Mission Earth 07: Voyage of Vengeance Page 12

  I glanced nervously at the viewer. Was there time or did I use the gas bomb after all?

  Tudor City was en route to the skyport. She wouldn't own very much.

  I gambled. "All right," I said.

  She promptly went to work tying up boxes. "Hey," she said, "I see you have TV-osis. I never watch it myself. I like the stern realities of life instead. But you left this portable set on."

  "Leave it," I said. "The switch is broken."

  She shrugged and finished tying up the other boxes. She picked up a pad and pen and was about to pack it.

  "I think Adora might get worried if you disappeared," I said. "Why don't you leave her a note?"

  "Good thinking, Inky. She'd set the cops on the trail and blow your white-slavery ring to hell." She picked up the pen. She gnawed it. "I could tell her I had been approached for the Miss America contest, but the truth is dangerous. I can't think of anything to say."

  "Just anything," I said, glancing nervously at the viewer.

  Finally she got to writing, somewhat laboriously. Then she showed it to me. In badly formed letters, it said:

  Deer Pinchy,

  I am finne.

  How R U.

  I am dooinng well.

  Will C U.

  Teenie

  "That's great," I said.

  "No," she said. "It isn't warm enough." She threw it aside.

  She tried again.

  Deer, deer Pinchy and Candy,

  I gradudated & with honnors.

  Thay warded mee a bedpost gradadutaded coorss in Hung Cung.

  Keeep upp the gud wk.

  Teenie

  Hott Dogg!

  "That will do just great," I said urgently. "We have a plane to catch."

  "Is that hot dog part warm enough?" she said.

  "Yes, yes," I said and grabbed the letter. Then, cunning, I also grabbed the first letter. I put them in my pocket. I would mail the last one and keep the other one to show she was still alive.

  I glanced at the viewer. The cab was running down a city street, probably searching along the route of the garbage truck. I had better get going!

  I called a cab and we got my boxes out front. Wonder of wonders, my luck was really holding! We didn't have to wait more than a minute.

  We loaded up and sped away. I took no backward glance at that scene of pain and travail. I would not miss it.

  I peeked into the open flap of a box at the viewer. They were hunting for the garbage truck. It would be close but I felt that I might make my escape unscathed. If my luck continued to hold.

  Chapter 2

  Tudor City is not a city at all. It's a collection of twelve brick buildings built in the 1920s in the Flamboyant or Tudor Gothic-English style of architecture. They are surrounded by green lawns and footpaths which were once kept up but which now seemed mainly devoted to growing marijuana. The buildings, according to the chattering Teenie, used to have three thousand apartments which housed twelve thousand people, but these numbers were now sort of blurred.

  We approached it on 41st Street East and as the cab drew up beside one of the big buildings the atmosphere was suddenly calm and quiet. Not so my nerves.

  "Hurry up and get your things," I told Teenie.

  "You sit right there and wait," she said. "I have to climb fourteen stories on the fire escape to get to the old garret I have at the top and I don't want the landlady to see me leave."

  She was off and up. The height would have made me dizzy. The cabby glanced at his ticking meter and opened his Daily Racing Form. I opened the carton anxiously to gaze at Heller's viewer.

  They had spotted the garbage truck! Oh, this was going to be nip and tuck, and I was the likely one to be nipped!

  As they drew near it on a narrow street, I was not crediting my ears. Was that a song I was hearing? Some kind of a ditty? It was not coming from Tudor City-it must be coming from my viewer!

  It was not one of the more modern mechanical garbage collectors. It was simply a big, open-backed truck with piles of garbage towering in the body. It had a number of large flags flying from it on staffs and it had huge billboard signs.

  TODAY'S GARBAGE

  IS TOMORROW'S AMERICA

  And another sign:

  ENTER THE CONTEST!

  WIN A ROUND TRIP

  TO THE GARBAGE DUMP!

  ALL EXPENSES PAID

  The old cab was drawing nearer and was about to come up beside the moving truck. Another sign:

  TRUCK 2183

  MR. J. P. FLAGRANT

  GARBAGE EXECUTIVE

  Yes, the ditty was coming from the truck. There were two loudspeakers mounted on the cab. They were singing:

  Happy garbage to you.

  Happy garbage to you.

  Be kind to your garbage,

  And it will love you.

  The old cab was driving even with the truck window now. Bang-Bang leaned out and yelled, "Pull over!"

  The truck driver was wearing a green derby. Yes, it WAS Flagrant! He was staring popeyed at the cab, his eyes fixed on the door sign.

  "Corleone!" he shrieked. Instantly he sped up.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Flagrant probably remembered all too well that icy winter ducking in the river he had experienced at the sideways thumb thrust of Babe Corleone! He thought they were after him to throw him in again! Yes, sir! My breaks were holding! I hoped his didn't!

  But (bleep) that Heller! He was racing right alongside the garbage truck!

  Then the old cab leaped ahead with a ferocious roar. It snarled down the street ahead of the truck. Heller applied his brakes and yanked his wheel.

  With a scream of tires, the old cab went broadside. It jarred to a halt.

  It was blocking the street!

  The garbage truck bore down on it like a juggernaut!

  I prayed, hit that cab! Then that will be the last of Heller.

  But Flagrant had jammed on his brakes. The heavy vehicle was shuddering to a halt. Oh, Gods, he was going to stop. I wanted to scream "Hit that cab!" Oh, Gods, if he stopped he would be caught.

  He stopped.

  But he wasn't caught.

  Flagrant had the truck in reverse!

  It started backwards slowly and then began to pick up speed. He couldn't turn in that narrow street. But he was going to get away!

  He was shortly up to what must be forty miles an hour! Backwards!

  Bang-Bang yelled, "Shoot out his tires!"

  "No!" cried Heller. "We don't want to hurt him, we only want to stop him. Slide under this wheel!"

  Heller jumped out of the cab. Bang-Bang slid over and got into the driving seat. Heller slammed the door, dropped a bag in Bang-Bang's lap and stepped on the cab's running board.

  Bang-Bang started up and began to chase the furiously backing garbage truck. "Go to it, Flagrant!" I yelled. "Buy me time!"

  The old cab was streaking up the street, pursuing the swiftly backing garbage truck.

  Heller reached in through the cab window and rummaged with one hand in the bag he'd dropped in Bang-Bang's lap. He took out something.

  "Get closer to that truck!" shouted Heller.

  There was a cross street. The light was green. Probably Flagrant would have turned, except stopped traffic, waiting for the light, blocked the intersecting streets. He kept backing faster, the huge truck teetering as its engine roared.

  The cab was almost bumping the truck's radiator.

  Heller was sizing up the truck. The whipping flags were very near.

  Heller drew back his hand.

  He threw!

  Something sailed over the truck's cab and landed in the garbage.

  "Bang-Bang! Brake! Stop!"

  The old cab tires screamed as they locked. It came to a swerving halt.

  The garbage truck was racing away! Oh, Gods, Flagrant was going to back to safety! He would make it.

  BOOOOOOM!

  Out of the truck's back and into the air went a geyser of garbage!

  Tonna
ge of garbage sacks shot up the street BEHIND the truck.

  A concussion grenade! The other one I had given Silva!

  The cab bucked in the blast.

  The load of garbage was suddenly a street-blocking barricade. It had flown out of the body backwards.

  The truck's rear plowed into it!

  It came to a squishing halt!

  "Forward!" cried Heller.

  Bang-Bang raced ahead.

  The old cab came to a stop before the halted truck.

  I looked anxiously up at the building we were parked beside. Where was Teenie? Time was growing short!

  Chapter 3

  J. P. Flagrant crawled out of the truck cab, his green derby askew. Heller stepped toward him.

  Flagrant fell on his knees, clasped hands upraised in supplication. "Please don't kill me! I learned the lesson that you taught me. I am not a traitor anymore. I will not rat on F.F.B.O.!"

  Oh, what a surge of relief went through me. Babe Corleone had done her job too well. When he had promised to tell all before, she had thrown him in the wintry river as a traditore. Smart man! He wasn't going to let that happen again, even if it was spring!

  "No, no," said Heller. "We're not here to kill you. We just want some information."

  "The Rockecenter interests are sacred!" whined Flagrant. "You're Corleone. I was wrong to offer to rat. Now let me go back to my garbage."

  "Just tell me what the letters F.F.B.O. mean," said Heller.

  "Then you're not from the advertising world or you would know," said Flagrant. "Please let me get back to my garbage."

  Heller looked at the flags and signs on the truck. The ditty had stopped. He looked at the green derby.

  Then he reached into his pocket. Flagrant obviously thought he was drawing a gun and began to weep.

  But Heller took out a wallet and looked through it. He found and took out a card. It said:

  OWN YOUR VERY OWN

  ALLIGATOR FARM, INC.

  Ochokeechokee, Florida

  Sales Office: Empire State Building

  "Advertising?" said Heller. "It just so happens I know of an opening advertising alligator farms in Florida." He gave J. P. Flagrant the card.

  Flagrant looked at it. He stopped weeping. He stood up and gave his green derby a twitch. He said, "Fifty thousand dollars a year, one percent of the gross of those sold, a five-year contract with ninety-day option renewal, my own secretary-a brunette, under twenty-five, nice build, nice (bleeps), pretty face?"

  Heller said, "I hope the information is worth it. The answer is yes."

  Flagrant stood up straighten He gave his green derby a tug. He said, "Well, in that event, I'm hired. As I am now on your payroll, I cannot possibly be a traitor to anyone except you. Right?"

  "Right," said Heller.

  "So I am not a traitor. F.F.B.O. stands for Fatten, Farten, Burstein and Ooze. It is the biggest PR and advertising firm in the world. It handles the accounts of the Rockecenter interests, amongst others, and until I was unjustly fired I was the Rockecenter Account Executive and also handled the advertising of the Rockecenter-connected firm of I. G. Barben Pharmaceuticals. Also

  Octopus Oil. Also Grabbe-Manhattan Bank. Also, also, also, on and on. Billion-dollar-a-year account."

  I shuddered. He was spilling his guts, just as I feared. Gods, what was delaying Teenie?

  "Who, then," said Heller, "is responsible for the Whiz Kid?"

  "Aha," said Flagrant. "The man who cost me my job. I begged them not to hire him and they fired me. The name of that dog is J. Walter Madison, a PR artist known in the trade as J. Warbler Madman."

  "Wait a minute," said Heller. "I've met him!"

  "And you're still alive?" said Flagrant. "That's a miracle."

  "Sincere, earnest-looking young fellow?"

  "That's the snake," said Flagrant. "He was hired at the express demand of Bury, of Swindle and Crouch, the Rockecenter attorneys, for the explicit purpose of ruining a man named Wister."

  The Countess Krak's voice rang out behind Heller. "Aha! I knew it! The crooked lawyer trying to usurp the empire!"

  "What?" said Flagrant.

  "Never mind," said Heller. "You mean this Madison has been doing all this bad, crazy Whiz Kid publicity?"

  "Yes, indeed," said Flagrant. "I followed the campaign amongst the garbage cans. I'd recognize Madison's overblown style anywhere."

  "That adds up," said Heller. And then in a deadly voice he asked, "Where can we locate this Madison?"

  "Well, I don't know where the campaign office is, but Madison lives with his mother and she's in the phone book-Mrs. Dorothy Jekyll Madison."

  Oh, Lords, I was praying now. What was delaying that (bleep) Teenie!

  "Anything else you know?" said Heller.

  Flagrant thought a bit. "I was there when Bury came in. He and some other man-brown-eyed, swarthy, had a gun."

  I felt the strain tearing at my skull. That was ME he was describing! Oh, I had to get going!

  Heller said, "Bang-Bang, there's a phone kiosk over there. Call information and get that address." He turned back to the man who was doing me in. "You have been a lot of help, Mr. Flagrant."

  "I hope so," said Flagrant. "And I wish you lots of luck shooting Madison and anyone else connected with him."

  I shuddered.

  Flagrant was looking at the card. "Empire State Building, eh? Nice address. I'll report for work tomorrow and start advertising the sale of alligators."

  "Alligator farms," said Heller.

  "Yes, sir!" said Flagrant with mounting enthusiasm. "You wait! I'll do some ad campaigns that will make those alligators' mouths water. I'm getting ideas already! I can see it now! 'Tired of your mother-in-law or wife? Buy an alligator farm!'" He found a piece of board in the scattered garbage on the street, drew out a marker pen and started writing.

  Bang-Bang came back, "Got the address!"

  The Countess Krak and Bang-Bang jumped into the old cab. Heller slid under the wheel.

  Bang-Bang yelled, "Good-bye, Mr. Flagrant!"

  The cab tore away.

  The Countess Krak said, "It would have been cheaper to use a helmet."

  "Oh, I don't know," Heller called back over his shoulder. "Sales of those farms have slowed down. And that man seems to have a real talent. Did you see the sign he was writing up? Instead of cleaning the street himself, he's organizing a treasure hunt and offering the truck as a prize!"

  Oh, Gods, they only had about eighteen miles to go. I had to get to the heliport and rescue Madison. For Madison would TALK! And implicate ME!

  IT WAS NO TIME TO BE DELAYED!

  I began to despair of making it!

  Where, where, where was Teenie?

  Chapter 4

  Our cab meter was ticking over. "That must be some TV show you're looking at on that portable," my hacker said. "You keep letting out small screams."

  "What happened to our passenger?" I begged.

  "Oh, you can never depend on kids these days," my hacker said. "But on the subject of TV shows, you got to watch it. Violence is bad for the heart."

  "Especially when it's done with blastguns," I said.

  "Oh, you're watching some rerun of Star Trek," he said. "That stuff is just garbage, you know."

  "Please don't mention garbage," I begged.

  "Well, it is. Like the commercials. They lie like hell, Mac. They got a lot of trick things in them trying to capture the audience."

  "Please read your Racing Form" I begged. The word capture had turned my blood to icy slush. Heller was driving that old cab! Even my dimmed vision could see the way he was going around corners on two wheels! Have an accident, I begged him. Oh, please have an accident!

  And Teenie? Perhaps she had just plain chickened out from an overdose of cold feet. This gave rise to new alarm. If I left her behind me, Adora would have me hunted down for rape of a minor simply by having this lying Teenie string some tale to the judge. It required her testimony for such a warrant, as I understood i
t, and photographs alone would do no more than whet the legal appetite. If I had Teenie in my possession I could guarantee that threats would prevent such testimony. Also, if I had her alive, a witness or two could so state and I couldn't be hunted down and hung for a Teenie dead. Oh, I had it all worked out. But where was Teenie?

  Heller's cab went screaming around a curve. It was hurtling toward my doom. They only had fifteen miles or so to go to get to Madison's mother's house just north of me on the East Side.

  There came Teenie!

  She didn't have anything in her hands! No baggage. She had not come down the fire escape the way she went up.

  "Inky, we're in trouble," she said. "I can't carry my baggage down the fire escape."

  "Look," I said. "I'll pay the cabby extra to climb up and help you! But for Gods' sakes, hurry!"

  "Well, I will admit I thought of that," said Teenie. "But that isn't it. It's the landlady. She heard me pushing things around and demanded her back rent. When I started to carry my things down, she threw the elevator bus bar and only let me come out when I told her you would let me have the two hundred dollars."

  A sound of skidding wheels came from my viewer as Heller turned a corner.

  I grabbed for my roll and gave her two hundred dollars.

  I waited anxiously.

  Then here she came again, burdened under sacks and boxes.

  "Get in, get in," I screamed at her.

  "No," she said, "but you can ask this hacker to come back with me and help with another load."

  Oh, Gods! What could I do? I gave the order and the hacker slouched after her.

  They came back staggering under boxes and baggage. What junk! There was even a worn-out monkey doll riding on top of Teenie's mountain.

  "Get in!" I screamed.

  "Can't," said the hacker. "Too much baggage for the cab. Breaks company regulations. I'll have to radio for a second hack."

  He did so. They wouldn't budge otherwise. I sat there suffering.

  Heller had gotten on an expressway. He was dodging about through trucks as though they didn't exist!