“My New Approach to the Delivered Dwelling, gentlemen, was nothing more or less than a sincere attempt to leave the world a better and happier place for millions than it was when I found it.”
The applause was sparse and dubious.
Norma flicked the machine off, but did not brighten the lights. She said broodingly, “So Moffatt sold him out, broke his heart and killed him. And today that dream is a nightmare to millions of wretched people chained to their jobs by G-M-L contract leases . . .”
She turned on the three financiers, figures in the gloom.
“Well?” she demanded harshly. “Don can walk into that stockholders meeting and take over with your backing. It matters, don’t you see? It matters.”
MUNDIN cleared his throat and said, “I’m sticking with it, Norma.”
She didn’t flare at him for using her first name, but continued to stare her challenge.
Nelson murmured, “An orderly liquidation, under the circumstances, still seems most advisable. If you will excuse me—” He slipped discreetly from the room.
Coett, big bluff man, told her, “Ideals don’t matter much when you’re my age. My advice to you is to peddle your stock on the Big Board, live happily ever after—and stay away from Green, Charlesworth. Uplift doesn’t pay. Now I’ve got to go.” He went.
Hubble was gnawipghis nails. He said, “I was brought up to be a sensible, dollar-fearing young man and Green, Charleworth have more dollars than anybody else around . . . You know, I liked that look on your father’s face when he told them about homecoming being a happy adventure . . . For God’s sake, don’t tell anybody, but I’m sticking with you as long as my nerve holds out.”
Norma flung her arms around him and kissed him. Charles said, “Hey, cut that—” and then realized he had no basis whatsoever for the proprietary feeling which had suddenly overwhelmed him. But he turned up the lights, anyway.
“Where’s Don?” he asked.
Norma was recovering from her elation. “Must’ve slipped out.”
Mundin called Norvell Bligh in and asked after Don.
“Oh, yes,” the little man said. “He left about three minutes ago.”
“Left? Where to?”
“Well, I asked him in case, and all he said was ‘High wire.’ Some kind of joke, I suppose.”
“High wire?” Mundin asked Norma blankly.
She shook her head.
“He seemed in high spirits,” Bligh chatted. “His eyes were shining like stars. Most unusual—”
“My God!” said Norma. “A post-hypnotic command from his conditioning!”
“Does anybody,” Hubble demanded, “know what a high wire may be? There could be some perfectly simple explanation.”
Norvie’s jaw had dropped. He said at last, faintly, “I know quite a lot about high-wire work. It’s the most dangerous stunt they put on at a Field Day.”
A raucous cackle filled the room.
“Absolutely, Mr. Charlesworth.”
“Positively, Mrs. Green!” Hell broke loose. A seat cushion exploded. Then a fountain pen in Norvie’s pocket. The In basket on Ryan’s desk. There were screams from the outside offices; Mundin ran out. A diffraction grating in the chem lab. Steno’s lip-sprays. An acetate recording blank for a dictating machine. The water cooler—that was a sloppy one. A magazine in the reception room.
Eventually things settled down. The last hysterical filing clerk was sent home, the last of the little fires put out.
Hubble, white with rage, snapped, “Let’s go to my place. They can’t have that gimmicked.” Norvell Bligh said: “Excuse me, Mr. Hubble—I don’t think there’s time. Field Day is tomorrow at two in the afternoon.”
XXII
THEY searched throughout the night. Hard. They found the cabby at dawn.
“Sure, mister, I hacked him. Right to the artist’s entrance at Monmouth. Friend of yours? Some kind of dare?”
They tried to bribe their way into the arena and 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 and his eyes shone.
He said politely, “I’m sorry, folks—unauthorized access is forbidden. However, lineup for bleacher seats begins in a couple of hours. Hello, Mr. Bligh. I haven’t seen you around lately.”
“Hello, Barnes,” Norvell 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, besides—”
The giant sighed regretfully. “Unauthorized access is forbidden. If you had a pass—”
The hackie said, “I don’t mina waiting, folks, but don’t you have better sense than to argue with a conditioned guy?”
“He’s right,” Norvell admitted. “Hell won’t get you by Barnes without a pass or a release. Let’s try Candella. He used to be my boss, the louse.”
The taxi whizzed them to the amusement company’s bubble city and Candella’s pleasure dome. Ryan snoozed. Norma and Mundin held hands—scared. Bligh looked brightly interested, like a fox terrier. Hubble, hunched on a jump seat, mumbled worriedly to himself.
Candella awakened and came to the interviewer after five minutes of chiming. Obviously he couldn’t believe his eyes. “Bligh?” he sputtered. “Norvell Bligh?”
“Yes, Mr. Candella. I’m sorry to wake you up, but it’s urgent. Can you let us in?”
“Certainly not! Go away or I’ll call the police!” The interviewer blinked off. Norvell leaned on the chime plate and Candella reappeared. “Damn it, Bligh, stop that. How dare you?”
Mundin elbowed Norvell from the scanner eye. “Mr. Candella, I’m Charles Mundin, attorney at law. I represent Mr. Donald Lavin. I have reason to believe that Lavin took a release and is now in the artist’s quarters at Monmouth, due to appear in today’s 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 can be quickly adjusted by you in filling out the necessary papers canceling your contract with him. Naturally, we’re prepared to pay any indemnity—or service fee.” He lowered his voice. “In small bills and plenty of them.”
“Come in,” Candella said blandly and the door opened.
He gaped as they entered. “My God, an army!”
THE house intercom said in a female voice, “What is it, Poopsie?”
He flushed. “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. Here, you said you were a lawyer. Have a look.”
Mundin studied it for ten minutes. Ironclad? Watertight? No, 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 Mundin’s expression. “Think you’re the first?” he snickered. “If there’s been one, there have been a million. But there hasn’t been a successful suit for thirty years, Mr. Attorney.”
Mundin said, “Hang the law, Mr. Candella. Hang the bribe, too, if you don’t want it. It’s a humanitarian matter. The kid’s got no business in there—”
Candella turned 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, Charles. I never realized it before—he’s a sadist. Of course. Who else could hold that job and enjoy it? You’re interfering with his love life when you try to get one of his victims away from him. We’ll go higher.”
Candella snorted and showed them pointedly to the door.
In the taxi again, Mundin said to Hubble, “I guess this is where yo
u take over, Bliss.”
The financier flipped through a notecase and reached for the phone as they rolled back toward the Park. He dialed and snapped, “Sam? Mr. Hubble here. Good morning to you. Sam, who’s in charge of the outfit that puts on the Monmouth Field Days? I’ll wait.” He waited and then said, “Oh—thanks, Sam,” and hung up the phone. He 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. “Bligh, you must know some way in. You worked there, after all.” Norvell said, “The only way in is with a release.”
Norma urged with dry hysteria, “Then let’s sign releases.”
They stared. “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? It’s all volunteer, isn’t it?”
Norvell said, “Remember, I wasn’t a pit boss. I was on the planning end. And from the planning end, it was all supposed to be volunteer. But maybe it’s not such a bad idea. I’ll go in alone. I know the ropes—”
“Not you,” Mundin said. “He won’t want to be found. He’ll fight. I’ll go—”
They would all go. And then Norvell had a bright idea and it took a lot of 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 promised casually.
THE briefing room beneath the stands was huge and crowded. About a quarter of the occupants were obvious rumdums, another quarter were professionals, another quarter swaggering youngsters in for a one-shot that they’d brag about the rest 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 adjoining cafeteria.
One professional had noticed Mundin hungrily wolfing down his and suggested, “Better not, stranger. Belly wounds.” Mundin had abruptly stopped.
There was no sign so far of Don Lavin, which was not odd. It was easy enough to lose yourself in that crowd. Their hopes were pinned on twenty Wabbits whom Lavin would have—he’d think—no reason to avoid.
Somebody on the rostrum said, “May I have your attention, please? You stumblebums in the corner there—that means you, too. Thanks, all.” He was a distraught young man who ran his fingers through his hair.
Norvie whispered to Mundin. “Wilkes. He’ll have a nervous breakdown by tonight. Every year. But—” wistfully—“he’s a good MC.”
Wilkes went on, “You know this is 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 absolute best for Monmouth Park.
“Now let’s get on with the casting. 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 over seventy.”
“Take it,” Bligh told 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? Don’t waste my time if you have a pot-belly.” Scandinavian style meant being fastened together by a belt with two feet of slack. “One thousand? Anybody at one thousand? All right, I’ll make it twelve-fifty and if there isn’t a rising ovation, we drop the number, you yellow crumbs!” Perhaps a dozen pros hopped up, grinning. “Fine response! Let’s make it six matches simultaneous. Take ’em away, boys.” The casting went on. Mickey’s Inferno; Lions and Tigers and Bears; Kiddie Kutups, which scooped in all the Wabbits. Lana shot Mundin a glance and shrug. No Don Lavin—but the crowd was thinning.
“Roller Derby!” Wilkes called. “Spiked elbows, no armor. Five hundred a point to contestants, twenty flat to audience, a hundred to audience members if a contestant lands on him or her and draws blood.”
Norvell gathered the eyes of Mundin, Norma and Hubble. They rose, were accepted for “audience” and hustled out of the briefing room, still vainly peering about for Don. Only after the glass door closed behind them did they see him. He was rising—with glazed, shining eyes—for High Wire with Piranha. Price, ten thousand dollars. And he was the only volunteer.
Norma struggled with the immovable door until two matrons yanked her away and shoved her in the direction of the ready room.
“I’ll think of something,” Norvie kept saying. “I’ll think of something.”
XXIII
NORVELL tried the chummy approach with the ready-room manager. He was brushed off. Norvell tried entreaties and then threats. He was brushed off. The ready-room manager droned: “You made yer bed, now lie in it. Alluva sudden you an’ ya frenns get yella, no skin off a my nose. Derby audience ya stood up for, derby audience yer gonna be.”
“What’s the trouble, Campo?” a fussy and familiar voice suddenly demanded.
It was Stimmens, Norvie’s skunk of an ex-assistant who had quietly and competently betrayed his boss into Belly Rave. It would have been pure delight to bawl him out, but the stakes were too high.
“Mr. Stimmens,” Norvie said humbly.
“Why, Mr. Bluh—why,’ Norvie! What are you doing here?”
Norvie brutishly wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Trying to make a buck, Mr. Stimmens,” he whined. “You know how it is in Belly Rave. I stood up for the Roller Derby audience, but Mr. Campo here says I got yellow. Maybe I did, but I want a switch—from Derby Audience to High-wire Heckler. I know it’s only ten bucks, but you don’t get one of those spiked-elbow gals in your lap. Can you do it for me, Mr. Stimmens? And a couple of friends of mine? Please?”
Stimmens basked. “It’s unusual, Norvie. It creates confusion. But for an old employee, we can bend some rules. See that he’s switched, Campo.”
“And my friends, please, Mr. Stimmens?”
Stimmens shrugged tolerantly. “And his friends, Campo.” He sauntered on, glowing with the consciousness of a favor done that humiliated his ex-boss and caused himself no trouble at all.
“You heard him,” Norvell said. “Switch!”
Campo growled and reached for his cards.
Back on the bench, Norvell told Hubble, Mundin and Norma briefly, “We’re in. It ups Don’s chances plenty. You have any cash on you, Mr. Hubble? Pass it around to the other High-wire Hecklers when we go on.” And then there was nothing to do but watch through the glass wall. The Old-timers’ Battle Royal was on; they saw Ryan laid out by a vicious swipe to the groin from an octogenarian lady. The clubs were padded, but there was a lot in knowing how to use them. He was carried past the wall, groaning, to the infirmary.
IT was a responsive audience, Norvie noted with pure technical interest, laughing, howling and throwing things at the right time. He heard, in memory, the familiar chant of the vendors, “Gitcha rocks, gitcha brickbats, ya ca-a-an’t hit the artists without a brickbat!”
Click, click, and the Scandinavian knife-fighters were on. Snip, snap, the knives flashed and the blood flowed. There were two double-kills out of the six pairs and the band blared from Grieg to Gershwin for the Roller Derby, which would last a good ten minutes.
It was gory. Repeatedly, skaters shot off the banked boards into the “audience” of old stew-bums and thrill-seekers rather than get a razor-sharp elbow spike, and their own spikes wreaked havoc. Almost us, Norvie thought numbly. At a hundred a lapful, almost us.
For the first time in his life, he found himself wondering when and where it all had started. Bone-crushing football? Those hockey games featured by concussions? Impatient sidewalk crowds that roared “Go-go-go” to a poor crazed ledge-sitter? Those fans who flipped lighted firecrackers at the visiting team’s outfielders racing for a fly? “We don’t take no prisoners in this outfit, kid”? White phosp
horus grenades? Buchenwald? Napalm?
And then, before he knew it, Campo was shaking his shoulder and growling, “All right, ya yella punk. You an’ yer frenns, yer on. Take yer basket.”
He took the basket numbly and looked at the noisemakers and gravel. He followed the section as it moved out onto the field. He became aware that Hubble and Mundin were half carrying him.
“Don’t cork out, Norvie,” Mundin begged him. “We need every man.”
Norvie gave him a pale grin and thought: Maybe I won’t have to. Maybe I won’t have to. That’s the thing to stick with. Maybe I won’t have to. But if I do—
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the MC roared as they assumed their places around the tank, while the riggers hastily set up the two towers and strung the wire, “Monmouth Park is proud and happy to present, for the first time in this arena’s distinguished history, a novel feat of courage and dexterity.”
Don had been hustled atop one of the towers. Norma was weeping. Hubble and Mundin were passing among the hecklers, handing out bills.
“No heckling, understand? Just keep quiet. You’ll get this much more after it’s over. Anybody crosses us up, we’ll throw him to the fish. No heckling, understand?”
“This young man, ladies and gentlemen, utterly without previous experience in the gymnastic art, will attempt to cross the fifteen feet from tower to tower against the simultaneous opposition of sixteen opponents. They will be permitted to jeer, threaten, sound horns and cast gravel, but not to shake the towers!”
AUDIENCE identification, thought Norvie. The sixteen “opponents” would be there to do exactly what the audience wanted to do, but was too far away to do. Still, a good strong arm with a favoring wind and a brick—“The special feature of this performance, ladies and gentlemen, lies in the tank above which this young man will traverse. At enormous expense, the Monmouth Park Association has imported from the headwaters of the Amazon River a school of the deadliest fish known to man, the famed piranha. Your binoculars, ladies and gentlemen! I am about to drop a fifty-pound sheep into the tank. Kindly watch the result!”
Collected Short Fiction Page 226