Smart! That was my objective, all right. I either had to disconnect the cassette or hang up the phone. I heard him move again. It sounded like he’d picked up both the phone and the cassette player. He wasn’t taking any chances. The only way to get at them was to get him first.
Hoping to mislead him, I raced sideways across the room -- not toward him, but at an angle. It worked — but just barely! His shot passed between my legs, grazing my inner thigh. A quarter-inch higher, and I’d have been singing soprano! I zigzagged back the way I’d come.
Something tangled up my feet and tripped me. Momentum kept my body going, and I toppled over, slamming my head against a baseboard. It was a lucky accident: One of his bullets passed through the exact spot I’d been an instant before I tripped.
But now my feet were all tangled up in some kind of wire. It gave Tom Swift his big chance. He could zero in on me before I had a chance to get away.
I kicked frantically, trying to get free of the wire. He sighed loudly. It was a very ominous sigh. I jerked my foot hard, but without hope. The gun exploded!
For a long moment it was very quiet. Then there was the sound of something heavy settling to the floor. And then it was quiet again.
What the hell? A trick? I couldn’t be sure. It took me a long time to get up the courage to investigate.
Finally, hesitantly, I moved toward the tiny glow a few feet away from me. It was the ash smoldering in Tom Swift’s pipe. The pipe was lying on the floor.
Tom Swift himself was off to one side. He was very still. I fished in his pockets, came up with a kitchen match, and lit it. Only then did I comprehend what must have happened.
When he’d picked up the phone to guard it from me, he must have inadvertently twisted the telephone wire around his arm-—the arm of the hand holding the gun. This was the same cord in which my feet had become tangled. My last kick, just as he’d fired, must have snapped the looped cord tight and jerked up his arm.
Now the muzzle of the gun was nestling under what was left of his jaw. The shot had gone straight up, blowing off the top of his head. His lifeless body sprawled on the floor, one hand clutching the gun, the other still grasping the phone.
There was a message in the grisly scene, a telephone message, or, if you like, a built-in moraclass="underline"
He who lives by the phone dies by the phone!
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It was strictly a mop-up operation now. The first step was to disentangle the phone from what used to be Tom Swift. What with his brains splattered all over the place, it was pretty icky going. Somehow I managed it without pushing the upchuck button.
I disconnected the cassette player and hung up the phone. From what Swift had told me before, I knew that would abort phase three before the supercomputer turned the microbes loose. Hanging up severed the connection with the big brain in South America, so that put a dent in phase two. It also was the first step in bringing phase one to an end and restoring phone service around the country.
As everybody knows by now, however, there was more to reviving Ma Bell than my just ending the one call. The way Swift & Co. had scrambled the long-lines and tandems, it was a good ten days before most people were able to be soaked by the increased rates. I didn’t hang around that broken-down Mississippi cabin to wait for that to happen.
What I did do was search Tom Swift’s pockets. Tucked in his wallet, I found an index card on which he’d listed the combinations of frequencies which made up the new code he’d used to reprogram the computer. I took it, along with the cassette tape he’d been feeding into the phone, and made tracks out of there.
I hoofed it to the highway. Luck was with me. Just as dawn was coming up, I caught a lift from a pickup truck which dropped me on the outskirts of Memphis. Here I caught a stray cab to the airport. By midmorning I was on a plane headed for Washington, D.C.
When I got there, I went straight to the private address Charles Putnam had given me. He wasn’t there. But the gent he’d left in charge had instructions regarding me.
“You’re to write a full report regarding the Tom Swift affair for Mr. Putnam,” he informed me.
“Tom Swift is dead,” I told him.
“Mr. Putnam wants it in writing. All aspects are to be covered in detail.”
“Listen . . .” I changed the subject. “Did he mention anything about paying me?”
“He said to say you’ll be paid when the book on the case is closed.”
“The book is closed. And I can use the money. Do you have it?”
“I’m not authorized to pay you until you submit a written report in full detail.”
“NOW HEAR THIS!” I roared. “I have here the code which should enable you lunkheads to straighten out that monster computer. I also have the tape Swift was feeding into it. With Swift dead, they’re all you need to clean everything up. And they’re yours—just as soon as I get paid!”
“Mr. Putnam said—”
I snarled something unprintable and started for the door.
“Just a minute.” He stopped me, as I figured he would. “Have a seat and I’ll get right back to you.”
I sat down, and he exited. About ten minutes later he returned. I looked at him questioningly.
“All right,” he said. “I’ve been authorized to pay you if you hand over the code and the cassette.”
I gave him the goods. He unlocked a desk drawer and came up with a thick envelope. When he handed it to me, I opened it. I smiled. It was stuffed with crisp green lettuce of the negotiable variety. I started out the door
“But your report . . .” he called after me.
“Write it yourself!” I told him. “In triplicate!” I slammed the door behind me and kept going. I kept going right back to the airport. That’s what I’d decided to do. Hell, I’d been through some rugged scenes. Now I figured I was entitled to resume the vacation Putnam had interrupted. I caught the first plane headed for Nassau in the Bahamas.
It was after midnight when it set down. I caught a cab over the bridge to Paradise Island. “Where do you want to go in Paradise?” the driver wanted to know as we started over the bridge.
“I’ll let you know in a minute,” I told him. I fished a coin out of my pocket and flipped it. Heads, Leila, my Arabian delight; tails . . . “Drop me at the Casino,” I told the driver.
It hadn’t changed. The croupiers still looked like their underwear was starched. The decor was still as pretentiously plush as ever. Even the crapshooters still spoke in hushed voices, and the dice made no sound as they bounced off the padded side rails of the crap table.
My luck hadn’t changed, either. That first night at the crap table put a sizable dent in the fee I’d received. And by the end of the second night, the envelope was only half as thick as when I’d arrived.
The third night I switched to roulette. It was better. I didn’t win. But I didn’t lose quite as badly as I had the first two nights, either. I told myself the tide was turning.
With turning tides like that, a guy could drown. So help me, that wheel not only came up with numbers I hadn’t bet on, it turned up numbers I hadn’t even heard of. I tried the birdcage for a while, but that was for the birds. Finally I went back to my first love — craps.
It was at the crap table, about a week after I arrived on Paradise Island, that I finally threw the envelope away. Why not? It was empty. Even the stamp was canceled. It was a good thing I’d given up smoking. I didn’t even have the price of a pack of cigarettes left. There was still Leila. No small blessing that. I hot-footed it over to the villa where she was staying, determined to drown my sorrows in sex. Her green eyes lit up when she saw me, and I’ll never forget her greeting.