't we?"

He drummed his fingers and snapped, "Bligh, you must know some way for us to get in. You worked there, after all."

Norvell said, "The only way in is with a release."

Norma Lavin said with dry hysteria, "Then let's sign releases." They started. "No, I'm not crazy. We want to find Don, don't we? And when we find him we restrain him—with a club if we have to. We can sign for crowd extras or something like that—can't we, Norvie? Something not too dangerous. It's all volunteer, isn't it?"

Norvell swallowed and said, "Remember, I wasn't a pit boss. I was on the planning end. From the planning end it was all supposed to be volunteer all right." He looked sick; but he said brightly, "Maybe it's not such a bad idea. I'll tell you what, I'll go in alone. I know the ropes, and—"

"Like hell," said Mundin shortly. "He won't want to be found, is my guess. He'll fight. I'll go."

They would all go, even Hubble and old Ryan. And then Norvell had a bright idea and it took a lot more small bills to get the hackie to take them to Belly Rave and an hour to find Lana of the Wabbits.

"We'll be there," she said grimly.

The briefing room beneath the stands was huge and it was crowded. About a quarter of the occupants were obvious rum-dumbs, another quarter were professionals, another quarter swashbuckling youngsters in for a one-shot that they could brag about for the remainder of their lives. The rest seemed to be—just people. It was twelve-thirty and everybody had been given an excellent hot lunch in the Stadium cafeteria. One professional noticed Mundin greedily wolfing down his meal and said casually, "Better not, stranger. Belly wounds." And Mundin stopped, suddenly thoughtful.

There was no sign so far of Don Lavin, which was not odd. Easy enough to lose yourself in that crowd, even if you didn't try. And Don, under the compulsion implanted in him, would be trying. They looked, as thoroughly as they could; but it was no use. They gathered together when time grew short and looked at each other searchingly, but no one had seen Don. "The Wabbits," Nome said hopefully. 'They'll spot him from the stands and signal us. Then—"

Then it might be too late. The whole thing depended on getting to him at once, which meant being in the same event; and they couldn't be sure of that. It had been a job keeping even the Wabbits in the stands; Lana had held out for signing up for the Kiddie Kut-Ups number, until Norvell had threatened to leave her out entirely, on the grounds that that was one number they could be sure Don wouldn't be in.

Mundin looked up, startled. Norvell was saying coldly, "Get the hell away, damn it! I thought you learned your lesson after I bent the pipe over your head."

A big, shaggy man was backing away from the little gamecock. "No, no," he said pleadingly. "Shep had it coming, he shouldn't have been fooling around with—Never mind. Shep's sorry. Damn, damn inpounding debt worry; I got to pay you back. I want to help."

Mundin caught Norvell's eye. "Where'd he come from?"

Norvell said blackly, "That Lana. She brought him along. He used to be a kind of bodyguard till I—fired him. My wife's idea."

Mundin said, "We can use another man."

Norvell shrugged. All he said was, "Watch yourself."

The big man fawned on Norvell gratefully, and Mundin looked on wonderingly.

Someone on the rostrum said, "May I have your attention, please? Will you all God-damn-it shut your yaps, please? You stumblebums in the corner there, that means you too. Shut up, you bastards! Thanks, all." He was a distraught young man who ran his fingers through his hair. Norvell muttered to Mundin:

"Willkie. He'll have a nervous breakdown by tonight. Every year. But—" wistfully "—but he's a good M.C."

Willkie snapped, "You know this is the big one, the show of the year, ladies and gentlemen. Double fees and survivor's insurance for this one. And in return, ladies and gentlemen, we expect you all to do your damnedest for the Stadium."

He measured the crowd. "Now, let's get on with the cast-big. First, a comedy number. We need some old gentlemen and ladies—nothing violent; padded clubs in a battle-royal to the finish. The last surviving lady gets five hundred dollars; the surviving gentlemen gets one thousand. Let's see some hands there! No, not you, buster—you can't be a day past sixty."

"Take it," Bligh urged Ryan. "Go with them and keep your eyes open for Don."

Ryan got the nod, and tottered away with the other old ladies and gentlemen.

"Now, are there two good men who fancy themselves as knife-fighters? Scandinavian style? It'll be noticed, so don't waste my time if you have a potbelly." Scandinavian style was fastened together by a belt with two feet of slack. "One thousand? Anybody at one thousand? All right, damn it, I'll make it twelve fifty, and if there isn't a rising ovation we drop the number, you yellow skunks!" Perhaps a dozen pros hopped up, grinning. "Fine response! Let's make it six matches simultaneous. Take 'em away, boys!"

The casting went on. Spillane's Inferno; Lions and Tigers and Bears; High-Pressure Chug-a-Lug. Lana shot Mundin a despairing glance. No Don Lavin—but the crowd was thining. "We must have missed him," croaked Hubble.

"Roller Derby!" Willkie called. "Spiked elbows, no armor. Five hundred a point to contestants. Twenty flat to audience, a hundred if a contestant lands on you and draws blood."

Norvell gathered the eyes of Mundin, Norma, and Hubble. Shep trailed along as they rose, were accepted for "audience" and were hustled out of the briefing room, still vainly peering about for Don.

And then, of course, they saw him—only after the glass door closed irrevocably behind them. He was rising—with glazed eyes—for High Wire with Piranha. Price, ten thousand dollars. And he was the only volunteer, even at that price.

Norma straggled with the immovable door until two matrons peeled her away and shoved her in the direction of the ready room.

"I'll think of something," Norvell kept saying. "I'll think of something."