Briskin; their flights would cross, his and Lackmore's. Better to locate Briskin and stick close to him, get Lackmore when he showed up. But Herb Lackmore would not have to show up, in the strict sense, not with the variety of weapon which the mutant brothers had provided him. He could be as far away as ten miles - and still reach Briskin.
George Walt will have to call him off, Cravelli decided. It's the only sure way - and even that is merely relatively sure.
I'll have to go to the satellite, he said to himself. Now, if I expect to accomplish anything at all.
The mutants George Walt would not be expecting him; they had no knowledge of his ties with
Jim Briskin - or so he hoped. And also, he had three individuals working for him on the satellite, three of the girls. That gave him three separate places to stay - or hide - while he was up there.
Afterwards, after he took care of George Walt, it might well mean the difference in saving his life.
That, of course, would be if George Walt wouldn't do business with him, if they chose to fight it out. In a fight, they would lose; Tito Cravelli was a crack shot. And in addition the initiative would be with him.
Where was the Golden Door Moments of Bliss satellite right now ? Getting the evening homeopape, he turned to the entertainment page. If it was, say, over India, he had no chance; he would not be able to reach the brothers in time.
The Golden Door Moments of Bliss satellite, according to the time-schedule shown in the paper, was right now over Utah. By jet'ab he could reach it within three quarters of an hour.
That was soon enough.
'Thanks a lot,' he said to Dave De Winter, who stood awkwardly in the middle of the office, wearing his splendid green and silver CLEAN uniform. 'You trot on back to Engel I'll keep in touch with you.' He left the office on a dead run, then, racing down the stairs to the ground floor.
Presently, he was on his way to the satellite.
When the jet'ab had landed at the field, Cravelli hurried down the ramp, purchased a ticket from the nude, golden-haired attendant, and then rushed through gate five, searching for Francy's door.
705, it was - or so he recalled, but under so much tension he felt rattled. With five thousand doors spread out in corridor after corridor - and all around him, on every side, the animated pics of the girls twisted and chirped, trying to snare his attention and entice him to the joys inside.
I'll have to consult the satellite's directory, he decided. That would waste precious time, but what alternative did he have ? Feverishly, he loped down the corridor until he arrived at the immensely extensive, cross-indexed, illuminated directory board, with all its names winking on and off as rooms emptied and refilled, as customers hurried in and out.
It was 507, and it was empty of customers.
When he opened the door Francy said, 'Hello!' and sat up, then, blinking in surprise to see him.
'Mr. Cravelli,' she said uncertainly. 'Is everything all right ?' She slid from the bed, wearing a pale smock of some cheap thin material, and came hesitantly up to him, her body bare and smooth. 'What can I do for you ? Are you here for...'
'Not for pleasure,' Tito Cravelli informed her. 'Button up your damn smock and listen to me. Is there any way you can get George Walt up here ?'
Fancy pondered. "They never visit a crib, normally. I...'
'Suppose there was trouble. A customer refusing to pay.'
'No. A bouncer would show up then. But George Walt would come here if they thought the FBI
or some other police agency had moved in here and was officially arresting us girls.' She pointed to an obscure button on the wall. 'For such an emergency. They have a regular neurosis about the police; they think it's bound to come, sooner or later - they must have a guilty conscience about it. The button, connects to that great big office of theirs.'
'Ring the button,' Cravelli said, and got out his laser rifle seating himself on Francy's bed, he began to assemble it.
Minutes passed.
Standing uneasily at the door, listening, Francy said 'What's going to happen in here Mr.
Cravelli ? I hope there's no ..."
'Be quiet,' he said sharply.
The door of the room opened.
The mutants George Walt stood in the entrance, one hand on the knob, the other three gripping short lengths of metal piping.
Tito Cravelli leveled the laser rifle and said, 'My intention is not to kill both of you but merely one of you. That'll leave the other with half a dead brain, one dead eye, and a deteriorating body attached to him. I don't think you'd appreciate that. Can you threaten me with anything equally dreadful ? I seriously doubt it.'
After a pause one of them - he did not know which - said, 'What - do you want ?' The face was twisting and livid, the two eyes, not in unison, staring, one of them at Tito, the other at his laser rifle.
'Come in and close the door,' Tito Cravelli said.
'Why ?' George Walt demanded. 'What's this all about, anyhow ?'
'Just come on in,' Tito said, and waited.
The mutants entered. The door shut after them and they stood facing him, still gripping the three lengths of metal piping. 'This is George,' the head said presently. 'Who are you ? Let's be reasonable; if you're dissatisfied with the service you've received from this woman - no, can't you see this is a strong-arm robbery ?' the head interrupted itself as the other brother took control of the vocal apparatus. 'He's here to rob us; he brought that weapon with him, didn't he ?'
'You're going to get in touch with Verne Engel,' Tito said. 'And he's going to get in touch with his gunsel, Herbert Lackmore. Together you're going to call this Lackmore back in. We'll do it from your office; obviously we can't call from this woman's crib.' To Francy he said, 'You go ahead of them, lead the way. Start now, please. There's no excess of time.' Within him his pyloric valve began to writhe in spasms; he gritted his teeth and for an instant shut his eyes.
A length of piping whistled past his head.
Tito Cravelli fired the laser rifle at George Walt. One of the two bodies sagged, hit in the shoulder; it was wounded but not dead. 'You see ?' Cravelli said. 'It would be terrible for the one of you that survived.'
'Yes,' the head said, bobbing up and down in a grotesque pumpkin-like fit of nodding. 'We'll work with you, whoever you are. We'll call Engel; we can get this all straightened out. Please.'
Both eyes, each fixed on a different spot, bulged in glazed fear. The right one, on the same side as the laser-wound, had become opaque with pain.
'Good enough,' Tito Cravelli said. He thought, I may be Attorney General yet. Herding them with his laser rifle, be moved George Walt toward the door.
7
The weapon which Herb Lackmore had been provided with contained a costly replica of the encephalic wave-pattern of James Briskin. He needed merely to place it within a few miles of
Briskin, screw in the handle and then, with a switch, detonate it.
It was a mechanism, he decided, which supplied little, if any, personal satisfaction. However, at least it would do the job and that, in the long run, was all that counted. And certainly it insured his personal escape, or at least greatly aided it.
At this moment, nine o'clock at night, Jim Briskin sat upstairs in a room at the Galton Plaza
Hotel, in Chicago, conferring with aides and idea-men; pickets of CLEAN, parading before the notably first class hotel, had seen him enter and had conveyed the word to Lackmore.
I'll do it at exactly nine-fifteen, Lackmore decided. He sat in the back of a rented wheel, the mechanism assembled beside him; it was no larger than a football but rather heavy. It hummed faintly, off-key.