‘You are in very big trouble,’ he intoned.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said, the impact of my innocence lessened by the squeak and tremor of my voice.
‘You know full well what I mean. You have committed the crime of theft tonight, purloining the public purse donated by stone-deaf music lovers. But that is the least of your folly, young man. By your age I can tell that you have also purloined the good name of another. The Bishop. You are pretending to be something that you are not. Here, take these.’
Purloined a good name? What in the galaxy was he talking about? I snatched the keys out of the air by reflex. Gaped at them – then gaped even more broadly at him as I tremblingly unlocked the cuffs.
‘You are not …’ I gurgled. ‘I mean, the arrest, this office, the police … You are …’
He calmly waited for my next words, a beatific smile on his face.
‘You are … The Bishop!’
‘The same. My understanding of the message concealed by your feeble code was that you wanted to meet me. Why?’
I started to rise and an immense gun appeared in his hand, aimed between my eyes. I dropped back into the chair. The smile was gone, as was all warmth from his voice.
‘I don’t like to be imitated, nor do I like to be played with. I am displeased. You now have three minutes to explain this matter before I kill you then proceed to your hotel room to retrieve the money you stole this evening. Now the first thing that you will reveal is the location of the rest of the money stolen in my name. Speak!’
I spoke – or rather I tried to speak but could only sputter helplessly. This had a sobering effect. He might kill me – but he was not going to reduce me to helpless jelly first. I coughed to clear my throat, then spoke.
‘I don’t think that you are in too much of a hurry to kill me – nor do I believe in your three-minute time limit. If you will cease in your attempt to bully me I shall try to tell you carefully and clearly my motives in this matter. Agreed?’
Speaking like this was a calculated risk – but The Bishop was a game player, I knew that now. His expression did not change, but he nodded slightly as though conceding a Pawn move – knowing that he still had my King well in check.
‘Thank you. I never thought of you as a cruel man. In fact, when I discovered your existence, I used you as a career model. What you have done, what you have accomplished, is without equal in the history of this world. If I offended you by stealing money in your name I am sorry. I will turn all the money from that robbery over to you at once. But if you will stop to think – it is the only thing that I could do. I had no way of finding you. So I had to arrange things so that you could find me. As you have. I counted upon your curiosity – if not your mercy – not to reveal my identity to the police before you had met me yourself.’
Another nod granted me another Pawn move. The unwavering barrel of the gun informed me that I was still in check.
‘You are the only person alive who knows my identity,’ he said. ‘You will now tell me why I should not kill you. Why did you want to contact me?’
‘I told you – out of admiration. I have decided on a life of crime as the only career open to one of my talents. But I am self-trained and vulnerable. It is my wish to be your acolyte. To study at your knee. To enter the academy of advanced crime in the wilderness of life with you on one end of the log and me on the other. I will pay whatever price you require for this privilege, though I may need a little time to raise more money since I am turning the receipts of my last two operations over to you. There it is. That is who I am. And, if I work hard enough, you are whom I wish to be.’
The softening gaze, the thoughtful fingers raised to chin meant I was out of check for the moment. But the game wasn’t won yet – nor did I wish it to be. I wanted only a draw.
‘Why should I believe a word of this?’ he asked at last.
‘Why should you doubt it? What other possible reason could I have?’
‘It is not your motives that disturb me. I am thinking about the possibility of someone else’s, someone in a position of police responsibility who is using you as a pawn to find me. The man who arrests The Bishop will rise to the top of his chosen profession.’
I nodded agreement as I thought furiously. Then smiled and relaxed. ‘Very true – and that must have been the very first thing to come to your mind. Your office in this building either means that you are high in the ranks of law enforcement, so high that you could easily find out if this had been the plan. Or – even more proof of your genius – you have ways and means of penetrating the police at any level, to fool them and use them to actually arrest me. My congratulations, sir! I knew that you were a genius of crime – but to have done this, why it borders on the fantastic!’
He nodded his head slowly, accepting his due. Did I see the muzzle of the gun lowered ever so slightly? Was a drawn game possibly in sight? I rushed on.
‘My name is James Bolivar diGriz and I was born a little over seventeen years ago in this very city in the Mother Machree Maternity Hospital for Unemployed Porcuswineherds. The terminal I see before you must access official files at every level. Bring up mine! See for yourself if what I have told you is not the truth.’
I settled back into the chair while he tapped commands on the keyboard. I did nothing to distract him nor draw his attention while he read. I was still nervous but worked to affect a surface calm.
Then he was done. He leaned back and looked at me calmly. I didn’t see his hands move – but the gun vanished from sight. Drawn game! But the pieces were still on the board and a new game was beginning.
‘I believe you, Jim, and thank you for the kind words. But I work alone with no disciples. I was prepared to kill you to preserve the secret of my identity. Now I do not think that will be necessary. I will take your word that you will not look for me again – or use my identity for any more crimes.’
‘I grant your requests instantly. I only became The Bishop to draw your attention. But reconsider, I beg of you, my application for membership in your academy of advanced crime!’
‘There is no such institution,’ he said, hauling himself to his feet. ‘Applications are closed.’
‘Then let me rephrase my request,’ I said hurriedly, knowing my remaining time was brief. ‘Let me be personal, if I can, and forgive any distress I may cause. I am young, not yet twenty, and you have been on this planet for over eighty years. I have been only a few years at my chosen work. And, in this brief time, I have discovered that I am truly alone. What I do I must do for myself and by myself. There is no comradeship of crime because all of the criminals I have seen are incompetents. Therefore I must go it alone. If I am lonely – then dare I even guess at the loneliness of your life?’
He stood stock still, one hand resting on the desk, staring at the blank wall, as through a window, at something I could not see. Then he sighed, and with the sound, as though it had released some power that kept him erect, he slumped back into the chair.
‘You speak the truth, my boy, and only the truth. I do not wish to discuss the matter, but your barb has been driven well home. Nevertheless what is, will be. I am too old a dog to change my ways. I bid you farewell, and thank you for a most interesting week. Been a bit like old times.’
‘Reconsider, please!’
‘I cannot.’
‘Give me your address – I must send you the money.’
‘Keep it, you earned it. Though in the future earn it under a different identity. Let The Bishop enjoy his retirement. I will add only one thing, a bit of advice. Reconsider your career ambitions. Put your great talents to work in a more sociably acceptable manner. In that way you will avoid the vast loneliness you have already noted.’
‘Never!’ I cried aloud. ‘Never. I would rather rot in jail for the rest of my life than accept a role in the society I have so overwhelmingly rejected.’
‘You may change your mind.’
‘There is no chance of that,’ I said to the empty
room. The door had closed behind him and he was gone.
CHAPTER TEN
Well that was that. There is nothing like an overwhelming depression to bring one down from the heights of elation. I had done exactly what I had set out to do. My complex plan had worked perfectly. I had unearthed The Bishop from his secret lair and had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Except he had. Even the pleasure of having pulled off the successful robbery meant nothing. The bucks were like ashes in my hand. I sat in my room at the hotel and looked into the future and could see only a vast vacuity. I counted the money over and over until the sums were meaningless. In making my plans I had considered all of the possibilities but one – that The Bishop would turn me down. It was kind of hard to take.
By the time I got back to Billville the next day I was wallowing in a dark depression and thoroughly immersed in the bath of self-pity. Which I normally cannot stand. Nor could I this time. I looked in the mirror at the hollow-eyed and woe begone face and stuck my tongue out at it.
‘Sissy!’ I said. ‘Momma’s boy, whiner, self-indulgent wimp,’ and added whatever other insults I could think of. Having cleansed the air a bit I made a sandwich and a pot of coffee – no alcohol to clog the synapses! – and sat down to munch and guzzle and think about the future. What next?
Nothing. At least nothing constructive that I could think of at this moment. All of my plans had ended at a blank wall and I could see no way around or over it. I slumped back and snapped my fingers at the 3V. A commercial channel came on and before I could change channels the announcer appeared in glorious three dimension and colour. I didn’t switch because the announcer was a she and wearing only the flimsiest of swimsuits.
‘Come where the balmy breezes blow,’ she cajoled. ‘Come join me on the silver sands of beautiful Vaticano Beach where the sun and waves will refresh your soul …’
I turned the thing off. My soul was in fine shape and the fine shape of the announcer only gave me more problems to think about. Future first, heterosexual love later. But the commercial had at least given me the beginning of an idea.
A holiday? Take a break? Why not – lately I had been working harder than any of the businessmen I so badly did not want to become. Crime had paid, and paid nicely, so why didn’t I spend some of the hard-earned loot? I probably wouldn’t be able to escape from my problems. I had learned by experience that physical displacement was never a solution. My troubles always went with me, as ever-present and nagging as a toothache. But I could take them with me to some place where I might find the leisure and opportunity to sort them out.
Where? I punched up a holiday guide from the database and flipped through it. Nothing seemed to appeal. The beach? Only if I could meet the girl from the commercial, which seemed far from likely. Posh hotels, expensive cruises, museum tours, all of them seemed about as exciting as a weekend on a porcuswine ranch. Maybe that was it – I needed a breath of fresh air. As a farm boy I had seen enough of the great outdoors, usually over the top of a pile of porcuswine you-know-what. With that sort of background I had welcomed my move to the city with open arms – and hadn’t ventured out since.
That might be the very answer. Not back to the farm but into the wilderness. To get away from people and things, to do a little chatting with mother nature. The more I thought of it the better it sounded. And I knew just where I wanted to go, an ambition I had had since I was knee-high to a porcuswinelet. The Cathedral Mountains. Those snow-covered peaks, pointing towards the sky like giant church towers, how they used to fill my childish dreams! Well why not? About time to make a few dreams come true.
Shopping for backpack, sleeping bag, thermal tent, cooking pots, lights – all the gear needed – was half the fun. Once outfitted I couldn’t waste time on the linear but took the plane to Rafael instead. I bulged my eyes at the mountains as we came in to land and snapped my fingers and fidgeted while I waited for the luggage. I had studied the maps and knew that the Cathedral Trail crossed the road in the foothills north of the airport. I should have taken the connecting bus like the others, instead of being conspicuous in a taxi, but I was in too much of a rush.
‘Pretty dangerous, kid, I mean walking the trail alone.’ The elderly driver smacked his lips as he launched into a litany of doom. ‘Get lost easily enough. Get eaten by direwolves. Landslides and avalanches. And …’
‘And I’m meeting friends. Twenty of them. The Boy Sprouts Hiking Team of Lower Armmpitt. We’re gonna have fun,’ I invented rapidly.
‘Didn’t see no Boy Sprouts out here lately,’ he muttered with senile suspicion.
‘Nor would you,’ I extemporised, bent over in the back seat and flipping through the maps quickly. ‘Because they took the train to Boskone, got off there, right at the station close to where the trail crosses the tracks. They’ll be waiting for me, troop leader and all. I would be afraid to be alone in the mountains, sir.’
He muttered some more, muttered even louder when I forgot to tip him, then chuckled in his grey whiskers as he drove away because, childishly, I had then overtipped him. While resisting strongly the impulse to slip him a phoney five-buck coin. The sound of the motor died away and I looked at the well-marked trail as it wound up the valley – and realised that this had been a very good idea indeed.
There is no point in waxing enthusiastic about the joys of the Great Outdoors. Like skiing, you do it and enjoy it, but don’t talk about it. All the usual things happened. My nose got sunburned, ants got into my bacon. The stars were incredibly clear and close at night, while the clean air did good things to my lungs. I walked and climbed, froze myself in mountain streams – and managed to forget my troubles completely. They seemed very out of place in this outdoor world. Refreshed, cleansed, tired but happy and a good deal thinner, I emerged from the mountains ten days later and stumbled through the door of the lodge where I had made a reservation. The hot bath was a blessing, and the cold beer no less. I turned on the 3V and got the tailend of the news, slumped down in the tub and listened with half an ear, too lazy to change channels.
‘ … reports a rise in ham exports exceeding the four per cent growth predicted at the first of the year. The market for porcuswine quills is slipping however, and the government is faced with a quill mountain that is already drawing criticism.
‘Closer to home the computer criminal who broke into federal files goes on trial tomorrow. Federal prosecutors treat this as a most serious crime and want the death penalty reestablished. However …’
His voice faded from my attention as his smarmy face vanished from the screen to be replaced by the computer criminal himself being led away by a squad of police. He was a big man, and very fat, with a mane of white hair. I felt a clutch in my chest just near the place I imagined my heart to be. Wrong colour hair – but wigs would take care of that. There was no mistaking him.
It was The Bishop!
I was out of the tub and across the room and hitting the frame freeze controls. It is a wonder I did not electrocute myself. Shivering with cold, and scarcely aware of it, I flipped back, then zoomed for detail. Enlarged the frame when he looked back over his shoulder for an instant. It was he – without a doubt.
By the time I had wiped off the suds and dressed, the general shape of my plans was clear. I had to get back to the city, to find out what had happened to him, to see what I could do to help. I punched up flight information; there was a mail flight just after midnight. I booked a seat, had a meal and a rest, paid my bill and was the first passenger aboard.
It was just dawn when I entered my office in Billville. While the computer was printing out all the news items on the arrest, I made a pot of coffee. Sipping and reading, my spirits sank like a rock in a pond. It was indeed the man I knew as The Bishop, although he went under the name of Bill Vathis. And he had been apprehended leaving the Federal Building where he had installed a computer tap which he had been using to access Top Secret files. All of this had happened the day after I left on my escapist holiday.
I had the sudden realisation of what this meant. Guilt assailed me because I was the one who had put him into jail. If I had not started my mad plan he would never have bothered with the federal files. He had only done that to see if the robberies had been part of a police operation.
‘I put him in jail – so I will get him out!’ I shouted, leaping to my feet and spilling coffee across the floor. As I mopped it up I cooled down a bit. Yes, I would like to get him out of jail. But could I do it? Why not? I had some experience now in jail-breaking. It should be easier to get from the outside in than it had been doing it the other way. And, after further thought, I realised that perhaps I would not have to go near the jail. Let the police get him out for me. He would have to be taken to court, so would be in transit in various vehicles. He would be freed then, I hoped.
I soon discovered that it was not going to be that easy. This was the first major criminal that had been caught in years and everyone was making a big fuss over it. Instead of being taken to the city or state jail, The Bishop was being held in a cell inside the Federal Building itself. I could get nowhere near it. And the security measures when he was taken to the court house were unbelievable. Armed vans, guards, monocycles, police hovercraft and copters. I was not going to get to him that way either. Which meant I was baffled for the moment. Interestingly enough so were the police – but for very different reasons.
They had discovered, after endless search, that the real Bill Vathis had left the planet twenty years before. All of the records of this fact had vanished from the computer files – and it was only a note written by the real Vathis to a relative that had established the disappearance of the original. Well – if their prisoner wasn’t Vathis. Who was he?
When their captive was questioned, according to the report released to the press, ‘He answered the question only with silence and a distant smile.’ The prisoner was now referred to as Mr X. No one knew who he was – and he chose not to speak on the matter. A date was fixed for the trial, not eight days away. This was made possible by the fact that Mr X refused to plead either innocent or guilty, would not defend himself. And had refused the services of a state-appointed attorney. The prosecution, greedy for a conviction, stated that their case was complete and asked for an early trial. The judge, eager as well to be in the limelight, agreed to their request and the date was set for the following week.
The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection Page 7