The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus ssr-11

by Harry Harrison

  Bolivar nodded. “There is a a small pedestrian entrance, as well as a garage entrance for armored van deliveries.”

  “Got it. I want this building surrounded so tight that a gnat can’t get out. The perpetrators are probably still in the bank. Move it!”

  They moved. Then he ordered up a heavily armed squad. “Shoot anything that as much as twitches,” he said.

  “I assume that does not include us,” Bolivar said. The captain ignored this levity. “Take us to the rear entrances,” he ordered.

  Bolivar obliged. I trailed behind, anxious to see what was happening, but at the same time not wanting to draw their attention to me. Bolivar unlocked the doors as we went. Through offices and storerooms to a final door.

  “This opens into the garage area,” he said.

  “Unlock it-then step aside.” He waved a command and an armed and armored zap squad moved forward. “When I open this, get in there. Don’t take any chances. Fire first.”

  They nodded grim agreement, stood poised.

  The door flew open and they charged through it. Firing into the darkness as they ran. Bolivar reached in and turned the lights on.

  Layers of gunsmoke drifted in the air. The room was empty.

  “Open the outer door,” the captain ordered.

  Bolivar threw the switch. Motors whirred and gears ground as the heavy armored door sank down into the ground. We waited tensely, guns ready. There were people outside.

  Another row of policemen, also aiming guns.

  “Don’t fire!” Bolivar shouted at the trigger-happy cops. “We’re all on the same side!”

  Fingers twitched, then relaxed. Safety switchs were turned on.

  “Can you explain how this happened?” Captain Kidonda said, turning on Bolivar.

  “Certainly not. I was at the theater as well.”

  “But you know what happened?”

  “I know exactly as much as you do. The money machine was pulled out of the wall. And somehow, someway, person or persons unknown entered the vault and removed all of its contents.”

  “How?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You should know because that is your job.” The captain was losing his temper. “And I am beginning to think that this was an inside job. Planned by someone who knew exactly how to open the vault. Then took himself off to the circus for an alibi.”

  “I don’t need an alibi!” Bolivar said heatedly. “I did not do it, had nothing to do with it. Can’t you get that fact through your thick skull?”

  “Insulting a police officer in the course of his duty!” the captain roared. “That is a criminal act! Arrest this man!” he shouted and burly rozzers leaped forward to seize my son.

  “You can’t do that! “ I shouted, swinging the computer like a weapon as I started forward. The captain got in my way.

  “Not only can I do that-but I can throw you in the pokey beside him if I hear another word from you!”

  “Forget it, Dad. It’s all some kind of mistake.”

  “Your mistake!” the police oaf said grimly. “A new manager from offplanet is most suspicious.” He hesitated a moment, listening to the telephone in his ear. “Right. The commissioner agrees with me. I have orders to bring you in.” He jerked a fat thumb in my direction. “You get out of here or you are also going to be in big trouble.”

  His breath was redolent of the last three or four meals he had had, his voice gravelly with disdain. I glanced over his shoulder at Bolivar-who gave me a quick wink. I understood. Don’t get involved now. Don’t make a scene. Get out of here then think of more subtle ways of solving the current problem. Other than running off at the mouth. His was a mighty informative wink.

  I cringed. “Dear, sir,” I whined. “You must forgive me, carried away by these terrible events, you are of course right. Justice will be served. While I crawl back to my miserable hovel and berate myself deeply at my mistake.”

  I bowed and hunched and shuffled backwards away from the scene. Gold-braid was about to say something when Bolivar pulled free of one policeman and planted a solid punch on the other. There was much avid cursing and struggling that covered my exit. I crossed the police lines and waved down a cab that was slowly cruising by as the driver ogled the scene.

  “Pull over.” I said. “Start the meter, stay here, we are waiting for someone.”

  He was happy to oblige. Enjoying the arrival of the siren screaming van that backed up to the front of the bank. There was a quick glance of people getting in the rear door, then it pulled away.

  “Follow that vehicle,” I said.

  “No way! Them’s security police and they are bad news.”

  “Only to the guilty. I am a newspaper reporter on assignment and here is my identification.”

  I passed over a golden fifty-credit coin that he took with some hesitation. “Okay. But I’m not getting close.”

  The traffic was light enough to follow from a distance. We could clearly see the police van drive through an open door in an immense dark and ugly building. The driver hit the brakes and we screeched to a stop.

  “Out, out!” he squeaked. I opened the door but took my time about leaving.

  “What building is that?”

  A moan and a gasp was my answer. Finally he choked out the words. “That’s … Slawter House … headquarters of the Fiscal Constabulary. Also known as the Roach Motel. They go in-but they don’t come out.” I closed the door and gave him some more money.

  “That’s great. This will make a fine story and my editor will be pleased. Now take me to the Waldorf-Castoria where my employer awaits my arrival.” A chill passed over me since it was Angelina who was waiting. I knew in advance what her reaction would be when I arrived. The cab was fleet, the distance short, her wrath understandable.

  “You let them imprison our son?” Angelina said with venom in her voice and murder in her eye.

  “I was ready to take them out-but Bolivar said no. He winked at me.”

  “He has an old head on a young body. Probably saved your life-taking on the entire police force at your age. What’s next?”

  “We get him out of there. The course of events has taken a very ominous turn. There are too many coincidences and I don’t believe in that. But I do believe in active malice. I am sure that our role in this affair has been rumbled. First, we are here in this city when the robberies occur. And it is a totally different kind of crime from the previous ones. Always before. there has been no alarm-but the banks have been found cleaned out in the morning. Now we have a cash machine plucked out with noise and jumble. That has never happened before. Then, when we are inside the bank, the vault is apparently robbed just before our eyes. No good. We get Bolivar out now. But we have to have a good alibi for the time when all this is happening.”

  “You have arranged that?”

  “I will. Or rather you will. Call down for great amounts of food and– drink. We are going to have a party.”

  While she did this I dug our apparatus out of the bags, stuffed needed items into my pockets. A portable radio filled with functions never imagined by its manufacturer. A camera that took good pictures-but picture taking was probably the simplest of its functions, only the smallest fraction of its abilities. I had just finished changing into dark clothes when I heard the door announcer. I was sitting on the couch with a lit cigar when the trolleys rolled in.

  “Eat drink and be merry!” I announced, tipping freely and breaking open a bottle of bubbly. But as soon as the door closed I jumped to my feet and produced the webber from my pocket. “We go,” I said. “Garbed in black and ready for action.”

  “And you have some subtle plan to save our boy?” Angelina said as she pulled on her slacks.

  “Not that subtle since we have little time and less knowledge of where he is being held. So we just blast our way in.”

  “Good. Let us do it.”

  I went out onto our balcony and slapped the webber to the wall beside it, where it adhered with an un
breakable molecular grip. Seizing the handle on the thing I swung out into the darkness. “Join me,” I said, and Angelina took my waiting hand. A touch of the button and the liquid web was expelled from the spinneret; it congealed instantly. We went smoothly down just as a spider would on a web.

  I swung right on past the balcony on the floor below us, since there were lights on in the room. The window on the floor below was dark, so we landed there. I concealed the webber against the wall, turned, and opened the sliding door with a quick twitch of my lockpick. Down four flights to the basement, thankfully without being seen. Then out through a sealed and alarmed emergency door. Which unsealed at my touch, alarm silenced as well.

  “I like that little blue sports car,” Angelina said.

  “I do too. But I think we need something bigger and more sober. That one.”

  A large, black saloon which opened to my touch, started instantly, bore us away into the night. “I’ll park around the back of the building,” I said. “We will go in through the front. Move fast, play it by ear, not stopping, get Bolivar and get out.”

  “Sounds good-and could be fun as well. I realize that we have been leading what could be called a dull existence of late.”

  “You can’t go in here,” the guard at the front entrance said as we walked up. He was raising his weapon when I reached out and cracked the deepsleep capsule under his nose. He dropped. Dropped his memory too, since I had incorporated a bit of an amnesia drug in the formula. We pulled on gas masks before entering the building. Fairly quiet at this time of night, even quieter when the blackout spray and deepsleep took effect. Uniformed bodies thudded to the floor on all sides. We stepped around them to get at the uniformed bully who was slumped behind the reception desk. He woke and gurgled briefly when I injected him, drooped again when the next needle hit.

  “I am your master,” I whispered into his ear.

  “Yes, master.”

  “You will obey me.”

  “But speak and I obey.”

  “Where is the prisoner who was brought here earlier? The one involved in the bank robbery.”

  “Interrogation room six.”

  “Take us there.”

  He did. Most docilely. The few people we met slept comfortably in the corridors. We stopped at the signaled door, our guide joined the others in slumberland; somewhere in the distance an alarm sounded.

  “They’ve finally rumbled us,” Angelina said.

  “Took them long enough. Ready?”

  She nodded. Her features unseen behind the mask-but I knew that she was smiling as she opened the door and threw in the capsules.

  They were all unconscious, even Bolivar who hung limply from a rack of some kind. There was blood on his face and hands. As Angelina went to get him down she managed to plant a foot in each of the men around him.

  “Thanks,” Bolivar said simply when he opened his eyes. “Bunch of sadists this lot.”

  Was it by accident that Angelina managed to walk on their faces as we left?

  The alarms were louder now, with the sound of running feet in the distance, hoarse shouts and the occasional sound of gunfire. They were obviously panicked and firing in the dark. We stayed away from the growing clamor and instead worked our way to the rear of the building where we descended to the ground floor.

  “This should be the outside wall,” I said dubiously.

  “That better be the outside wall,” Angelina said positively. “Now get us out of here.”

  Not sure of the thickness of the wall I planted a treble charge. Even around the corner of the corridor we were stunned and deafened by the explosion. We staggered through the debris and out of the immense opening into the night. Not too far from our car. We were well gone before anyone else appeared. Returned the stolen vehicle to the spot where we had found it parked, then made our way back to the. balcony and our room, reversing our escape route.

  “I am going to clean Bolivar up and change,” Angelina said. “While you order up more drink for our party.”

  “Now it really is a party,” I said. “So we can celebrate a bit-before we figure out what the next step will be. I have the strong sensation that our invisible enemies have been one step ahead of us ever since we arrived on this planet. Let us then do something to even the score.”

  Chapter 8

  I poured the contents of two bottles of good booze-what a waste-down the drain. And ordered more. The party must go on. A newly patched up Bolivar wandered about the suite, detector in one hand, a barbecued porcuswine rib in the other, checking the detectors. Gloriana had wandered out to see what the excitement was about, squealed woefully when she sniffed her departed relative, and had retired again to her bed. Angelina, attired in a nifty tigerstriped negligee, was repairing the damage inflicted on her fingernails by the night’s events.

  “As a reward for your medical ministrations I would say that another cool glass of bubbly would be in order,” I offered.

  “Very much in order.” She took it and sipped. I knocked back a double dram of Old Kidney Killer, then took some more-with ice this time. Nibbled a canape or two and let myself relax. But could not.

  “What do we do about Bolivar?” I asked, phrasing aloud the question that was prominent in everyone’s mind. “This hotel room is not the safest place for him to be.”

  “Nor this city-nor this entire planet,” Angelina said with some venom. “I am uneasy about everything-because everything seems to be falling apart in a most unpleasant way. I am beginning to wish that we had never met Chaise. Or let ourselves by hypnotized by all the money he offered.”

  I was very much in agreement-but felt that I had to at least attempt to be cheerful.”

  “It is going to work out-and we will be rich. But first, as you said, what do we do about Bolivar?”

  “I’ll be just fine,” he said. At the very same moment the door chime chimed to contradict his words. “But I think that I’ll be finer if I step into the other room.”

  “The police are a very thorough bunch on this backwoods planet,” I said. “So I think that you will be finer still-if you step out onto the balcony instead of the bedroom and hang out about there. I smell trouble.”

  My prognostic sniffer was indeed right. Three large and burleys filled the hall outside when I opened the door.

  “This is a private party and you are not invited,” I said and closed the door. Or rather tried to, but a large shoe stopped me.

  “National Security Police,” the lead goon said, flashing an ornate badge with a hologram of a striking snake. “We are coming in.”

  “Without permission or a search warrant?”

  “None needed. Not on Fetorr. In the name of justice we have the right enter any premises that we deem suspect.”

  “We are having a bit of a party here-what is suspect about that?”

  “You are,” he snarled, pushing me in the chest. Normally I would have dropped him for this, but now I was just playing for time. I moved back hesitantly and he smiled. “You were in the presence of a known criminal early this evening.”

  “That’s no crime!”

  “It is if I say it is. Out of the way.”

  They rushed in and I had to step aside or be trampled. Angelina sipped her wine and did not grace them for an instant by acknowledging their rude presence.

  “Where is Bolivar diGriz?” the one who spoke asked in a nasty and suspicious way. Perhaps the others couldn’t talk.

  “Who are you?”

  “Inspector Mwavuli. Where is he?” He looked around. “Search this place.”

  “Where is who? Bolivar? He is in jail-where your fellow officers took him.”

  “He is not. He escaped.”

  “That’s nice to hear. Drink?”

  There was none of that “not on duty” nonsense on Fetorr. He poured a glassful of hooch and knocked it back without taking his eyes off me. His co-conspirators returned from their search of the premises and answered his raised eyebrows with negative grunts.


  “Don’t leave this city,” he ordered. Then they left.

  “Charming,” Angelina said as she double-locked the hall door, put on the safety chain and propped a chair under the handle.

  Bolivar came in from the balcony and touched his finger to his lips. He made a careful search of the suite with his detector and returned with a handful of bugs. They were disguised as coins, soap cakes, picture hangers-and even one roach. He flipped them off the balcony then poured himself a glass of red wine.

  “Bolivar-you are going to join the circus,” Angelina said.

  “My lifetime ambition!’

  “Don’t be cheeky. I mean it, seriously.”

  “Of course you do. But I was also thinking of the little matter of reaching the Colosseo. I’m sure that all the police have my photo by now and are on the lookout. The streets are not safe.”

  “For a young man, yes. But for a young women they are as safe as they possibly could be on this despicable planet. Prepare yourself for a temporary sex change. I pity the thug that tries to get smart with this particular young lady. Shave your legs while I get you some clothes.”

  The sky was getting light by the time our son was dressed to Angelina’s satisfaction.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “Bolivera has never looked better!”

  Nor had he. Neatly turned out, long skirt and svelte bosom. Good makeup and a not too wiggy-looking wig. Angelina nodded approval as well.

  “Now get a few hours sleep-and don’t wrinkle the dress! You will leave by the main entrance. And do try to mince a bit when you walk. Like this.”

  When he was mincing fine we all retired, very much in need of some rest.

  I managed a few hours sleep and awoke feeling a bit better. After a picker-upper pill I felt better still. As I did, first thing every morning, I checked my bank account. The expected four million from Chaise had not come through. But there was a message.

  NOT TOO GOOD, JIM. TRY HARDER.

  It was late morning before we left. Angelina and I went out first, me with the computer and her leading Gloriana. Bolivera slipping out of our suite as soon as we signaled him that the hallway was clear. He waited for the second elevator since we were sure to be followed. We were. We ignored the tails and hailed a cab to take us to the circus.