“Anyhow,” said Callahan, “what shall we do with you? For you’re bound to arouse mistrust.”
Park felt the wrench in his pocket. “I want to get back. Got a whole career going to smash in my own world.”
“Unless the fellow who’s running your body knows what to do with it.”
“Not much chance.” Park could visualize Frenczko or Burt frantically calling his apartment to learn why he didn’t appear; the unintelligible answers they would get from the bewildered inhabitant of his body; the cops screaming up in the struggle-buggy to cart the said body off to Belleview; the headline: “PROSECUTOR BREAKS DOWN.” So they yanked me here as a bit of dirty politics, eh? I’ll get back, but meantime I’ll show ’em some real politics!
Callahan continued: “The only man who could unswap you is Joseph Noggle, and he’s in his own daffybin.”
“Huh?”
“They found him wandering about, clean daft. It’s a good deed you didn’t put in a slur against him; they’d have stripped you in court in nay time.”
“Maybe that’s what they wanted to do.”
“That’s an idea! That’s why they were so anxious for you to go to the lair. I don’t doubt they’ll be watching for to pull you up on some little charge; it won’t matter whether you’re guilty or not. Once they get hold of you, you’re headed for Noggle’s inn. What a way to get rid of the awkward bishop without pipe or knife!”
When Callahan had departed with another flourish, Park looked for the girl. She had gone too. The day was blistering, and the water inviting. Since you didn’t need a bathing suit to swim in Vinland, why not try it?
Park returned to the bathhouse and rented a locker. He stowed his clothes, and looked at himself in the nearest mirror. The bishop didn’t take half enough exercise, he thought, looking at the waistline. He’d soon fix that. No excuse for a man’s getting out of shape that way.
He strolled out, feeling a bit exposed with his white skin among all these bronzed people, but not showing it in his well-disciplined face. A few stared. Maybe it was his whiteness; maybe they thought they recognized the bishop. He plunged in and headed out. He swam like a porpoise, but shortness of breath soon reminded him that the bishop’s body wasn’t up to Allister Park’s standards. He cut loose with a few casual curses, since there was nobody to overhear, and swam back.
As he dripped out onto the sand, a policeman approached, thundering: “You! You’re under stoppage!”
“What for?”
“Shameful outputting!”
“But look at those!” protested Park, waving at the other bathers.
“That’s just it! Come along, now!”
Park went, forgetting his anger in concern as to the best method of avoiding trouble. If the judges were MacSvensson men, and MacSvensson was out to expose him… He dressed under the cop’s eagle eye, thanking his stars he’d had the foresight to wear non-clerical clothes.
The cop ordered: “Give your name and address to the bookholder.”
“Allister Park, 125 Isleif Street, New Belfast.”
The clerk filled out a blank; the cop added a few lines to it. Park and the cop went and sat down for a while, waiting. Park watched the legal procedure of this little court keenly.
The clerk called: “Thane Park!” and handed the form up to the judge. The cop went over and whispered to the judge. The judge said: “All women will kindly leave the courtroom!” There were only three; they went out.
“Allister Park,” said the judge, “you are marked with shameful outputting. How do you plead?”
“I don’t understand this, your honor — I mean your жrness,” said Park. “I wasn’t doing anything the other people on the beach weren’t.”
The judge frowned. “Knick Woodson says you afterthockly exposed-uh-” The judge looked embarrassed.
“You afterthockly output your — uh-” he lowered his voice. “Your navel,” he hissed. The judge blushed.
“Is that considered indecent?”
“Don’t try to be funny. It’s not in good taste. I ask you again, how do you plead?” Park hesitated a second. “Do you recognize the plea of non vult?”
“What’s that? Latin? We don’t use Latin here.”
“Well then — a plea that I didn’t mean any harm, and am throwing myself on the mercy of the court.”
“Oh, you mean a plea of good will. That’s not usually used in a freerighter’s court, but I don’t see why you can’t. What’s your excuse?”
“You see, your honor, I’ve been living out in Dakotia for many years, and I’ve rather gotten out of civilized habits. But I’ll catch on quickly enough. If you want a character reference, my friend Ivor MacSvensson will give me one.”
The judge’s eyebrows went up, like a buzzard hoisting its wings for the takeoff. “You ken Thane MacSvensson?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Hrrrmph. Well. He’s out of town. But — uh — if that’s so, I’m sure you’re a good burger. I hereby sentence you to ten days in jail, sentence withheld until I can check your mooding, and thereafter on your good acting. You are free.”
Like a good thane’s thane, Eric Dunedin kept his curiosity to himself. This became a really heroic task when he was sent out to buy a bottle of soluble hair dye, a false mustache, and a pair of phoney spectacles with flat glass panes in them.
There was no doubt about it; the boss was a changed man since his reappearance. He had raised Dunedin’s salary, and except for occasional outbursts of choler treated him very considerately. The weird accent had largely disappeared; but this hard, inscrutable man wasn’t the bishop Dunedin had known.
Park presented himself in his disguise to the renting agent at 125 Isleif. He said: “Remember me? I was here this morning asking about a room.” The man said sure he remembered him; he never forgot a face. Park rented a small two-room apartment, calling himself Allister Park. Later in the evening he took some books, a folder of etchings, and a couple of suitcases full of clothes over. When he returned to the bishop’s house he found another car with a couple of large watchful men waiting at the curb. Rather than risk contact with a hostile authority, he went back to his new apartment and read. Around midnight he dropped in at a small hash house for a cup of coffee. In fifteen minutes he was calling the waitress “sweetie-pie.” The etchings worked like a charm.
Dunedin looked out the window and announced: “Two wains and five knicks, Hallow. The twoth wain drew up just now. The men in it look as if they’d eat their own mothers without salt.”
Park thought. He had to get out somehow. He had looked into the subject of search warrants, illegal entry, and so forth, as practiced in the Bretwaldate of Vinland, and was reasonably sure the detectives wouldn’t invade his house. The laws of Vinland gave what Park thought was an impractically exaggerated sanctity to a man’s home, but he was glad of that as things were. However, if he stepped out, the pack would be all over him with charges of drunken driving, conspiracy to violate the tobacco tax, and anything else they could think of.
He telephoned the “knicks’ branch,” or police department, and spoke falsetto: “Are you the knicks? Glory be to Patrick and Bridget! I’m Wife Caroline Chisholm, at 79 Mercia, and we have a crazy man running up and down the halls naked with an ax. Sure he’s killed my poor husband already; spattered his brains all over the hall he did, and I’m locked in my room and looking for him to break in any time.” Park stamped on the floor, and continued: “Eeek! That’s the monster now, trying to break the door down. Oh, hurry, I pray. He’s shouting that he’s going to chop me in little bits and feed me to his cat!.. Yes, 79 Mercia. Eeeee! Save me!”
He hung up and went back to the window. In five minutes, as he expected, the gongs of the police wains sounded, and three of the vehicles skidded around the corner and stopped in front of No. 79, down the block. Funny hats tumbled out like oranges from a burst paper bag, and raced up the front steps with guns and ropes enough to handle Gargantua. The five who had been watching the house got out of their cars too and ran down the block.