Heller was watching the water. A fish boat was pulling Flagrant and the others aboard. Heller was once more watching Babe.
Her wrist got tired. She stopped the lines with a flat palm. Then she extended her hand and a man rushed up and put a glass of blood-red wine in it.
She turned and looked at Heller, her expression as cold as the wintry river. She fixed him with her gray eyes.
Frostily, she said, "You lost the race." She let that sink in. "I have told you and told you, Jerome, you must not lose. It is a bad habit, Jerome. It is a habit that must not be tolerated! I know I have been neglectful. I know I have not always been a good mother to you. But that doesn't make any difference at all, Jerome."
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Corleone."
"And the newspapers are saying bad things about you, Jerome."
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Corleone. I don't know where it is all coming from. I..."
"Newspapers are very bad things, Jerome. You must not go out carousing with reporters. It will ruin your reputation. You must be very careful of the people you associate with. You must not consort with criminal types like reporters. Do you understand me, Jerome?"
"Yes, Mrs. Corleone. I am very sorry...."
"Stop interrupting me and don't try to change the subject. You do not have a single, valid excuse! You have been a very, very naughty boy, Jerome. I am very, very provoked. First you lose a perfectly simple race. And then you spread yourself all over the press. And you not only are ruining all your future but," and here her voice rose in pitch and volume, "the mayor's wife was on the phone to me for half an hour this morning saying the most awful things! And all about you and your bad publicity!"
She threw down the glass of red wine with violence! It shattered and splattered like blood!
Her voice made the room shake!
"THIS IS THE LAST TIME I WILL WARN YOU! KNOCK OFF THIS GOD (BLEEPED) BAD PUBLICITY!"
She turned back to her screens.
Bang-Bang must have detected a sign Heller didn't see. "You better come along," he whispered in Heller's ear. "If you stay any longer, she's liable to get upset."
They withdrew and got back into the cab. Bang-Bang ran into a couple more no-parking stanchions and they got out of there.
Heller was sitting in back, chin on his chest. Finally, he said through the partition, "I can't do anything about the publicity. But I can try something else. Bang-Bang, what does Babe really like?"
"Babe? Why hell, just like all dames, she goes for jewelry."
"You sure?" said Heller.
"Absolutely. Couple diamonds and they purr."
"Good," said Heller. "Take me to Tiffany's."
Across town they went and very shortly Heller was standing in front of a counter being addressed by a courteous clerk. Heller looked at all kinds of things, trays and trays of jewelry on black velvet. He didn't like any of them. Suddenly he snapped his fingers with the force of inspiration. "Do you make jewelry to customer design? I want something more sentimental."
"Of course," said the clerk. "Follow me." And he left Heller with an artistic type in a design department. The artistic type thought he would need some help drawing. But Heller grabbed art paper and colored pens and went to work.
What in Hells? He was drawing the Sovereign Shield of his Voltarian home, the Province of Atalanta, Manco! Two crossed blastguns, firing green against a white sky, circled in red flame. Incidentally, I had seen him draw it before under the words Prince Caucalsia on the tug he flew to Earth. More sentimentality? Crossed blastguns? What was he up to?
In response to his questions, the designer said, "Yes, we can make it into a tiara. The shield will be on the front of the head, of course, gripped in place by the semi-coronet. We can make the field in diamonds, the guns in onyx, the blasts, as you call them, in emeralds and the flame circle in rubies. And set it all in white gold, of course, so it will not clash."
"How much?" said Heller.
They called in some others and after calculation, they could do it for $65,000.
Heller dug into his pockets. He only had $12,000 on him. "This is all I've got just now," he said.
"It will be ample as a deposit," they told him. "You can pay the balance when it is done."
"When will that be?"
"The Christmas season is coming on. We are quite busy already. Will a few weeks be all right?"
He gave them the $12,000. But I could see he was a bit defeated. I hadn't realized that Heller himself was going broke. He told them to do the best they could and left.
I was jubilant. Izzy would soak up his cash. He'd never be able to pick that tiara up.
I hugged myself. The real jewel was Madison!
The publicity was having its effect. Not only was it assassinating Heller's character but was also stripping him of support from his friends. It was worth thinking about. As a direct knife and gun devotee, I was really getting my eyes pried open with what could be done with the media! And how marvelously painful! One could wreck lives just like that!
Little did I know that I had really seen nothing yet!
I wished I could hold on longer to these manic states, they are so pleasant. But that very night, the depressive began to raise its ugly head.
I was running the TV channels looking for some good animated cartoons and I just happened to pass the program "59 1/2 Minutes Too Late." And there was the Whiz Kid!
He had a little college beanie on his head and was holding a little pennant on a stick. He had stacks of books and you could hardly see the interviewer back of them.
The bogus Whiz Kid was telling the story of his life: how he had been lying in a crib, choking on his bottle, and had gotten this marvelous idea for a new fuel. But years of underprivileged decadence as a member of the white minority had deprived him of reaching toward his goal. And then one day, in a supermarket, while he was riding in a shopping cart, a book had fallen off the book rack and hit him in the head and it had changed his life.
He had the book right there to prove it and the TV cameras shifted to his reverent hands as he opened it. It was by Carl Fagin, a reprint of a reprint, entitled Homecraft Series: You Too Can Make an Atom Bomb in Your Own Little Basement Workshop, or, A Visit to Graves of the
Mighty Men of History. And there was a picture of Albert Blindstein. And the shaggy hair that had inspired him.
And then he showed a newspaper clipping of the remains of his basement workshop which had blown up and flattened nearby houses.
The canned applause resounded.
And here was a picture of his winning the soapbox derby by getting the daughter of a neighbor to ride inside and pedal on a secretly connected sprocket.
The canned applause resounded.
I thought, wait a minute, what is this doing on prime-time national? It was not nearly as good as the usual sex orgies on the rival channels. And then I remembered that all the Rockecenter people had to do was call the director of the TV network and tell him what to run.
But then the bomb burst!
The Whiz Kid pulled out a high-school yearbook and there he was in the fifth row of the choir! Buck-teeth and all!
Worse!
A picture in the same yearbook: The Student Most Likely to Get Shot. Buckteeth and all!
Much worse!
Another yearbook. Picture of the freshman class. A circle drawn around a head with buckteeth in the third row.
Very much worse!
Another yearbook. A picture of the sophomore class and, although much marred by the printing screen, the buckteeth and horn-rimmed glasses were unmistakable!
The hands turned the book over.
Yearbook, Massachusetts Institute of Wreckology of just last June!
And there was his name on the cover: Gerry Wister!