Mission: Earth "Black Genesis" (29 page)

Working on deciphering the scribbled numbers around the lobby public phone—some of them girls, some of them pimps and some of them gays—he found a taxi company and phoned it.

After getting his baggage into the cab, he said to the German-looking driver, "I'm looking for a place to live. A better hotel than this one. Something with some class."

With Heller noting bashed fenders of cars and darting amongst collision-fixated cars, they were soon over on Madison Avenue, roaring uptown.

At 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, the cabby dumped Heller in a driveway. Heller unloaded his baggage and offered a twenty-dollar bill. The cabby simply took the bill and drove rapidly away, though the fare had been much less. Heller was learning about New York.

He looked up. The Snob Palace Hotel soared above him. Although there were uniformed doormen and bellboys racing about, nobody took his baggage. He gathered it up and went in. A vast, glittering lobby stretched about

him, almost a hangar. Sparkling but decorous light fixtures illuminated the subdued and decorous furnishings. An expensive and decorous throng eddied around him as he made his way to the Room Desk.

There were numerous clerks, all busy. Heller waited. Nobody looked up. Finally, he said to one clerk, "I'd like a room."

"Do you have a reservation?" said the clerk. "No? Then see the assistant manager. Over there, please."

The assistant manager was busy. He was answering a complaint on the phone in a suitably decorous voice. Something about a poodle not having been aired. Finally he looked up. He did not much care for what he saw. By a mirror that covered the back wall behind him, I could see it, too.

Here was somebody in a loud, too-small, red-checked jacket and a pair of blue-striped pants that didn't reach his baseball shoes and who had, of all things, a red baseball cap on the back of his head. "Yes?" said the assistant manager.

Heller chipped the ice off it. "I'd like a nice room, maybe two rooms."

"Are you with your parents?"

"No, they're not on Earth."

"Suites start at four hundred dollars a day and go up. I shouldn't think you would be interested. Good day." And he got on the phone to scold the help for not decorously airing somebody's poodle.

I knew what was wrong. Heller was thinking in credits. A credit was worth several dollars. He picked up his baggage, walked out and walked into a cab which had just discharged a Pekingese that had been getting aired.

"I am looking for a room. I want something less expensive than they have in this place."

The driver promptly dashed downtown, switched

over to Lexington Avenue, avoided numerous smashups and dumped Heller at 21st Street. Heller offered a twenty-dollar bill. The driver was very surprised when it didn't come out from between Heller's fingers. He grumblingly got change and in a swift movement, they swapped monies. Heller gave him a fifty-cent tip. He was learning. Heller looked up at a ramshackle building. The canopy over the sidewalk said:

The Casa de Flop

He picked up his bags and walked in. A sodden group of winos sagged on sodden furniture. A sodden clerk slumped over a sodden desk. It was a very sodden lobby.

An odd sound hit my ears. Then I identified it. It was Heller sniffing. "Oof!" he said to nobody. "You'd think this place was run by the Apparatus!"

Code break! Code break! And unpatriotic! I made a hasty note and marked the recording strip. Nobody can accuse me of not doing my duty!

He hefted his bags, turned around and left.

Outside he stopped and looked back at the building. "You hotels can go sink yourselves! A house would cost less and be cleaner!"

It was two blocks before he could find another cab. It was sitting at the curb and Heller hailed it before it could drive off.

The driver looked like he had been up every night for the past year. He also didn't have any space between his eyes and hairline. A Neanderthal type.

Heller loaded his baggage. He leaned forward to speak through the glass and wire New York cabbies hope will protect them from muggers.

"Do you know of a house?"

The driver turned around to look at him. He thought. He said, "Do you have any money?"

"Of course I have money," said Heller.

"You're awfully young."

"Look," said Heller, "do you know of a house or don't you?"

The driver looked at him doubtfully but then nodded.

"All right," said Heller, "take me there!"

They bashed their way up into the Forties and headed over toward the East River. The black, tall slab of the United Nations pointed skyward in the near distance. They were drawing into a quieter, more elegant neighborhood full of imposing, high-rise buildings.

They pulled up at the curb before one. It was a building of gleaming stone and opaque glass, a beautiful modern structure many stories high. A patch of greenery and a brief curved drive set it back slightly from the sidewalk. An elegant, decorous sign, lettered in gold on black stone, was part of the wall to the left of the imposing entrance. The sign said:

The Gracious Palms

The cab had not pulled into the drive because a squat, low, black limousine was sitting there, chauffeur at the wheel. Heller got his bags out of the cab and put them on the walk. He was fishing in his pockets for the fare.

And then a remarkable thing happened!

The cabby, who had shortly before been so dopey, stared at the limousine and front entrance. His eyes suddenly shot wide with fear!

With a screech of tires, the cabby got his hack the Hells out of there!

Without being paid!

Heller gazed after the fleeing cab. He put the money back in his pocket. He hefted his bags and walked toward the entrance.

The limousine had its engine running.

There was a tough-looking young man lounging outside the door to the right of it. He was dressed in a double-breasted suit and he had a hat pulled down over his eyes. He pried himself off the wall as Heller approached.

The young man's right hand came up. Something in it!

It was a miniature walkie-talkie radio. He said something into it, eyeing Heller.

Something was going on! Something dangerous!

And Heller, the idiot, wasn't taking alarm! He walked on in through the entrance.

The lobby was small but dignified. Iron spiral staircases went up to a balcony on the far wall. Gold elevator doors were set into the polished tan stone. Designs in gold-colored metal wandered gracefully on the walls. There were some upholstered chairs of beautiful design, in groups of two, half-hidden by lovely green plants. A long, gold-colored counter was the obvious reception place.

There was nobody in sight! Not a soul!

Heller clickety-clacked across the polished, multicolored stone terrazzo floor, going toward the counter.

A small door in the wall to the left of the counter, marked with a sign: Host, opened about six inches. There was a man's face there. A tough one. A hand came out and beckoned silently to Heller.

Heller put down his baggage and walked over to the door. It swung open.

It was a large, ornate office. At the far end there

was a carved desk. At it sat a man, small, well-dressed, black hair, narrow face. The sign on his desk said:

Vantagio Meretrici, Manager

Sitting to the desk's right were two men, hats on, right hands out of sight. The three were all looking toward Heller.

Behind Heller the door closed.

Suddenly he was seized from behind!

His arms were pinned with a lock grip!

He was wrestled to a straight-back chair in the corner beside the door!

He was forced to sit down in the chair, his captor behind him, still holding him.

One of the men beside the desk gestured at Heller and addressed the manager. "So this is one of your fancy boys."

"No! No!" cried the man behind the desk. "We don't use young men here!"

The other gangster near the desk laughed in disbelief. "Aw, quit the (bleep), Vantagio. What do you charge for a boy with a pretty face like his?"

"Let's get back to business, Vantagio. Faustino says you are going to push drugs here and you push drugs here. We supply, you sell."

"Never!" said Vantagio. "We'd lose all our clientele! They'd be sure to think we were trying to bleed them for information!"

"Aw, what the hell do the niggers and chinks at the UN know about information!" sneered the gangster nearest Vantagio. "You got to learn new lessons. Faustino calls the shots now and you know it! So where do we start? Before we waste you, that is. Wrecking furniture? Disabling a few whores?"

The other gangster said, "How about the pretty new boy?"

The two hoods looked at each other and grinned. The one who had just made the suggestion lit up a cigarette and got it burning brightly. "For starts, we'll just put a few deep holes in his face and cost you some fees!"

Holding the glowing cigarette, the gangster got up and started across the room. The man gripping Heller from behind tightened his lock on Heller's arms.

Abruptly Heller brought his feet off the floor!

He did a sitting back flip!

His toes struck the man behind him on the head!

Heller's hands caught the sides of the chair seat. He catapulted himself backwards, straight over the head of the one who had been holding him! He landed behind him!

He had the man's gun out of its shoulder holster!

The gangster halfway across the room had stopped, staring!

The one still near the desk swung up a gun. "Get out of the way!" he screamed at the fellow in the middle of the room. That one promptly dropped to the floor!

The hood near the desk fired!

Heller was behind the one who had held him. The bullet struck the gangster's chest!

Using his former captor as a shield, Heller was trying to get off a shot.

The hood near the desk fired again. Twice!

Both shots struck Heller's former captor.

The hood at the desk realized he was shooting his own man! He flinched.

Heller slammed a shot straight into his heart!

The one crouched in the middle of the floor had his gun out. He was trying to get a shot.

Heller got a glimpse of him, momentarily putting himself in view. The man on the floor fired!

Another shot slammed into Heller's former captor.

Heller ducked to floor level.

He drove a shot straight into the skull of the man who had been crouching on the floor.

Two dead men! The third still flopping about in his death agonies.

"Jesus!" said Vantagio Meretrici at the desk.

Running feet outside approaching.

Heller jumped back away from the door.

The hood who had been at the entrance got half his face and an arm in. He saw Heller.

He was raising a gun!

Heller slammed a shot into his upper shoulder.

The man was hurled back out the door, spinning around. But he did not go down. The door banged shut. Running feet were racing away.

With a roar, the car outside revved up. A car door slammed and the limousine could be heard racing away on screeching tires.

"Jesus!" said Vantagio. Then he seemed to come to life. "Kid, give me a hand, quick!"

The body closest to the desk had fallen on a throw rug. Vantagio grabbed a corner of it and, using it as a kind of sled, sped to the door. He blocked the door open with a chair. Then he grabbed the rug again and skidded it and its burden out into the lobby.

The manager pointed at the man Heller had used for a shield and then out into the lobby. Heller lugged the body out and dumped it in the lobby.

The chortle of distant cop cars sounded.

Together, the manager and Heller dragged the third body out.

An old woman had appeared in the lobby, a neatly

uniformed cleaning woman. "Get the blood off the floor in the office!" the manager yelled at her. "Be quick!"

The cop cars were nearer.

The manager dived behind the desk. The clerk was there on the floor, tied up and gagged. Heller took the clerk and cut the bonds off.

The manager arranged the bodies in the lobby. He took the gun Heller had used and wiped it off and put it in the hand of the one who had been Heller's captor.

The cop cars were drawing up. "The (bleepards)," said the manager. "They had the fuzz tipped to rush in and grab me if there was any shooting!"

The manager surveyed the scene, said something fast in Italian to the clerk and was about to tell Heller something, probably to beat it, when a stentorian voice called out from the entrance, "Everybody freeze!" The everybody was the manager, Heller and the clerk.

A police inspector, fronted with two cops holding riot shotguns, was there. He was a huge man, middle-aged, flabby. "All right, Meretrici, you're under arrest!"

"For what?" said Vantagio.

The police inspector was looking at the bodies. He glared at the clerk. "What happened?"

"Just like you see," said the clerk. "That one," and he pointed to the body that was furthest from the entrance, the one Heller had used for a shield, "was evidently trying to get away from the others. And they came busting in the door after him and they all started shooting each other."

The police inspector examined each of the bodies and the guns.

"They should be arrested," said Vantagio. "We don't allow shooting in here!"

"Wise (bleep)," said the inspector. He came over to Heller. "Who the hell are you?"

"He's a delivery boy," said Vantagio. "He came in from the back after the shooting."

"(Bleep)," said the inspector.

"I wish you'd do your civic duty," said Vantagio, "the ones the taxpayers pay you for and get these bodies the hell out of here. They already ruined one rug!"