The broker stammered: "Solid fuels ought to rise now—but —but—please, bud, make it two-fifty. One on solid fuels and one on—on—" He swept the board with his glasses. "Can's been sleepin' all day," he muttered. "A Tuesday crowd stays off Can, but after metals break——"
He said slowly, "Buy solid fuels and Can."
By two in the afternoon Charles had a cash-in value of $2,300 and the broker's pockets were bulging with small change. He was talking to himself in an undertone.
Charles said abruptly, "Okay. Now I want a share of G.M.L."
The broker blinked at him. "Old 333? No, you can't do that."
"Yes I can. I want it."
The broker shook his head. He said reasonably, "Bud, you don't understand. You're new here; I been around for twenny years. They have an investor, see? All day long he just punches 333. I know him well. That's him over there, third tier, second aisle. Like Steel and A&P—they don't take no chances on anybody claimin' no stock."
"I want it," said Mundin,
The broker, horrified, said, "Bud, ain't you made enough for one day? Come on, let's go get a drink; I'll buy. You fool around with the big boys, they punish you. Like G.M.L. You try to grab a share and you'll get hurt. Unlimited resources, see—un-lim-it-ed. They've got 'em. Every movement, all day long, he has a buy' bid in. He bids ten thousand bucks, way over real value. You get a wild idea and bid over ten thousand and you'll get it, sure. So next movement, what happens? He sells short, maybe. Maybe he waits. But sooner or later he does, and then you're squashed. You know what they say, bud—'Him who sells what isn't his'n must buy it back or go to prison.' And plenty have."
Mundin said coldly, "What's G.M.L. par?"
"Two thousand. But ya can't claim it, didn't I just tell you? He's got a bid in every movement. So ya see?"
Charles set himself to persuade the broker to do the thing Ryan had planned. Two movements went by while Charles pleaded and threatened and bribed.
At last the broker, shaking, stumbled off toward the third tier, second aisle. Mundin followed him with his field glasses.
It was working. Mundin, sweating, saw in miniature, through the glasses, the greeting, the silent shove, the wordless rejoinder, the growing heat of the quarrel. The G.M.L. investor was a small, elderly fat man. The broker was small too, but lean and wiry.
The fight broke out as the thirty-second warning bell rang. Charles took his eyes off the fighters and the for once untended investor's window, and steadily punched its two-hundred-and-fifty dollar tickets on Old 333.
One bid and no offerings did not constitute a transaction according to the electronic definitions of the New York Stock Exchange pari-mutuel machine. As it had all day, the Big Board said:
333, no change.
One bid, and no offerings. In a claiming movement meant a quick profit—the difference between the bid and the par value. An investor next to Charles, eyeing him respectfully, said, "What do ya like in Chemicals, bud?"
Mundin ignored him. He left his station, almost regretfully, and took the escalator up to the cashier's windows marked "Industrials—$1,000 and up."
"Two thousand dollars," said the bored clerk, inspecting the tickets, glancing at his miniature of the Big Board, noting the "no change." He began to count out hundred-dollar bills.
"I'm claiming," Mundin said through stiff lips.
"Okay, mister—uh." The clerk suddenly realized. "Jeez— Old 333! How'd you do it?"
"I'm claiming," Charles said stubbornly. 'Two thousand dollars par value. Let's go."
The clerk shrugged and tapped out an order on his keyboard. Moments later, one share of G.M.L. Homes voting common stock fluttered from a slot in the desk. The clerk filled in Charles's name and home address and recorded them.
"You'll get that to the company's board of directors immediately?" the attorney asked.
"It's automatic," said the clerk. "It's in their files now. Say, mister, if you don't mind telling me how you pulled it off—"
He was being much too affable—and Charles saw, in his ear, the little plug of a personal receiver. Quite possibly he was being stalled.
He darted into the crowd and was lost to sight within seconds.
The two gambles had paid off, Mundin thought, heading for the street and Belly Rave. The dice had rolled, and he got the stake; the dice rolled again and he got his single share of stock in G.M.L. Homes, entitling him to a seat at the annual stockholders' meeting.
Now the real gambling would begin.
Mundin whistled for a cab. There was a commotion behind him, but the cab came before Mundin had time for more than a glimpse, not time enough to notice that the man who was being worked over, in broad daylight by three huskies, was a small, wiry man with a soiled Member's button in his lapel.
You fool around with the big boys, they punish you.
Chapter Thirteen
"Getting on for noon," Shep said. "Let's find a restaurant."
"A restaurant?" Norvie Bligh giggled. He followed Shep down the littered, filthy street, wondering. In a week he had thought he had learned something about Belly Rave, under Shep's tutelage. But he had seen no neon-guttering, glass-fronted havens.
What Shep led him to was just another Belly Rave house. A wheezing old crone crept around the living room. There was a fire going in the fireplace, and water bubbling in a blackened kettle. Restaurant?
Shep took a couple of rations from his pocket. He never seemed to be without a dozen or so. They were easy enough to get from the R.C.; you could claim you had a dozen dependents and he would apathetically list you for 273 rations a week. If you could lift them, they were yours. There was plenty of food.
And plenty of circuses.
Shep split the two-by-three-by-six plastic box with his thumbnail and Norvell clumsily followed suit. Things tumbled out. Shep tossed one of the "things"—an unappetizing little block of what looked like plastic-wrapped wood—to the crone.
She caught it and gobbled it down with desperate hunger, choking on crumbs.
"Business not so good?" Shep asked casually. In his voice there was an undertone of contempt.
She glared at him wordlessly. She bailed water out of the kettle with a rusted can and slopped it into his plastic ration box. Shep popped open a little envelope and sprinkled a dark powder on the water.
Coffee! The magic smell made Norvell suddenly ravenous. He handed the crone a similar block from his own ration, got his water, made his coffee, and greedily explored the other things that had come out of the box.
Biscuits. A tin of meat-paste. A chewy block of compressed vegetables. Candy. Cigarettes. The combination was one he hadn't encountered before; the meat-paste was highly spiced and salty, but good.
Shep watched as he gobbled. Shep sighed, at last, "When you've eaten each menu ten thousand times—well, I won't discourage you."
Outside, Norvell asked shyly what in the world the old woman thought she was doing for a living.
"It's simple," said Shep. "She gets her rations and trades them for firewood. She uses the wood to heat water—for coffee, or bouillon, or tea, or whatever. She trades the water for rations. She keeps hoping that some day she'll come out ahead on the deal. She never has."
"But why?"
Shep didn't speak for a long minute as they sauntered along in the afternoon sun. At last he said, "No offense. But it's easy to see you're a come-lately, Bligh- Why does she do it? Because it makes her feel like a human being."
"But—"
"But hell. It makes her feel as though she were master of her fate, captain of her soul. It's hard to starve to death in Belly Rave, but in a bad week she comes close to it. She thinks she's a Rockefeller or a Weeks in miniature. Risking her capital in the hope, of gain. Well, she is! What if she always loses? She's doing something—not just sitting and waiting for the ration day to roll around again. You've heard of hell?"