All about how he had a cheap fuel and America would be greatly benefited and could now look forward to prosperity.
The interrogator was shot separately.
Half an hour later, another channel, same patter!
Madison again was not available!
All evening, on whatever channel, even in the news, you could count on the Whiz Kid popping up with an overdubbed set of statements.
I suffered through the night. Nothing could be worse than this. Madison had turned his coat! He had sold us out! I knew how he was getting such coverage. He must be in contact with the Rockecenter-appointed bank directors on every paper and TV channel and he was giving them their orders and they were passing them down the line. Madison was selling Rockecenter out, using Rockecenter’s own press-control network! A traitor!
Even worse was to come. In the morning, in addition to more news stories, I chanced to turn the TV to a housewife program.
There stood the Whiz Kid before a group of housewives! In the flesh. In person. And he was telling them what a shame it was they had to empty their teapots to buy gas when a fuel existed that was so cheap they would be able to buy mink coats with the money they saved. They were hysterical with joy!
In person?
I went to the viewer.
Heller was en route to the office! He wasn’t talking live to any housewives!
I looked at the TV again. Glasses, buckteeth, pugnacious jaw. . .
I phoned Madison. I got him at his mother’s place.
“Madison!” I screamed at him. “I thought I told you to mend your ways!”
“I did!” he said. “I doubled the coverage and added controversy! I know it is awfully fast but I think we’re making it. We are forming fan clubs now, coast to coast.”
“Oh, my Gods!” Then, as the TV was still on and the Whiz Kid was still addressing housewives, I cried, “But how are you doing this housewife thing?”
“Oh, the double,” he said. “Well, in handling publicity, you never can trust a client. They always say the wrong things and are not handy when you need them. That’s why I had to have a double. I could have gotten some actor that looked much more like Wister but in his envelope of instructions Mr. Bury said that if I used a double I could only use this young man. He was very emphatic about it. This double has buckteeth and a heavy jaw and he’s blind as a bat without glasses. He wouldn’t consent to our pulling his teeth and plastic surgery or contact lenses. And Mr. Bury was so emphatic, I had no choice. I had to make Wister look like the double. Do you have him on? I think he is marvelously convincing! I’ve got to hang up. Goodbye.”
I rang his phone again. Nobody answered.
Not for nothing did his colleagues call him J. Warbler Madman. He was as crazy as a coot! He was going to make Heller a household word as the Whiz Kid!
Heller was in his office at the Empire State Building now. He got hold of Izzy.
Izzy said, “They’ve got a double for you. I saw him on TV.”
“Wait,” said Heller. “That’s impersonation! I’ve got to get a lawyer and stop this!”
“We don’t have ten million dollars,” said Izzy. “That would be the lawyer’s fee. And it would take years. I got you a ticket for Brazil. There’s an unexplored area up the Amazon. There are only soldier ants in it that eat everything. You’d be much safer there.”
“They haven’t done anything destructive yet,” said Heller.
Izzy looked at him and then gave his own Salvation Army Good Will suit a tug. “I think you will find, Mr. Jet, that it doesn’t do to raise your head in this world. It’s kind of fatal.”
“Then there’s nothing I can do?”
“Use this air ticket,” said Izzy. “And fast!”
Heller brushed it aside and left for the speedway.
But I had quite another view of it. Madison had sold out. He was making Heller a folk hero even with fan clubs! And he was using the Rockecenter power to do it.
I called Bury. He said instantly, “Don’t talk about it on the phone. Meet me at Goldstein’s Delicatessen at 50th and Eighth Avenue for lunch, twelve sharp.” He hung up.
Oh, I could see he also scented trouble. Secret meeting!
In a deadly, bad humor, at twelve I elbowed my way to a greasy, white-topped table in the back of Goldstein’s Delicatessen. Despite the crowd, it was apparently reserved. I sat down. Bury came elbowing through the mob seconds later. He was carrying a huge book. He was looking like he might smile if he ever could.
He put the book on the next chair and ordered kosher hot dogs. “I hate these things,” he said. “Don’t let me forget to put bicarbonate of soda on them this time.”
I was too upset to do much talking. I ate my kosher hot dog moodily. Bury ate three.
He lifted up the book. “Madison sent this over for you. You’re lucky he doesn’t have your address or right name. He said you sounded cross. Why?”
I gaped at him.
He opened the book. It was full of clippings and TV summaries, a press book showing all the coverage. He was almost smiling as he leafed through the vast Whiz Kid array.
“He’s making a hero of him!” I said. “And he’s using the Rockecenter power to get the press!”
“Precisely,” said Bury. “Precisely. I just picked this up on the way over.” He dropped the just-released copy of Tripe. The front page had a photograph of Heller standing by the Caddy—the Heller with glasses, buckteeth and jaw. The caption said American Youth on the March, page 5. And page 5 began a photo story of a humble cottage where the Whiz Kid had been born, photos of his early teachers, his mother and father and an early Cooper-Martin racing car he had rebuilt at the age of five.
There was something wrong with Bury’s attitude. “I had to see you before you upset Madison,” he said. “He’s sensitive. A sort of prima donna, really, dedicated to his art. So don’t be cross with him, Inkswitch. I think he’s doing just wonderful!”
I was so confused I even paid the check.
In the hotel, I lay on the bed looking at the TV. They had a picture of the goofed-up Heller in an insert and a station editorial commentator was giving a spiel, “Is this young man, a pillar of American youth, going to revolutionize our culture? It has always been the opinion of this channel that American youth should be given its head and the wisdom of that policy is manifest today in the emergence upon the world stage of Wister. . . .”
I snapped it off.
I knew it would not get better. It didn’t.
The morning paper front-paged the scene of Heller’s tire blowing out. The headline said DID THE SEVEN BROTHERS PLAN WHIZ KID DEATH?
Anxiously I looked to see if Heller was dead, as it implied. It didn’t really say!
The morning TV news carried the whole scene of the skid, including smoke. And then there was a shot of a Long Island police officer holding a piece of rubber. He was saying, “Forensic medicine has just revealed that this tire did not have enough air in it. Members of the Whiz Kid pit crew are in custody and under question.”
Insane! He didn’t have any pit crew!
Yes, he did. There they were, creeping out of a police van, holding up their coats so you couldn’t see their faces.
Worse. The afternoon news showed a fist-gesticulating mob in front of the Arabian-Manhattan Oil Company, demonstrating against its effort to do away with the Whiz Kid!
Bury liked this?
They all belonged in a psychiatric ward!
I sank into a sodden despair.
Maybe the whole planet ought to be in a psychiatric ward!
PART TWENTY-EIGHT
Chapter 5
I had been so horror-struck by the contents of the newspapers that I had not noticed the progressing dateline. Reading the latest heroic activities of the Whiz Kid one morning, my eye chanced to pause, while I got my heart going again, on the date.
It was days past the time Heller would have sent in his third report to Captain Tars Roke. He had probably mailed it direct to the
base and there they would have placed it on the first outward-bound freighter. I had lost a chance to get the platen code.
I wished Utanc would be around sometime. I needed somebody sympathetic. But all I ever saw of her was piles of packages being delivered, wrapped in paper, labeled Lord and Taylor or Saks or Tiffany. I half expected to see a skyscraper arrive, neatly boxed: she was buying out the town. But I must say, when I caught rare glimpses of her, she did look extraordinarily chic in her Western clothes. One day I had seen her alight from her chauffeured limousine looking like an animated silver statue in her metal-hued gown and slippers. She didn’t say hello: she just handed me a rare painting she had got at an auction and promptly drove off. Maybe she thought I was a bellhop.
I was very alone in a very cruel world. If Lombar caught a whiff of Heller’s fame and possible success, I was done for! Of course, it did have the advantage that if Tars Roke heard of it, the Grand Council would be so happy that they would forget all about an emergency invasion and I would not be slaughtered along with everybody else on Earth. It sort of depended on the way you looked at it.
But then something happened which jarred me out of my numbness.
Heller was at the Spreeport Speedway. He had not yet installed the carburetor on the Cadillac. He was still using high-test gasoline. At the track they had put on additional security guards and nobody could get through the gate, not even press, except, of course, on Saturday nights when they had their races.
Thus it was with interest that I watched somebody walking up toward Pit Thirteen. Usually the place was deserted. The newcomer was pretty plump, rather carelessly dressed, a cigar clamped in yellowed teeth.
Around the track, Heller wore a totally enclosed racing helmet with a dark plastic visor, probably a sort of disguise. One couldn’t blame him. He had been inspecting his tires after a few turns around the oval.
“You Wister?” said the newcomer. He didn’t get an answer but he put out his plump hand. “I’m Stampi. I own this place.”
“Glad to meet you,” said Heller, shaking hands.
“I just came over to tell you the track was closed now. The season is over. The circuit moves south.”
“Sorry to hear it,” said Heller. “I was hoping to use it for a longevity trial. Endurance, I think you call it. Just for my own information.”
“Oh, hell, no, Wister, it ain’t closed to you. But that ain’t the point. I got a call a while ago from the association president and he said somebody had given him the idea we should hold another event. What were you going to do?”
“I was going to get the hood sealed and locked by AAA inspectors and then I was going to run a hundred hours without refueling. Just round and round.”
“Oho! The new fuel!”
“Not really a fuel. It’s the carburetor.”
“Carburetor, fuel, what’s the difference? Endurance race, eh? Well, Wister, you been kicking up quite a fuss in the press and the association president said that if you was agreeable, we could make a sort of an event. You know, tickets, TV coverage. Might gate a million bucks. The networks would pay and the gate would be heavy. Could cook up a prize for you. Quarter of a million, maybe? If you busted any records.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be very exciting,” said Heller. “Just a car going round and round.”
“Oh, other manufacturers or owners would say their cars also could do endurance runs. We’d invite a few in. Some sort of event. My only misgivings is that this track is going to start icing in another couple weeks. And I notice you keep worrying about tires.”
“Well, if it didn’t disqualify me to stop and change a tire, the ice isn’t any real problem. One would just drive carefully.”
“So ice don’t worry you none?”
“Not especially. Couldn’t be much worse than wet.”
“Well, all right, then,” said Stampi. “I’ll call him back and we’ll put together an out-of-season special event of some kind. And if you win, you get a cup and a quarter of a million. Okay, Whiz Kid?”
They shook.
And a wave of relief flooded through me! That carburetor! I just remembered! It was sabotaged! It would quit after seven hours! Heller was going to lose!
I leaped up. I was in ecstasy! Brilliant, brilliant Lombar! He had foreseen it all from the first!
I dashed to my phone. After fifteen minutes of busy signals, I got Madison.
“He’s agreed to race!” I cried.
“I know,” said Madison. “We had to twist an arm or two and tell the association president his track would be dropped from the circuit, but it went just like it was supposed to. It usually does.”
“But you don’t know the good part!” I told him. “His carburetor is sabotaged! It’s going to fail in about seven hours! He’ll lose for sure!”
“So?” said Madison.
“He’s all set up to fall on his head!” I said. “He can’t possibly win that race!”
“Mr. Smith, please forgive my abruptness but I have some very urgent things to do. We just got the governor of Michigan to be president of the International Whiz Kid Fan Clubs and he’s on the other wire. But when you have important data for me, by all means, phone. But right now, I’m sorry. Goodbye.”
I sat there gaping. He was not the least bit interested! If he was really selling us out, he would be interested. If he was not selling us out, he would be interested.
There wasn’t any way to make heads or tails of it.
I tried to find a movie on the TV and there was the double as a guest of honor at a kiddie afternoon puppet show. On another channel, there was the double, prerecorded, being compared to Einstein by an eminent psychologist who was examining the bumps on his head.
Restlessly, I went down in the elevator. Anything to get out of here. I was surrounded! The elevator boy was wearing a Whiz Kid Booster button.
On the counter of the news vendor was a huge Whiz Kid doll!
This whole thing was out of control. I didn’t have the least notion of what would happen now.
PART TWENTY-EIGHT
Chapter 6
The publicity for the race began with rumors that it might happen. This progressed into predictions that it would be prevented. The buildup continued until the double, asked point-blank on a national talk show—Donny Fartson’s “It’s Midnight All Day”—coyly announced he was willing to race to show off his new fuel.
Instant headlines!
Two days later, when that had dropped to page three, new, instant headlines appeared. I stared at them gloomily:
WHIZ KID
CHALLENGES
RACING DRIVERS
OF WORLD
With the confidence one could expect from this brilliant epitome of American youth, the Whiz Kid said, “I can lick ’em!”
The modest youth then said, “I am better than any of them bums.”
It went on and on, paper after paper.
The following day, the spot ads began to appear on radio and TV. The race would be held in two weeks at the Spreeport Speedway under the auspices of the AAA and the International Racing Association.
In two more days, the sky-writing signs began to appear.
The talk shows began to interview the world’s experts on auto racing. Learned predictions abounded in the press.
Two days after that, ticket sales must not have been brisk enough, because by popular demand, the race became a Demolition Derby and Combined Endurance Run.
The term was not familiar to me. What was a Demolition Derby? I found out rapidly enough. Cars banged and rammed each other until only one car was left able to move under its own power.
That made me feel a bit better. But when every sports and news announcer kept saying it would be a true test of the stamina of the new fuel, I again got uneasy. There was nothing wrong with Heller’s stamina.
Publicity for the race went on. But so did other publicity.
Dirt Illustrated offered a $100,000 prize to anyone who could guess what the new fuel was.
A new game came out called “Whiz Kid.” It was a computer game and was instantly on sale in all drug stores. If you won, you got to wear glasses.
The Whiz Kid—the double—modestly declined an invitation to breakfast at the White House, saying, “I’m too busy for trifling.”
Through all this hurricane of publicity, Heller just went on working. He got the two tanks to hold oxygen and hydrogen on either side of the elementary-school toy. He made the adjustable ports that would throttle-feed the gases. He made the lever that would push regulated amounts of the fuel in. Apparently he was going to use a chunk of asphalt. He shaped the collar and mounted it all on the old engine block. He started it up and ran it for an hour. It seemed to work great. So that was one hour less before the sabotaged unit would fail. Then he put it over into the Caddy itself and ran it a half-hour. Half an hour less. Maybe five and a half hours now? He was obviously unaware that he was dealing with a faulty unit. That was one hope.
He then took all the glass out of the Caddy and welded in a couple of temporary roll bars.
He seemed so calm, just going along doing his job, that it worried me spitless. Did he know something I didn’t know?
Then I thought it over. Maybe Madison knew something I didn’t know. I went down to 42 Mess Street. I almost got trampled. Madison was rushing about giving orders to three different people at once and when he sat down he was talking to three different phones at once. Busy! He wouldn’t even look my way when I yelled at him.
That same afternoon, I walked into Bury’s office. He was in rare good humor. It was so un-Wall-Street-lawyer-like that I thought he must have been drinking. But he said no, he had simply gone two whole nights now with no fight with his wife.
“Aren’t you worried about this other thing?” I said.
“Miss Peace? Oh, hell no, Inkswitch. She gets knocked up every time she turns around. The man always thinks he did it and, of course, that’s impossible but he rushes her off to the abortion clinic sometimes when she isn’t even pregnant. It was the elevator boy this time. No, I’m not worried about that.”
“No, no!” I cried. “This other thing!”
Mission Earth Volume 3: The Enemy Within Page 34