I had read somewhere that the Spaniards, when they came to America, had picked up syphilis and taken it back to the Old World. And modern research had found that the disease had been generated by an American beast known as the llama that was a sort of long-legged goat.
Had that goat given her syphilis?
Did I now have the disease?
I tore into the tattered books on the library shelf. I found a medical text. It said the onset was very mild and the first sign occurred in from ten to thirty days, at which time a small bump appeared and then went away. But skin eruptions then occurred; one went totally to pieces internally and usually went crazy. I searched further in horrified frenzy. Nothing like this existed on Vol-tar. There probably wasn't a doctor around who could touch it. I had to know all I could about it, realizing that I had ten days at least to wait before I would know. I calmed myself with an effort. I had no real evidence I was in trouble.
Then my eye chanced to light upon a fatal paragraph. The disease was named from a character in a
poem: Syphilus! The man was a SHEPHERD!
And shepherds tend GOATS!
Oh, believe me, I spent an awful and restless night! I knew I was doomed to break out in sores and go crazy.
The pale horror of dawn spread its contaminating fingers through the window. The phone rang!
I jumped like I was shot.
Maybe it was good news, I told myself, to still the small screams that tried to rise from my diseased body. Maybe Krak was dead.
"Torpedo here," he said. "Look, I got bad news for you. That land yacht wasn't there. I found a lot of package wrappings in the litter bin close by: Newark stores and quite fresh. And one had marked on it 'Land yacht steaks, put in freezer at once' and another with the license number you gave me and 'cook uniform' scribbled on it. So they were there all right just hours ago. They must have been the convoy of a huge motor home followed by a smaller one that I saw waiting at the westbound toll line to cross the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson. That's only a mile or so south of Hairytown. I remember saying to myself, 'Jesus, look at that huge motor home and all the chrome,' when I exited off from the New York State Thruway onto U. S. 9 to enter Hairytown. So I know what it looks like all right. But that ain't the bad news."
Oh, Gods, what now?
"You know that envelope you gave me with the money in it? Well, a few hours ago the message and paper simply evaporated. That wouldn't be so bad because I remembered your phone number. But the money that had been in it evaporated, too! There's nothing left of it but some green powder."
Oh, (bleep)! The timed disintegrator spray had gotten on the money in the envelope!
"So I'm broke."
Oh, that idiot! He had had the land yacht right in view and missed it! I knew at once what I would have to do. He was too dumb to do anything but kill.
Impetuously, I said, "Drive down to Eleventh Avenue and 50th Street. Start now. I will meet you on the northwest corner!"
He said that he would be there.
I stole out into the front room. I found Miss Pinch's purse. It had two thousand dollars in it! I took it.
I wrote a note. I told her I was haggard with worry that I hadn't pleased them last night. I was going to go find a mountaintop and sit on it and work out what was wrong but in a week or less I would be back, ready to go again.
I took my Federal credentials. If I was apprehended with a hit man I could say I was on a government project and had hired him to execute a government contract, "in the national interest," like they had executed on Martin Luther King and President Kennedy and Lincoln and lots more that had gotten in the government's road.
I armed myself.
I took my viewers and some clothes.
I stole out of the flat.
I would make sure, personally, that Torpedo found the right target and that the Countess Krak would die!
Chapter 6
With rifle ready and my hit man's finger itchy on the trigger, I spent the next three days combing the highways for the Countess Krak.
There were only a limited number of routes she could take south, and working back and forth, crosscountry, asking service stations and toll bridge people, we patrolled every one of them.
On the very first day, about noon, I caught a glimpse on my viewer. She was standing on what seemed to be a hill crest, gazing at mountains that were shrouded in blue mist. She looked at no signs and shortly afterwards interference came on again. But the clue was unmistakable: she was somewhere inland where the Atlantic coastal plain rises into the Appalachians. That eliminated any roads nearer the coast. I felt we were zeroing in.
I was personally having a very poor time of it and was held to my search only by my sense of duty as an Apparatus officer. I couldn't stand to be near Torpedo Fiaccola.
Not only did the filthy beast stink, he kept whining that I wasn't being fast enough. He wanted to get on his kill and he twisted and agonized about how frustrated he was and how he had to have it. He kept stroking his rifle barrel and unloading the gun and spitting on the cartridges and reloading it, crooning to the slugs to get him his next orgy. My disgust rose like vomit in my throat just to hear him.
On the second day, beside a road we were alertly watching, I took a moment out to get a look at Heller.
He was still in Florida, totally oblivious of the gruesome fate that was stalking his darling.
He was walking toward a ramshackle hotel that stood amongst palms on a sand-spit. A high wind bent and threshed the trees. An alligator scuttled across the road ahead of him.
A contractor, in khaki that was stained black under the armpits with sweat, was saying to him, "Mr. Floyd, how in HELL do you lay out those foundation corners so accurate? Most engineers use a transit. Never seen anybody do it with a watch."
"It's timing," said Heller, his mind obviously on other things.
They entered the hotel. A black bartender saw Heller coming and set out a Seven Up. Heller said to him, "Have there been any phone calls for me?"
The bartender went to yell at somebody. In the mirror I could see construction men strung along the bar. And down at the end, who was that? Raht! Very inconspicuous, dressed in sweaty khaki like the rest, mustache unmistakable: at least he was on the job and obviously undetected by Heller.
A switchboard girl, a Mexican by the looks of her, phones on her head and disconnected jack plug in her hand, walked up to Heller. "Nada, nada, Mistaire Floyd," she said. "I try all morning while you gone and they don't answer. The Norteamericano telefonista operador dice que-excuse me, I have not been in country long-the operator say they on vacation. They no answer."
"Yes," said Heller, "I know they're on vacation. But look, keep trying." And he gave her a ten-dollar bill.
I
She grinned and looked him up and down specula-tively. But he shooed her away.
For a moment it occurred to me that if I had not disconnected their phone by putting it on "vacation," I might have picked up her whereabouts from Heller's mushy interchanges with his sweetheart. But it was too late to worry about spilled milk. I had every confidence I could find her.
The second day, as we combed the mountains of Pennsylvania, I got another glimpse of her. She was sitting by a lake looking pensively at the reflections of an island in the still water. There were a lot of shrubs about that had white, leathery-looking flowers and others that were budding in purple. I did not know the flowers and it seemed too soon in the year for such display but the weather had been unseasonably warm this very early spring.
We looked for lakes along the route and, with Torpedo whining and drooling and stroking his bullets and pants, inspected three. No land yacht. No Countess Krak.
On the third day, after a fruitless morning between Hagerstown, Maryland, and Winchester, Virginia, covering U. S. 81, I got a clue. I noticed I was entering an area where the same types of shrubs I had earlier seen her looking at were now in bloom. We were getting closer.
And then a break! Jus
t after lunch I eagerly hunched in the back seat of the Ford we had and turned on the viewers. There she was! She was staring into a shallow valley where a small brook ran. All about her were flowering shrubs. What a target if we could just find her!
I ignored Torpedo in the front seat: he was whining his usual whine that he couldn't stand holding off much longer, that he itched and burned to get it into the
fresh-killed target and why couldn't I hurry up before I drove him mad.
An engine roar sounded behind her. She turned. Bang-Bang sprang out of a jeep and approached her. It gave me a new clue: that second motor home must be pulling a jeep on a tow bar like they often do. Made it easier to identify.
Bang-Bang seemed excited. "Miss Joy, I called like you said. And I think I've got a trace of him. After he got hurt, he retired to a rest home!"
She said, "Great! Then just start calling every rest home!"
Bang-Bang said, "Beggin' your pardon, ma'am, but three days' worth of telephones has shot the wad! Since the mobile phone went dead, we musta spent a thousand bucks on pay phones."
"Oh. Well, I'll come back with you and draw another thousand on the credit card."
I ground my teeth. I had forgotten you could draw cash. My half-million certificate in Squeeza Credit hands was more and more at risk.
They got into the jeep and Bang-Bang drove with wild abandon down a bridle path. He burst into a clearing. A sign said:
General Store Bogg Hollow
It seemed an unpopulated, sylvan place.
The Countess Krak went in and used the credit card to get her change from a smiling clerk. She also bought a black, smoked Virginia ham that was hanging in the rafters and told the clerk to send it to the cook. So she
was in Virginia! I was not wrong. I was also in Virginia and so was the whining, itching Torpedo.
Bang-Bang walked to an outside pay phone and closed the kiosk door. The Countess Krak, (bleep) her, did not follow him and so I could not see the number that would give me the absolute pinpoint for our hit.
She walked down a path and there before her stood the vehicles. The land yacht and the other smaller motor home were parked so as to make an L. They had their awnings out. Very colorful. In the center of the L was a large picnic table that seemed a permanent fixture. The vehicles were hooked up to water lines: this must be some kind of a national park, very groomed and beautiful.
An elderly lady, obviously Italian, in a stewardess uniform, was laying out a lunch at the picnic table. She saw the Countess coming and looked up and smiled. And then the Countess was inside the interference zone and my screen wiped out.
Anxiously I began to tear through my accumulated maps and guidebooks. I found three separate places named Bogg! None of them were called Bogg Hollow. But ALL of them were north of Lynchburg!
I grew very cunning. The only way you could get to Fair Oakes on a main highway was going through Lynchburg. To think was to act.
I instantly pushed the whining, suffering Torpedo aside, started up and drove like mad to Lynchburg. I found a motel just south of town on U. S. 29.
It was a shabby, tattered place but the room I got on the second floor was ideal. It covered the highway with a view of such expanse that I could not miss. And the parking lot on the other side of the room afforded the quickest possible launching pad from which to give chase.
I hated to share the same room with Torpedo. He
was whining worse and worse, getting absolutely frantic. But I had to watch my cash and motels are expensive.
I sat down with my viewers and my highway view. I had only to wait.
Heller's movements interested me. He was running about, pounding stakes with ribbons on them into the sand. Finally he ran out of stakes and walked back toward a mound of them. A man in a pilot's uniform was nearby, making notations in a small book and looking toward the ditches some digging machines were excavating. He saw Heller and came over.
"Mr. Floyd, what's the tonnage in these cooling pipes?" the pilot said.
"Thirteen point two three," said Heller. "Are you still going to pick them up tomorrow?"
"That's the plan," the pilot said. "Two freight choppers leave for the foundry at Scranton, Pennsylvania, tomorrow afternoon."
"Mind if I bum a ride?" said Heller. "Fair Oakes, Virginia, is not too far off your route."
"Never heard of the place," said the pilot. "Probably boxed in by trees*. If you don't mind going down a ladder, come ahead."
"They scare me to death," said Heller, telling what I knew for a fact was an outright, vicious lie. He hung by his teeth on safety lines from spaceships just for kicks.
But the pilot saw through the lie. "I'll bet. Glad of company."
"See you tomorrow afternoon," said Heller.
It made me anxious. This was going to be close. I promptly sent Torpedo out, rifle cocked and eyes hot, to visit every Bogg I had located.
Torpedo came back late. He had not connected. He was screaming with frustration.
"You got to get it," Torpedo whined, "to really understand what I've got to do. All day now I've known I have the clap."
"What?" I said, aghast.
"Yeah, that (bleeped) black corpse in Harlem. I wondered at the time why it was so juicy. Now I know. She had the clap. Now I've got it. But I know how to handle it. The prison psychologist always told all us cons the only thing to do with it was spread it around fast. So, God (bleep) it, where is the target? Where, where, where? I got to find her and do it, now that I got the clap. I need a bloodhound!"
It was an unfortunate remark. I suddenly went into alarm. "A bloodhound?" I said. "Is that anything like a Great Dane?"
"Same color. Just a little smaller, that's all."
Oh, Gods, the full implication of this hit me like a club. That woman, Bucket!
If the medical advice was to seek a bloodhound when one had the clap, then this would also include Great Danes!
Had that Great Dane had the clap?
Had Bucket had it?
Did I now have the clap?
I told myself how irrational it was. But I couldn't shake it and I sat there at the window through the night, watching for the land yacht, trying miserably to accept the fact that I probably was not only going to go crazy because of goats but also would cave in and have my bones rot from dog-carried clap. It was an awful thing to have to face. I knew my career was probably coming to an end. But I would be true to duty to the last and, crazy and rotted away though I might be, still an Apparatus officer.
At least I could put a crown on my shining record by ridding the universe of a scourge known as the Countess Krak. But somehow it didn't help. Somewhere in my career, had I gone wrong?
Was there somebody else I had failed to maim or kill? I was being punished for something, I was sure. But it was not because I had not tried to do my Apparatus duty always, like now. I was sure of that. It was just that the Gods are treacherous. They had it in for me.
Chapter 7
In the afternoon of the fatal fourth day, after a ceaseless and worried vigil of the highway, with Torpedo twitching and whining on the bed, I walked over to the viewer and there she was!
She was looking at the same blue-misted mountains she had been gazing at, at noon on the first day!
She had not shifted location in all that time!
And there was Bang-Bang's voice, "Miss Joy! Miss Joy! I found him!"
She turned and I listened intently. This was the clue I needed so crucially to reach her and kill her before Heller arrived.
Bang-Bang was scrambling up the rocky path. He was all out of breath. He sank down on a rock near her, trying to get his wind so he could talk.
"Oh, Bang-Bang!" said the Countess. "This is wonderful news. We can get this done before Jettero arrives. He'll be so proud of us! But come on, tell me."
"Can't get my breath," he wheezed. And then he said, "He wasn't in a rest home or retirement home. No wonder it took five hundred calls. He's in a private hospital owned
by a doctor friend. He's sort of hiding out. But we better hurry, 'cause they say he may not have long to live."
He paused to catch his breath and ease a stitch in his side. I gritted my teeth at this delay. It was Krak who didn't have long to live if I could get that address. That was where she'd keep her rendezvous with death.
He fumbled in his pocket for a paper scrap. He read it to her. "He's in Room 13, Altaprice Hospital, Redneck, Virginia. That's only thirty-five miles west of here!"
"Quick," said the Countess. "Race back and tell the crew to pack it up and get the show on the road! We're on our way!"
I grabbed my maps.
I had her!
She was SOUTH of me! Those (bleeped) retired Greyhound bus drivers had cannonballed her down here to her operating area in what must have been eight hours from Hairytown! She must be in the Smith Mountain Lake resort area southeast of Roanoke, Virginia. And she had been phoning, phoning, phoning from there in comfort while I tore all over the Middle Atlantic states! How she must be laughing!
She deserved to be killed and defiled at once!
It would be easy! There was ample time before Heller could arrive. Redneck was only twenty miles south and east of where I was.
I turned to give Torpedo his orders. I would not accompany him on the actual kill. But it was too easy, now.
I opened my mouth to speak.
There was a knock on the door!
The blanket I was using to hide the viewers had fallen to the floor. I was trying to untangle it.
Torpedo sprang up like a ghoul off the bed and opened the door.
A cop was standing there! He had on a black plastic jacket and white motorcycle helmet. He glared at Torpedo. "That your black Ford out there? It's the same license registered to this room. You left it parked out on the highway verge. It's an offense! Move it before I give you a ticket!"
He turned his back on Torpedo to point to it, stepped toward the balcony rail to do so. It was a fatal action.
Before I could move or call out even if I would have, Torpedo acted!
The hit man snatched a knife out of his belt!
Mission: Earth Death Quest Page 11