The three walked into an enormous living room heavily furnished with outdated, enormous furniture. Huge, enlarged photographs of severe-looking Rockecenters glared down at them.
Voices were coming through a closed door of another room. Heller walked up to it, opened it, shepherded the other two in and closed it behind them.
It was a study, huge, out-of-date. French doors opened out of it on to a side drive.
Delbert John Rockecenter was standing like an angry vulture back of the desk.
Bury, his attorney from the firm of Swindle and Crouch, was standing unhappily against the far wall, his prune face aggrieved.
"And that's very plain to me!" Rockecenter was saying. "You did NOT do your job! I ought to turn you over to Miss Agnes and get her to electric-shock some sense into you! If you had taken any precautions at all, I would not have to be making a long, tiresome drive to Philadelphia just to see that nincompoop of a president! I am sick of doing your work! I should terminate both you and your firm! And I mean terminate! You're all against me anyway!"
Bury had caught sight of Heller. He was staring. He went white. "WISTER!"
Rockecenter would have gone on talking but it began to be borne in upon him that he had lost his listener. He glanced with annoyance at the group which had entered. "Tell the general," he said to Heller, "that I am not leaving yet." He turned back to Bury. "I am not through telling you what I think of you! And I will remind you, Bury, that what I think is important! LISTEN TO ME!"
Bury was making little stabbing points at Heller, "Sir, that's your ... sir, that's the fuel man.... Sir, oh, my God!"
"Fuel man? Fuel man?" said Rockecenter. "What are you gibbering about now?"
"Perhaps I had better explain," said Heller. "We have come to make you a fair offer that can settle all this oil trouble, Mr. Rockecenter."
"Who is this?" Rockecenter asked Bury. "What's he talking about?"
"Sir, that one in uniform is Jerome Terrance
"And this," said Heller, "is Mr. Israel Epstein. He controls the companies that own the microwave-power setup, Chryster Motors, gasless carburetors, gasless cars—and he controls, as well, all the U.S. oil reserves now possessed by Maysabongo."
Rockecenter sat down very suddenly. He stared at Izzy. Then he said, "The Jew. You're that (bleeped) Jew!"
Heller said, "I think you two can make a deal that will make everybody happy."
Rockecenter was still staring at Izzy. Then his eyes went slitted and a look of cunning came over his face. "Do I understand that you own the patents of that carburetor and those cars and that microwave-power setup?"
"Companies that I can control do," said Izzy. "They're right here." He opened his case and took them out, advanced and put them on the huge desk.
Bury instantly shifted over behind Rockecenter and inspected them. He whispered something to the effect that they were valid.
"You mean," said Rockecenter to Izzy, "that you are willing to turn these over to me in exchange for peace?"
"Not exactly," said Izzy. "Turn them over to you, yes, but there is something we must have in return."
"Oh," said Rockecenter, seemingly disappointed. Then he glanced sideways at Bury and looked again at Izzy. He smiled a slight, strange smile. "So what do you want in return, Jew?"
Izzy said, "We have certain options we will exercise tomorrow that will put us in possession of billions and also the shares of every oil company. You may have 49 percent of the money and 49 percent of the shares."
"That's giving me even more," said Rockecenter. "So there's something crooked afoot here."
Izzy said, "Mr. Rockecenter, you once had a wife. You also had two sons."
Rockecenter looked like he had been shot.
"According to earlier family wills," continued Izzy, "a son of yours would receive a ten-billion-dollar trust fund. You are trustee of that fund. What we want you to do is recognize Delbert John Rockecenter II as your son."
"I am withdrawing any rights I may seem to have," said Heller.
"This allegation is preposterous!" blustered Rockecenter.
"The documents are right here," said Izzy and drew out copies and passed them over.
Rockecenter stared at them, stricken. The Wall Street lawyer scanned them. Bury whispered something in his ear. Heller only caught a phrase that Miss Agnes had botched it.
"We want," said Izzy, "that acknowledgment. We also want you to pass over that trusteeship, for your son here is now the required age. We also want you to make a will leaving him your entire estate, appointing me executor."
"And if I do this thing?"
"The oil companies can have these patents, the U.S. will have its oil. The refineries will get back in operation...."
"They can't!" said Rockecenter. "The protest marchers claim they're radioactive! They won't let them open!"
"I will promise to see that they are decontaminated and gotten' back into operation," said Heller.
"It's all propaganda anyway!" said Rockecenter. "So what's a little radiation in people's tanks? Riffraff anyway!"
"I can also call the marchers off," said Heller.
Rockecenter sat back. "You're pretty smart, Jew. If I only have 49 percent of the oil companies, you will control their boards and policies. I'll have to resign from everything!"
"That's a little more drastic than was intended," said Izzy. "But let me point out that you would be the wealthiest man in the world."
"And if I say no?" said Rockecenter.
"Why then," said Heller, "I'm afraid Mr. Bury here will be defending you in court on a charge of conspiracy to murder your wife and son. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly. And all the rest of this ' will also go to court and you'll lose anyway."
"That's blackmail!" said Rockecenter.
"That's murder," said Heller coolly. "And when you add it up with millions of other murders in the name of war, millions of babies dead from your abortion programs and hundreds of millions of lives ruined with inflation just so you can make a quick buck with oil, I wonder that they haven't hanged you a hundred million times over. I'd be glad to hold the rope myself!"
"No, no," said Izzy hastily. "This is a business conference."
"Well, this bird has caused me a lot of trouble," said Heller. "What he calls business is just banditry on a planetary scale. He's just a pirate and I don't like looking at him or talking to him. I disagree completely with the generosity of your offer, Mr. Epstein."
"Mr. Wister," said Izzy, "please stand over to the side, there, and let me continue these negotiations. Mr. Rockecenter can recognize a profit when he sees it."
A scowl drew in the prune wrinkles of Bury's face. He knew he was looking at the good-guy-bad-guy conference approach. He bent toward Rockecenter to whisper some advice but he didn't get a chance to utter it.
Rockecenter whispered at him and then looked at Izzy with a sly expression.
"Jew," said Rockecenter, "I'm afraid we'd have to call in attorneys to draw up such a deal. We – "
"No, you wouldn't," said Izzy, opening his case. "You have Mr. Bury here and our attorney Bleedum was up half the night typing all this out."
One by one, Izzy laid the assignments of patents to the oil companies on Rockecenter's desk. Then he laid out the transfer of Maysabongo oil. Then he drew out the assignment of 49 percent of the sell-option profits and followed it with an assignment of 49 percent of the oil-company shares. Then he laid out the document assigning the trust. Then he laid out a will.