Norma, for once compassionate, said, "And even all that money doesn't help?"
Hubble laughed. "You ask me that. That's a good one. You've got more than I'll ever see, free and clear. Sell your stock on the Big Board if you want to find out for yourself." He shook his head and said abruptly, "Hell with it. What do we do now?"
Mundin, looking around the room, was astonished to find that everyone was looking at him. And then he saw why— Norma was looking to him; and Don was looking where Norma looked; and the others followed the Lavins.
He cleared his throat; and then he heard, with his mind, what his ears had heard moments before. "The Big Board!" he cried.
They looked at him. "Don't you see?" he demanded. "The Big Board, what Hubble said. If we can—what's that?"
"That" was a clear, ringing note that came, startlingly, from nowhere. They all looked up; Don Lavin shook himself and got to his feet, staring around. He started to walk toward the door; Mundin said:
"Hey, wait a minute! Where are you going?"
Don called something over his shoulder that sounded like "high wire"; but Mundin didn't catch it. For just then there was another little explosion in the room, the base of a lamp next to where Don had been sitting; and he had a couple more little fires to put out.
But there was, as before, no serious damage. "Hope they haven't got any more of these on a time fuse," Mundin commented. "Well, where were we?"
"You started to tell us what to do," Norvie Bligh said helpfully.
"Well, not exactly. I was just going to say that we may not be quite licked yet. We've got resources. For one, we owe money—maybe a million dollars, I guess; when you get into that kind of red ink, you're an important firm. For another, our campaign against G.M.L. isn't going to dry up just because a couple of men walked out on it. They're going to be in trouble for a while, come hell or high water; maybe we can fish in the troubled waters. For a third, we still have our biggest resource of all—Don and his stock. Where'd Don go?"
"He went out just before that thing blew up," Norvie said uneasily. "I thought he said something about 'the high wire,' but I guess I heard him wrong."
"That's the way I heard it," puzzled Mundin. "Funny. Excuse me." He phoned the reception desk, and slowly hung up the receiver. "They say he went out. They asked when he'd be back, and he said he wouldn't be. Said he was going to the Stadium."
There was a dense silence. "Does anybody," Hubble demanded, "know anything about what a 'high wire' may be? There could be some perfectly simple explanation—"
Norvie Bligh said faintly, "I know quite a lot about high-wire work. It's the most dangerous turn at the Field Day." He coughed. "It's kind of late to mention it. But, Charles, did you get the impression Don's eyes were shining?"
Norma and Mundin gasped at once. "The doctor," said Norma.
"The doctor!" echoed Mundin. "He said it might not all be out. There might be something deep, planted and left there—"
Ping.
A raucous cackle filled the room. Two voices chanted:
"Absolutely, Mr. Charlesworth?"
"Positively, Mrs. Green!"
Chapter Twenty-Three
They worked through the night—hard—and they found the cabby they were looking for by dawn.
"Sure, mister. The kid with the con? I hacked him. Right to the artists' entrance at Monmouth Stadium. Friend of yours? Some kind of a dare?"
They tried to bribe their way into the arena, and they almost made it. The furtive gatekeeper was on the verge of swallowing their cock-and-bull story and palming their money when the night supervisory custodian showed up. He was a giant. His eyes shone.
He said politely, "I'm sorry, folks. Unauthorized access is prohibited. However, lineup for bleacher seats begins in a couple of hours, so—Hello, Mr. Bligh. I haven't seen you around lately."
"Hello, Barnes," Norvie said. "Look, can you possibly let us through? There's a fool kid we know who signed up on a dare. It's all a silly mistake, and he was muggled up."
The giant sighed regretfully. "Unauthorized access is prohibited. If you had a pass—"
The hackie said, "I don't mind waiting, folks, but don't you have better sense than to argue with a con?"
"He's right," said Norvie. "Let's try Candella. He used to be my boss, the louse."
The taxi whizzed them to General Recreations's bubble-city and Candella's particular pleasure dome. Ryan snoozed. Norma and Mundin held hands—scared, without erotic overtones. Bligh looked brightly interested, like a fox terrier. Hubble, hunched on a jump seat, mumbled to himself.
Candella awakened and came to the interviewer after five solid minutes of chiming his bell. Obviously he couldn't believe his eyes.
"Bligh?" he sputtered. "Bligh?" This time, no fawning on Bligh of G.M.L. The word had been passed.
"Yes, Mr. Candella. I'm sorry to wake you, but it's urgent. Can you let us in?"
"Certainly not!" The interviewer bunked off. Norvell leaned on the chime plate and Candella reappeared. "Damn it, Bligh, you must be drunk. Go away or I'll call the police!"
Mundin elbowed Norvell away from the scanner eye. "Mr. Candella—" in his best hostile-witness voice "—I'm Charles Mundin, attorney-at-law. I represent Mr. Donald Lavin. I have reason to believe that Mr. Lavin took a release and is now in the artists' quarters at Monmouth Stadium, due to appear in tomorrow's—today's, that is—Field Day. I advise you that my client is mentally incompetent to sign a release and that therefore your organization will be subject to heavy damages should he be harmed. I suggest that this contretemps can be most quickly adjusted by your filling out the necessary papers canceling your contract with him. Naturally, we're prepared to pay any indemnity, or service fee, that may be called for." He lowered his voice. "In small bills. Plenty of them."
"Come in," said Candella blandly.
The door opened. As they entered he muttered, "My God, an army!"
The house intercom said in a female voice, "What is it, Poopsie?"
Candella flushed and said, "Business. Switch off, please, Panther-Girl. I mean Prudence." There was a giggle and a click. "Now, gentlemen and miss—no, I don't care what your names are—let me show you one of our release forms. You, you said you were a lawyer, have a look."
Mundin studied it for ten minutes. Iron-clad? Water-tight? No. Call it tungsten-carbide-coated. Braced, buttressed, riveted, welded, and fire-polished. Airtight, hard-vacuum-proof, guaranteed not to wilt, shrink, sag, wrinkle, tear, or bag at the clauses under any conceivable legal assault.
Candella was enjoying his face as he read.
"Think you're the first?" He snickered. "If there's been one, there's been ten thousand. And each one that got away with it at first caused an overhaul job on this release. But there hasn't been a successful suit for thirty years, Mr. Attorney-at-Law."
Mundin pleaded, "The hell with the law, Mr. Candella. The hell with the bribe too, if you don't want it. Think of the kid. It's a humanitarian matter. The kid's got no business in there."
Candella was being righteous. "I'm protecting my company and its stockholders, Mr. Whoever-you-are. As a policy matter we can allow no exceptions. Our Field Days would be a chaos if every drunken bum—"
Mundin was about to clobber him when Norvell unexpectedly caught his arm. "No use," the little man said. "I never saw it before, Charles. He's a sadist. Of course. Who else would hold his job and enjoy it? You're interfering with his love life when you try to take one of his victims away. We'll have to go higher."