"Well, I suppose I ought to be working on how to make some money. If Izzy doesn't come through, we'll even lose these offices."
"Oh, Jettero. I could buy what we need with my credit card."
"Oh, I'm afraid the finance required is way out of the range of a credit card. We need billions. We have to set up a spore-release plant. We have to get Chryster Motor Corporation out of the hands of IRS and get it producing carburetors. Such things really require billions and billions."
Krak looked very determined. She said, "No more Atlantic City!"
Heller looked shocked. "Oh, dear, no!"
She tapped the edge of the desk with her finger. "Plans get executed when they are, at least, worked on. Even a little bit at a time. You don't have to wait until you graduate to make billions." She wagged her finger emphatically at him. "I think you had better get very busy, Jettero, and make these billions right away. And do it in a manner that does NOT include ANY Miss Americas! Not a single one!"
I really had to laugh. She was pushing on him, yes.
But after the fiasco he had just made I had no fears at all that he would suddenly come up with pots of money. All the money he had gotten so far was hit money put up to waste him that he, by luck, had gotten into his own hands. High finance is an entirely different variety of slaughter. The hit men there wear top hats and are very suave and clever and they do their shooting cunningly across desks. It was wholly out of his field. He didn't have, in my opinion, the ghost of a chance.
Billions, indeed!
What amateurs they were compared to me and the huge coup I had just pulled off.
I loaded the recorders with strips. I dropped the blanket on them. Let them stew. I had my own high expectations. Madison was on the job. And I had Crobe in reserve.
And one day, when they had loafed around, Heller and Krak would be caught up with the order from Lombar that it was time to slay.
It was high time I took some air and saw what daylight looked like once more!
It was bitter cold but, for all that, a bright and sunshiny day. The shrubs in the villa yard were all bound up for winter like corpses in shrouds and not a single songbird was in sight. Beautiful.
I stretched my arms and inhaled deeply.
I stopped right there.
I gaped.
Was that a locomotive in the yard?
The CAR!
I let out my breath in a swoosh. My Gods, but it was big!
There it stood, blocking the whole gate. Seen head on, the vertical chrome slats of the custom radiator grill looked like the cowcatcher on a train.
I sped forward, travelling to one side so that I could see it in profile.
Half a block long!
The black paint was a little dull but, oh, did that limousine have lines! Classic!
Blazoned on the door was the scarlet eagle, wings outstretched, wearing horns, wild-eyed and savage.
My, was I impressed!
I rushed around to the other side. Another eagle.
I opened the rear door. What space! All along the other side was a kind of bunk. The back of the front seat was a bar. A field radio-telephone was in a ledge. The interior upholstery was all new cloth and leatherette, a dark red.
I stood back. So this was a 1962 Daimler-Benz, specially built! I tapped a window. Bulletproof!
I stepped back further. Then I saw it. Below the huge, red eagle on the door they had painted my name in gold:
Sultan Bey
Magnificent!
The quiet of the day was marred by an evil laugh. I whirled. The toothless, beak-nosed old man was standing there. He was dressed in an olive-drab chauffeur's uniform much too big for him.
The taxi driver came out of the villa staff quarters. "You like it?" he beamed.
"What is that old man doing here?" I said.
"Oh, him? That's Ters. He comes with the car. He was the general's chauffeur, and unemployment being what it is, he hasn't had a job for more than a quarter of a century. He drove it down here from Istanbul."
Ters? That means "unlucky" or "unfortunate" in Turkish. I hoped it didn't combine with the taxi driver's Modon name, Deplor. Unfortunate Fate was something I didn't want anything to do with.
"But look at this great car!" said the taxi driver. "And didn't they do a great job of repairing it? A real Daimler-Benz, probably the only one of its kind left in the world. Distinctive! Fits you like a glove. Look, I even had them put your name on the door, real big, in gold. They'll know who is coming, believe you me!"
He jumped around to the other side and hit the horn. It almost blew the roof off the villa!
"Now," said the taxi driver, "I just told Karagoz to have a couple shrubs cut down so we can get it fully inside the gate and still get other cars in and out. So don't have any qualms about its size. Besides, you want people to SEE it. Makes you a big man! And if you park it right over there anyone can spot it going down the road. I tell you, it isn't everybody that has a car like this! Get in and try out the back seat!"
I did. The taxi driver got in the front seat. He shut the doors and turned to me confidentially. "Now we're in business. You wanted women. There isn't a woman in the world that could resist this car. Right?"
I allowed he must be correct. It sure was big and impressive.
"I have all this figured out. As this was a general's car, we ought to go about this like a military operation, a field campaign. That's what he used it for. That's why it has that ledge down the side you can sleep on. Now, in a military campaign, the timetable is everything, so let's synchronize our watches."
We did. I was getting excited.
"Now," he said, "I arrive at the villa here each evening at 6:00 in my taxi. I park it over there. I get in the limousine with Ters and he and I go out and get the woman. We'd be back around 8:30."
"Why so long?" I said.
"Finding the woman, time it takes to persuade her, time and distance to make the drive. We will have to go all over the Afyon plateau because we aren't going to repeat on women. You want them fresh every night."
"Go on," I said, my appetite whetting up.
"We don't come back through the gate, here. That would expose the woman to gossip. Instead, we park under that cedar tree just up the road. You know the place. Only a few hundred feet away. Then, when we're all ready, I blow the horn like this." He hit it and a chicken that was in the yard took off straight up.
"Now, the moment you hear that horn," said the taxi driver, "you come running. I introduce you to the woman. I come back here and get my cab and leave. You do what you want with the woman," and he leered, "and when you're through, you simply walk back here and the old man takes her home. Now synchronize our watches again just to make sure. The woman will be so hot for you, you mustn't keep her waiting. Promise?"
"Oh, I won't keep her waiting," I said and eagerly synchronized my watch again.
"One more thing," said the taxi driver. "Give me two hundred thousand lira so I can get a woman this very night."
"Two hundred thousand lira?" I said. "That's two thousand dollars! In Istanbul brothels, that would be a whole year of women!"
"No, no. You don't understand the quality you are getting. These women aren't prostitutes, no sir! These are girls trying to earn their dowries, their bride money. If they have a big enough offer, even the hottest and most beautiful maiden will be slavering to get it. It means they can then marry a good husband. With that much, they'll come flocking! You'll have the best-looking women for miles around panting to tear their veils and robes off and get under you. Thin, plump, tall, short, a new one every night. Imagine it! A beautiful, passionate woman lying naked on that ledge, her hips twitching, stretching out her arms to you, begging, begging for it."