Gladiator-At-Law

Chapter Six

Four taxi drivers flatly refused to take Mundin to Belly Rave. The fifth was a devil-may-care youngster. "Just took this heah job waitin' for the draft call," he confided. "How can I lose? Anything goes wrong in this heah Belly Rave place, maybe Ah get beat up so bay-yud the ol' army won't take me." He laughed. "But seriously, I figger it cain't be as tough as they say."

Mundin did not contradict him and away they went.

There was no sizable city which did not have the equivalent of Belly Rave. The festering slums of Long Island were another New York problem; Boston had its Springfield; Chicago its Evanston; Los Angeles its Greenville. None was worse than Belle Reve Estates. Mundin noticed that the battered streetlights of Belly Rave didn't light; as they rolled past the first weed-grown yards and boarded-up houses he noticed ramshackle structures in the back. Occasionally they passed a burned-out area, but not often. The plots were generous enough in size to keep a normal fire from spreading from house to house. Unfortunately.

There was life in Belly Rave: a furtive, crepuscular life called into being by the unpoliceable wilderness of tall weeds, endless miles of crumbling battered driveway unmarked by street signs or house numbers. The taxi wasn't alone. Zooty little cars prowled along the crumbling concrete, occasionally pulling to the curb where a dim figure swung a phosphorescent handbag. They passed one block of houses that was a blaze of light and noise. The doorman trotted along beside the taxi urging: "Anything goes, mister. Spend the night for five bucks, all you can drink and smoke included. Why pay taxes, mister?"

Sometimes the Alcohol & Hemp Tax Unit's men raided such joints. Not often.

The driver asked the doorman, "We anywheah close to 37598 Willowdale Crescent?" He stopped the cab.

"What you need is a guide," the doorman said promptly. "Jimmy!" Somebody jelled out of the dark. Mundin heard a fumbling at the door of the cab.

"Step on it!" he yelled at the driver, snapping the door lock and running up the window. The driver stepped on it.

The ambush left behind, they cautiously approached bag-swingers for directions. In half an hour they were on the 37-thousand block of Willowdale Crescent, counting houses.

"This must be it," said the driver, no longer devil-may-care.

"I guess so. Wait here, will you?" Mundin said.

"Nossir! How do I know you ain't going to slip through a back door and stiff me? You pay me what's on the clock an' Ah'll wait."

The meter read a whopping eight dollars. Mundin handed over a ten and started up the crumbled walk.

Vroom! The taxi was on its way before he had taken half a dozen steps. Mundin cursed wearily and knocked on the door. He studied the boarded-up picture window while he waited. They were all broken, all boarded up. Inevitably in the years that had gone by since they were eased and puttied carefully into place, the rock had been flung, or the door had been slammed, or the drunk had lurched into the living room.

The man who came to the door was old and sick.

"Is this the Lavin place?" Mundin asked, blinking against a light haze of woodsmoke. "I'm Charles Mundin. She asked me to call in connection with a legal matter. I'm an attorney."

The old man started at the word. "Come in, Counselor," he said formally. "I'm a member of the bar myself——"

He broke off into a fit of coughing, leaning against the doorframe.

Mundin half-carried him into the living room and eased him into a sagging overstaffed chair. A Coleman lamp, blowing badly, cast a metallic blue-green glare into every corner of the room. A fire smoldered on the hearth, billowing against a closed register. A tinny radio was blaring, "—nately was kept from spreading, though the four houses involved in the arson attempt were totally destroyed. Elsewhere in Belly Rave, warfare broke out between the Wabbits and the Goddams, rival junior gangs. One eight-year-old was killed instantly by—"

Mundin clicked it off and opened the register. The smoke began to clear from the room and the fire to flicker. The old man was still folded up in the chair, his parchment face mercilessly picked out by the flaring light. Mundin fiddled aimlessly with the valve and accidentally got it to stop roaring. There was a green glass shade; he put it on and the room was suddenly no longer a corner of a surrealist hell but simply a shabby room.

"Thank you," the old man muttered. "Counselor, would you please see if there is a small, round tin in the bathroom cabinet?"

The bathtub was full of split kindling and the cabinet shelves loaded with the smaller household staples—salt, spices, and such. There was an unmarked tin, which Mundin pried open. Small, gummy-looking pills and an unmistakable odor: Yen pox. He sighed and brought the old man the opened tin.

The old man took it without comment and slowly swallowed five of the opium pills. When he spoke his voice was almost steady. "Thank you, Counselor. And let this be a lesson to you: Never get a belly-habit. It's weakening, humiliating. You said you had an appointment with Norma? She should have been here hours ago. Naturally—the neighborhood— I'm worried. I'm Harry Ryan. Member of the S.E.C. Bar, and other things. Of course——" he stared at the tin of yen pox— "I'm retired from practice."

Mundin coughed. "I believe Miss Lavin mentioned you. As I understand it, you would be attorney of record and I'd do the legwork in some sort of stockholder's suit, if we work it out." He hesitated and went on to tell the old man about the arrest of the boy.

"Yes," Ryan said matter-of-factly. "I told her it was a mistake to go to Mr. Dworcas. It is inconceivable that Green, Charlesworth would not get wind of it."

"Green, Charlesworth?" Willie Choate had once mentioned the name, in some connection or other. "Are they the investment house?"

"They are. They are the investment house, just as you say."

"But she told me her business was connected with G.M.L. Homes. How does Green, Charlesworth get into it?"

Ryan chewed another opium pill and swallowed it. "Mr. Mundin," he said, "you will find that Green, Charlesworth do not get into things. They already are in everything. Raw materials, belt-transport patents, real estate, insurance, plant financing—you name it, Mundin."

"Even ward politics in the 27th?"

"Even that. But don't let it disturb you too greatly, Mundin, It is probable that Green, Charlesworth are only casually interested in the Lavins at the present time. They no doubt wish to keep posted on what Don and Norma are up to, but I do not expect they will intervene."

"You think that?"

Ryan explained heavily, "I have to think that." The door knocker rattled and the old man heaved himself from the overstaffed chair, waving Mundin aside. "I'll get it," he said. "Ah—this was just a temporary indisposition. You needn't mention it to——" He jerked his chin at the door.

He came back into the living room with Norma and Don Lavin.

"Hello, Mundin," she said tonelessly, her voice leaden with depression. "I see you found us. Have you eaten?"

"Yes, thanks."

"Then excuse us while we have something. The Caddy broke down five times on the way out here. I'm beat."

She and her brother morosely opened a couple of self-heating cans of goulash. They spooned them down in silence.

"Now," she said to Mundin, "the background. I'll make it short." Her voice was satiric, hate-filled.

"Don and I were born of rich but honest parents in Coshocton, Ohio. Daddy—Don Senior—was rather elderly when we came along; he spent the first fifty years of his life working. He started out as a plastics man with a small factory—bus bodies, fire trucks, that kind of thing. He happened to have gone to school with a man named Beraie German, who happened to have specialized in electronics and electrical stuff. The two of them worked together, when they could find time, dreaming dreams and weaving visions. They were dedicated men. They invented, designed and constructed the first pilot model of the G.M.L. Home, otherwise known as the bubble-house."

Mundin said frostily, "I happen to know a little about G.M.L., Miss Lavin. Wasn't there a man named Moffatt involved?"

"Involved he was, but not until later. Much later. For almost thirty years, Daddy and Mr. German worked like dogs, starved themselves, gave up everything for their dream. Mother said she scarcely saw Daddy from month's end to month's end. Mr. German died a bachelor. They had designed the bubble-house, they had built it, but they didn't have the capital to put it on the market."

"Oh, come now," objected Mundin. "They could have teased the rights——"

"And had them bottled up. Didn't I already say they were dedicated men? They had designed a home that was cheaper than the cheapest and better than the best. It was a breakthrough in housing, like nothing that had gone before except, perhaps, the synthetic revolution in textiles or the advent of the Model T Ford. Don't you see that even a millionaire could not have owned a better house than the G.M.L.? Daddy and Mr. Gorman wanted to give them to the people at only a reasonable profit; no manufacturer would dream of it until the top-price market had been filled. They weren't big businessmen, Mundin. They were dreamers. They were out of their field. Then Moffatt came along with his plan."

Ryan stirred himself. "Most ingenious, really," he said. "Adapted to the tax situation. By leasing manufacturing rights to large corporations, G.M.L. avoided capital outlay; the corporations gave their employees what could not be had elsewhere—and good-by to labor troubles. At first, G.M.L. leased the rights for money. Later, when they got bigger, the consideration was blocks of stock, equities in the firms."

The girl nodded soberly. "Within ten years, G.M.L. owned sizable shares of forty corporations, and Daddy and Mr. Gorman owned half of G.M.L. Then Daddy found out what was happening. He told Mr. Gorman, and I think it killed him—he was an old man by then, you see. Contract status. One word of back-talk and you get thrown out of your GM.L. house. Get thrown out of your G.M.L. house and you find yourself—" she hesitated, and her eyes roved around the sordid room "—here."

Mundin said wonderingly, "But if your father was one of the owners——"

"Only twenty-five per cent, Mundin. And Mr. German's twenty-five per cent went to distant cousins after the embolism. So there was Daddy at sixty-five. His vision was a reality; his bubble-homes housed a hundred million people. And they had become a weapon, and he was frozen out of the firm." Don Lavin said dreamily, "They gave the plant guards his picture. He was arrested as drunk and disorderly when he tried to go to the stockholders' meeting. He hanged himself in his cell." He stared absently at Mundin's shoe.

Mundin cleared his throat. "I—I'm sorry. Wasn't there anything to be done at all?"

Ryan said, with a touch of professional admiration, "Very little Mr. Mundin. Oh, he still had stock. They impounded it. A trumped-up creditors' committee got an order on his safe-deposit box against dissipation of assets when he died. They kept it impounded for twelve years. Then somebody got careless, or somebody quit or got fired and the new man didn't know what the impoundment was for—anyway, G.M.L. blinked. The order expired. Norma and Don Lavin are twenty-five per cent owners of G.M.L."

Mundin looked around the shabby room and didn't say a word.

"There's just one little thing," Norma said bitterly. "Don got the stock out of the box and put it away. Tell us where it is, Don."

The brother's dreamy eyes-Winked and widened. His face muscles worked wildly; he said, "K-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k" in a convulsion of stammering. The idiot stutter went on for long moments, until Don Lavin began raspingly to cry. Norma, stone-faced, patted him on the shoulder.

She said to the appalled lawyer, "When we began making trouble, as they said, Don was snatched. He was gone for three days and he doesn't remember them. We took him to a doctor; the doctor said it looked like at least fifty hours of conditioning."

Mundin said, out of shock and rage, "That's illegal! Private persons can't use conditioning techniques!"

Norma flared, "Of course not! You're our lawyer now, Mundin. Just straighten that out for us, will you? Get an injunction against G.M.L."

Mundin sat back. Habitual criminals—like his twerp—were conditioned in twenty-five hours of treatment over a week or more. Fifty hours in three days!

"Why didn't they just snatch the stock?" he asked.

"That would be illegal," explained Ryan—and hastily held up a hand. "No, seriously. A forced sale could be attacked, and perhaps set aside—by Don himself, or by his heirs or guardians. This way the stock is neutralized, and nothing pinned to G.M.L. They don't need the stock; they've got plenty of stock. They just don't want Don and Norma to have it."

Mundin felt ill. He said, "I see. Sorry I was so stupid. So now Don doesn't know where he put the stock and you want to find it."

Ryan looked at him with disgust. "No, Counselor," he said heavily. "Not quite as simple as that. I may not have practiced at the Big Bar for some time, but I imagine that even I could manage to get duplicate certificates. Unfortunately our position is somewhat worse than that. Donald, as the male heir, was the obvious person——" Norma snorted "—the obvious person, I say, to conduct a suit, so Norma signed an irrevocable proxy of interest to him. That was an error, as it turned out. Donald can't do the job. He can't bring suit; he can't tell us where the stock is; he can't even discuss it."

Mundin nodded sickly. "I see. You're stymied."

Norma made a contemptuous noise. "Great, Mundin," she said. "You've put it in a nutshell. Now that it is established that we're licked, we might as well lie down and die."

Mundin said stiffly, "I didn't say that, Miss Lavin. We'll do what we can." He hesitated. "For instance," he went on, "if it's only a matter of conditioning, no doubt we can have your brother undergo a deconditioning course somewhere else. After all——"

Norma raised an eyebrow. " 'Private persons can't use conditioning techniques,'" she quoted. "Didn't you say that just a moment ago?"

"Well, yes, but surely someone will—"

All at once Norma seemed to collapse. She said to Ryan, "You tell him. Tell him what he's up against."

Ryan said, "G.M.L.'s assets are not less than fourteen billion dollars, comprising cash in the bank, negotiable securities, plant and properties and equities, as of their last statement, in eight hundred and four corporations. I don't say that they can break the law with impunity, Counselor. But they can sure as hell keep us from breaking it"