Mission: Earth "Death Quest" (9 page)

"He's got a son," said Krak triumphantly.

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"Well, hell, no-beggin' your pardon, ma'am. He ain't got no wife and he for sure ain't got no son. I helped Jet tear the library apart one day just making sure."

"That's just it," said Krak. "Delbert John Rocke-center doesn't know he has a son."

"WHAT?"

"Aha! So it surprises you, too," said the Countess Krak. "But it is a fact. I've got it all worked out. Delbert John was playing around-beggin' your pardon, Bang-Bang-and he got himself a son. But he didn't know it. He has a lawyer named Bury. So Bury hid the son and hid the fact from Rockecenter and as there is no heir, the empire will then pass straight into the hands of Bury."

"Jesus Christ."

"Now, Jettero is trying to Fix up the planet's fuel situation. He doesn't have much time. Rockecenter controls all the fuel. Now, if I were to simply phone up Delbert John Rockecenter and tell him he had a son, he'd be so grateful that he'd rush around and help Jettero and we'd be all finished here and could go home."

Bang-Bang's black Italian eyes were nearly popping out of his thin face.

The Countess Krak continued. "And if he doubts it, why, I'll just go out and find the son and turn him over to his father. Oh, Bang-Bang, Rockecenter would be so grateful he'd put Jettero on center stage with all the spotlights blazing and tell him 'Jettero, you write the show and we'll put on any act you want!' It can't fail, Bang-Bang. That's why I stayed behind."

Bang-Bang had found his voice. "Miss Joy! You can't go phoning Rockecenter! You can't go looking for some dumb kid! That mob is a gang of wolves! They'd eat the Virgin Mary, toenails and all, and never even

bother to spit out one Ave Maria! In short-beggin' your pardon, ma'am-they're (bleeps), Bury and that Rockecenter crew! Wolves, Miss Joy, WEREWOLVES!"

"Oh, nonsense, Bang-Bang. I've read a lot of guidebooks and things on New York, and Rockecenter has been giving away things to the people right and left: fountains, museums. The place is loaded with them."

"That was just the Rockecenter way of turning off the heat!" said Bang-Bang. "Just a way of buying advertising space when nobody would waste spit on the name!"

"Be that as it may," said the Countess Krak, "a father's heart could not help but open up if he knew he had a son. And that's why I am going to tell him or find the son and tell him, and out of gratitude he'll help and we can go home."

"IZZY!" screamed Bang-Bang. Then he seemed to realize he couldn't be heard through a door and down hundreds of feet of halls. He raced out and came back with an alarmed and wild-eyed Izzy. Bang-Bang marched him to the secretary desk. "Izzy, please explain to Miss Joy what (bleeps) Rockecenter and Bury really are."

Izzy swallowed several times and wiped his glasses on his tie and tried to put his tie on his nose. "Miss Joy, please don't do anything rash." Bang-Bang punched him in the side and he continued. "If the corpses made by the Rockecenter mob in starting wars and ending competition were laid end to end, they'd walk on them forever. The family was founded on selling crude oil for a cancer cure and they've been a cancer ever since. The family policies make a Mafia vengeance curse sound like a Sunday school prayer. Those horrors are not fit company for a delicate and beautiful lady. Anything we can do to help you while away the time? Theater tickets? Flowers? Diamond rings? A new collar for the cat? Until Mr. Jet

comes back and gets you under control, please tell me. What can we do to make you forget about this?"

"You can tell me how to find a telephone number," said the Countess Krak.

"Don't tell her," said Bang-Bang.

"I won't," said
Izzy.
He wandered in a small helpless circle, wrung his hands and went away.

Bang-Bang crept over to the bar and got behind it like he was in an observation post. Now, from afar, he was staring at the Countess Krak in worried bafflement.

She pulled over a phone. She looked at it studiously. A button said Operator. She pushed it. She got the operator. "How do you find a telephone number that is not in the phone book?" said the Countess Krak.

"Long distance or local, please," said the operator.

"That's the trouble," said the Countess Krak. "I don't know where he is."

"Where who is, ma'am?"

"Delbert John Rockecenter."

"Delbert John Rockecenter?"

"Delbert John Rockecenter."

"You mean the Delbert John Rockecenter that owns the phone company?"

"And the planet," said the Countess Krak.

"Jesus Christ," said the operator. "Ma'am, I think I better put you through to the Chief Information Operator. Hold on, please."

The Countess Krak had begun the trek across the telephone information lines of the planet that I had followed months before. She soon had London, Johannesburg, Moscow and Paris into the conference. They added Dogie, Texas, when somebody remembered he now owned Texas, and from there it was easy. Dogie

put them onto the Arab whose king remembered calling' Hairy town.

The Countess Krak said suddenly, "That's it!" She had it on Heller's plot.

They got the Hairytown local information and, with a sigh of relief, rang through to Pokantickle Estate.

The fourth assistant butler said, "I am sorry, but Mr. Rockecenter is not accepting any calls except from Miss Agnes. Is it Miss Agnes calling?"

It wasn't.

They all rang off.

The Countess Krak hung up the phone and sat back. She must have been looking very smug, for Bang-Bang at the bar had become quite white of face.

"You found his number?" said Bang-Bang with a kind of horror.

"I have found somebody who can put me in direct communication with him. She is a Miss Agnes and she must live in Hairytown. So, now, Bang-Bang, you're going to drive me there."

Bang-Bang came out from behind the bar. You could see confidence ebbing back into him. He smiled. He said, "I'm very afraid we cannot go. You see, my parole officer has forbidden me to leave New York City. If I do they'll chuck me back into Sing Sing. I promised Jet I'd make sure you were safe and he told you to listen to me. So you see, I can't drive you and you can't go."

"Parole officer? Supposing I could fix that, Bang-Bang?"

"Well, a parole officer is someone who is so mean, so rotten and so vicious that nobody can fix one. And even if you could, there are my classes and drills at the ROTC at college. And if I missed those, Jet wouldn't get

his diploma. So, there you are, Miss Joy. A complete double roadblock, manned by the cops on one side and the Army on the other."

"Oh, is that all?" said the Countess Krak. "An important project like this couldn't possibly be allowed to halt just because of tiny routine matters." She got up from the desk in a purposeful way.

I suddenly went crazy.

My Gods, not only was Heller gone but she was setting herself up like a duck in a shooting gallery.

I dug out Torpedo's mother's phone number. I jabbed the dial. "Who's this?" she said.

"Torpedo," I blurted. "I got to talk to Torpedo!"

"Oh, you're that dumb son of a (bleepch) that's hiring my no-good, worthless (bleep) of a son that drove his poor father to the grave and has me halfway there, the philanderer!"

"Put him on the phone, quick."

"I wouldn't if I could and I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because he's at Dr. Finkelbaum's getting his God (bleeped) insurance examination." She hung up.

I dialled again. She didn't answer.

I had better get clever, quick. I grabbed the phone book. Then I realized that it was probably Queens I

wanted and I didn't have Queens, only Manhattan. I punched information.

"Quick, it's a life and death matter. I have to have Dr. Finkelbaum in Queens."

"There are over thirty Dr. Finkelbaums in Queens, sir. Initials, please."

"Insurance examinations."

,"I do not have an I. E. Finkelbaum listed, sir."

Dead end. I hung up. Desperately, I tried to think. Then I had it! No American company would sell high-risk: they only sold policies they could renege on or let lapse. Hit man insurance would only be available from Boyd's of London: they insure anything. Did they have a New York office? I grabbed the phone book. Absolutely, there it was!

I dialled it. "Do you have a Dr. Finkelbaum that does medicals for you?"

"Oh, yes, rather," and with a thick British accent, he gave me a number and address right on Wall Street in the financial district of lower Manhattan.

I hastily phoned it. "Do you have a Torpedo Fiac-cola in there for a medical examination?"

"He's not here right now. He was sent to the hospital for his shots."

"What hospital? And listen, if he comes back, detain him there if I haven't seen him."

"Bellevue General. How will I know if you've seen him, sir?"

"He'll be limping because I kicked him for being so slow!"

"Very good, sir."

I phoned Bellevue General. "Do you have a Fiaccola there to be shot?"

"Shooting cases are sent to Emergency, sir."

"No, no. This is an insurance case. Sent by Dr. Fin-kelbaum. Please look for him. It's a life and death matter."

"It is always a life and death matter, sir."

"This is different. It's mostly a death matter. Find that man!"

I waited. I could hear my call being transferred around. Finally, "This is the High Security Detention Ward, sir. Yes, we have a Torpedo Fiaccola."

"Good Heavens," I said. "Has he gone crazy or something?"

"No, sir. That would be the Psychiatric Detention Ward. The High Security Detention Ward is where we put patients who can't pay their bills."

So that was it! I had neglected to call by and pay their bill, so they had grabbed the man when he showed up!"He'll be out of there in a flash," I said.

I hurriedly got dressed. I grabbed up all my money including the additional thousand I had made the night before. I stuffed some other things I might find handy into my pockets. I picked up Krak's viewer and rushed out. I got to Seventh Avenue and grabbed a cab.

Bellevue is over by the East River: First Avenue and about 30th Street. Cross-town traffic was slow, slow, slow.

I watched the viewer. Krak was also riding in a cab-the old cab-and Bang-Bang was driving. She had changed her clothes to a gray suit, judging by what I could see of her knees. She had a lot of bags and luggage at her feet. One of them was a duffel bag with
Bang-Bang Rimbombo
on it. They were all packed!

Then I realized from the street signs she was watching that they were going south in Manhattan. I had thought they were heading direct for Hairytown which is north.

"Chinatown seems like a funny place for a parole office," Countess Krak called through the open partition. "You're not Chinese, Bang-Bang."

"It's just that the New York State offices are close to Chinatown."

"Is the parole officer Chinese? I don't speak that language, you know."

"He's pure ape," said Bang-Bang, over his shoulder. "He mangles prisoners and English irregardless. This is all a waste of time, Miss Joy. He wouldn't give a con a break for a million bucks. You ask him for a relaxation of my parole conditions and he's likely to order me back to the pen. You're taking my life in your hands just to talk to him!"

"You let me be the judge of that," said Krak. "STOP!"

Bang-Bang bounced off a truck and then bounced off a curb. A man was selling flowers on the walk. Krak handed him a five-dollar bill and grabbed a bunch of carnations. They knocked down a street works sign and sped on south.

"Miss Joy, I don't think you got the right idea. Not only would that ape throw them flowers in your face, he'd probably try to charge me with bribery and corruption."

My own hacker was happily running up his meter in the cross-town traffic snarl. "Good thing you got a portable TV, mister," he said over his shoulder. "This is going to take a while. But what program is that? Some old morning rerun of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall? Well, you'll have time to finish it at this rate."

Rage hit me. To infer that Bang-Bang sounded like Bogart! And she sounded more like Susan Hayward in her most villainous roles! Oh, well, she'd soon be dead.

"Sounds like a chase scene," said my hacker. "They sure used to wreck them cars good."

And at the moment, I had to agree with him. Bang-Bang was opening traffic lanes with fenders as they passed through Chinatown. What that old cab could take was even up to Bang-Bang's driving.

With a screech of brakes they drew up before the New York State offices. "If he says he's going to send me back to the pen," said Bang-Bang, "you whistle out that window so I can get a head start."

"Be calm," said Krak. "You wait in the car."

"With motor running for a fast getaway," said Bang-Bang. "One more time, Miss Joy. Please don't do it."

"I know that picture," said my hacker. "It's the one where Bacall dies in the end."

"That's right," I said.

The Countess Krak stepped down to the street. She took the flowers in the crook of her arm. On the sidewalk, she opened her purse and popped something in her mouth. I blinked. Was she on drugs?

She stood there for a bit, idly looking down the length of a park. What a perfect target she was making. Right out in the open, not even moving. I groaned at the lost opportunity. A sniper in a passing car and one dead Countess Krak. I must get Fiaccola sprung and going!

Then she took something out of her purse, a little tiny spray vial, and sprayed it on the flowers. This was idiocy. Putting perfume on carnations. They don't have hardly any perfume at all. They don't even make me sneeze. Boy, would she be detected quick!

She looked at the big directory board. It said: