“All I want is a diploma,” said Heller.
“Ah, yes,” said Miss Simmons. “Wister, you are demanding that at commencement next May, Empire University certify on a diploma that you are a Bachelor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, lend you its prestige and send you out, a totally uneducated savage, to blow up the world. Isn’t that what you are demanding, Wister? I thought as much.”
“No, no,” said Heller. “I’m supposed to fix it up, not blow it up!”
“Wister, the only thing I can do is take this application under advisement. There must be other opinions gotten, Wister. So be back here tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. I can offer no hope, Wister. NEXT!”
It was a bright moment for me. Heller always had such a marvelous opinion of himself, always bragging. And here was a sensible person who saw through him completely. And Bury was a very clever fellow to lay such an adroit trap. I drank a whole glass of sira straight down in a toast to Bury.
Heller was slowed to a crawl!
PART EIGHTEEN
Chapter 1
Heller slowly paid the fees at the temporary cashier’s desk and then, hands in pockets, wandered about, not looking at very much, apparently immersed in thought.
After a while, he studied the posted building layout.
He began to read bulletin boards. Students were looking for rooms and rooms were looking for students and Mazie Anne had lost trace of Mack and Mack had lost touch with Charlotte and Professor Umpchuddle’s classes were transferred to the left wing. Then his eyes clamped on to a formally printed plastic sign. It said:
Promptly Heller was out on College Walk again, trotting through the throng of milling students, clickety-clacking on a zig-zag course and presently clickety-clacked into the office labelled:
Mr. Twaddle was sitting at his desk in shirt sleeves filling out stacks of forms. He was a small, bald-headed man. He pointed at a chair, sat back and began to pack an enormous briar pipe.
“I want to hire a graduate,” said Heller.
Mr. Twaddle stopped packing his pipe. Then he stopped staring. “Your name?”
Heller showed him the invoice.
“Possibly you mean your family wants to hire a graduate?”
“Do you have any?” said Heller.
“A graduate in what, Wister?”
“Stocks and bonds,” said Heller.
“Ah. A Doctor of Business Administration.” Mr. Twaddle got the pipe going.
“He’d have to be over twenty-one,” said Heller.
Mr. Twaddle laughed indulgently. “A Doctor of Business Administration would certainly be over twenty-one, Wister. There are so many changes in the rules each year, it practically takes them forever. But I am afraid this is the wrong season of the year. You should have been here last May. They all get snapped up, you know. There won’t be another crop until the October degrees are awarded almost two months from now and it just so happens there aren’t going to be any in that October crop.” He smoked complacently.
“Haven’t you got any leftovers? Please look.”
Mr. Twaddle, being a good fellow, opened a drawer and got out a tattered list. He dropped it on the desk before him and made the motions of going over it. “No. They’ve been snapped up.”
Heller inched his chair forward to the desk. He pointed a finger halfway down the list. I hadn’t known he could read upside down. But he couldn’t read very well because the name had a lot of marks and cross-outs after it.
“There’s one that isn’t marked assigned,” said Heller.
Mr. Twaddle laughed. “That’s Israel Epstein. He didn’t graduate. Thesis not accepted. I’m acquainted with this one. Oh, too well acquainted. You know what he tried to hand in? Despite all cautions and warnings? A thesis called ‘Is Government Necessary?’ But that isn’t why they refused to re-enroll him.”
“But he’s over twenty-one,” said Heller.
“I should say he is. He has been flunked out on his doctorate for three consecutive years. Wister, this young fellow is an activist! A deviant. A revolutionary of the most disturbing sort. He simply will not conform. He even boycotted the Young Communist League! He’s a roaring, ranting tiger! A wild-eyed, howling anarchist, of all things! Quite out of fashion. But that wasn’t why they refused to re-enroll him. The government cut off his student loans and demanded immediate repayment.”
“Why would they do that?” said Heller.
“Why, he was doing all the income tax forms for students and the faculty and he was costing the Internal Revenue Service a fortune!”
“Is that his address?” said Heller. “That number on 125th Street?”
Mr. Twaddle said, “It probably was up to a few minutes ago. Ten IRS agents were just here demanding that address. So he will soon be beyond reach entirely.”
“Thank you for your help, Mr. Twaddle,” said Heller.
“Always glad to assist, Wister. Drop in any time.”
Heller closed the door behind him. Then he started to run.
Chapter 2
Heller was down 116th Street and up Broadway like a quarter horse. If anyone noticed he was going faster than was usual, he wasn’t looking at them — but New Yorkers never notice anything. And, factually, I don’t think he was moving at any exceptional speed: some cars were going faster than he was. I was glad to note that gravity differences had not given him any phenomenal powers. Things to him weighed only a sixth less than usual.
Judging by the scenery flow, he was probably only doing twenty.
I was, of course, a little bit puzzled by his obvious antagonism to an anarchist. Or did he fear for the IRS agents, faced by a maniacal wild man of huge powers? Perhaps his contact with the FBI had inclined him to defect to the Earth government. I know that in his place, I would have been seeking political asylum.
He came to 125th Street and raced along, looking for the address. But he found it because of three double-parked government cars. There was no one in them.
Heller checked the building. The street number was almost indecipherable. It was one of those innumerable abandoned apartment houses with which New York is strewn. The taxes are high, the tenants destructive. If the owner tries to repair the building, the tax rates go up and the tenants tear it down again. So owners simply abandon them to rot. And this one was so bad off that not even tenants had to wreck it. Obviously no one in his right mind would try to live there. The front entrance looked like it had been an artillery target.
He circumvented fallen debris and went in. He stopped. Noise was coming from the second floor-ripping sounds.
Heller went up what was left of the stairs.
A government agent was standing outside a door, picking his teeth.
Heller walked up to the agent. “I’m looking for Israel Epstein,” he said.
The agent found a particularly succulent morsel in his teeth, ate it and said, “Yeah? We ain’t got a warrant out for him yet, so that don’t make you an accomplice. But as soon as they get through planting the evidence in there, we’ll be able to get one.”
“Where is he?” demanded Heller.
“Oh, him. Well, if we let him escape first, then he becomes a fugitive and we can send him up for that if for nothing else.”