It was his parting shot. He left. But he might as well have used an 800-kilovolt blastick.
The thought of Utanc going away made my blood freeze in my veins!
That was the thought I had been trying not to think! That she would leave!
Oh, it was one thing not to be talked to, to be shunned. But it was quite another for her not to be around at all! I could not tolerate the idea of it!
My wits were churning.
Somehow I got the thought to come straight.
She felt undefended.
Perhaps if she felt defended, she would not get the idea of leaving!
Driven by this, I rushed to my office. I got out pen and paper.
I began to design a defense alarm system.
The more I worked at it, the more carried away I became. I would make it really good!
I started with the gate. One of the numbers outside it could be pushed. That would call the whole staff to defend the gate!
I put an alarm buzzer in her room so she would be able to press it and alert the staff if she was afraid.
And then I got to thinking about what Faht had said about the base being not well defended. So I designed an alarm-signal system for it that would assemble all the base personnel into the hangar; they would have gun emplacements in the center and be able to shoot at every entrance.
I put the signal buzzer for it in my secret office. By treading on just one tile and twisting one's foot, one could assemble the entire base to man the hangar and be ready to shoot.
I finished it up. I marked it top priority. I wrote an order that the staff would be drilled and another order that the whole base personnel would be drilled.
She would hear that the place was now defended.
It was all I could think of to do.
The heavy feeling of loss came over me again.
I knew I had been parted from Utanc and I thought it was forever.
I was crushed.
More to take my mind off my troubles than as a matter of concern, that afternoon I slouched into my secret office and turned on the viewer. After all, Raht and Terb were on the job and we would soon have the platen and could end Heller.
Frankly, I was too far gone to pay much attention. But after a bit I came up to strong interest in what was going on.
Bang-Bang was taking Heller down in the Gracious Palms elevator. Heller, I could see in the elevator mirror, was dressed in a white, V-neck sweater over a sea-green silk shirt. He was wearing slacks to match the shirt. His red baseball cap was on the back of his blond head. I wondered dully how Heller always managed to look so neat and yet so casual. Maybe if I had looked like that, Utanc would have paid more attention to me.
Bang-Bang was in a severely tailored black suit, black shirt and white tie—the typical gangster setup. But he was wearing an old, leather, taxi driver's cap that looked so out of place with his suit that it seemed to be an incomplete disguise.
"But I tell you it IS important!" Bang-Bang was saying. He seemed very agitated. "I came right down here! There was your name, right on the bulletin board! It had a time and everything! PSYCHIATRIC CONSULTATION!"
"I know," said Heller. "But is that really bad?"
"Oh, Jesus Christ, yes!" said Bang-Bang. "They must think you're loopy! I see you just don't grab at the seriousness of it, Jet."
So it was Jet, now. Must have gotten it from Izzy.
"Well, I know," said Heller. "But..."
"They're mind benders!" said Bang-Bang. "Shrinks! They can put you in the slammer the rest of your life with no charges. You can't even turn state's evidence or take the Fifth! They got no sense of legality but the law and fuzz is all behind them."
They were down at the garage level now and walking through the garage.
"But if..." Heller tried to say.
"You don't get it," said Bang-Bang. "They just sign an order and put you away with the loonies. They jam you full of drugs and fry your brains! They even take your skull apart with an ice pick! They ain't happy unless you're a complete vegetable! And you don't have to have done nothing! The government depends on them completely to do away with birds they don't want around!"
"Well, well," said Heller. "That sounds pretty bad."
"It IS bad. And these shrinks are the looniest of the lot!"
They had arrived at a car.
It was the old, old Really Red cab! And it certainly looked different! It was a shining orange. It was all groomed up. It had no chipped windows. As Heller opened the door to get in back, a dome light came on and I could see shiny new leather upholstery. It looked like a brand-new antique!
Bang-Bang slammed the door behind Heller and then jumped under the wheel in front. He started the cab up. The engine roared into life and then purred as he backed it out of its stall.
They shot out of the basement garage and headed east. A big sign said:
Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive
Bang-Bang shot into the traffic stream, heading north. Heller was mainly watching the East River beside them, sparkling in the morning sun. But I could see on peripheral vision that Bang-Bang must think he was flying a whirlybird, the way he ignored imminent tail collisions and went through holes that didn't seem to exist.
He also wasn't watching his driving. He yelled back through the open divider, "Maybe they got onto us." Then he said, "Maybe they found out I was a marine. They know all marines is crazy."
He caused a limousine to dodge out of his way and seemed to be trying to part a semi-trailer from its cab. "Hey," he yelled back to Heller, "I got a great idea. Maybe we just ought to blow up the place!"
With a squeal of brakes and several skids he was onto 168th Street. He rolled to a stop in a taxi rank. He jumped out and opened the door for Heller. When Heller was on the sidewalk, Bang-Bang dropped a sign over the door label. The sign said Out of Service Until Inspected by the Bomb Squad.
Bang-Bang pointed. "It's office sixty-four, it said. Doctor Kutzbrain. I'd do this for you, kid, only I ain't got many brains to spare. Now, don't let them put any straitjacket on you. They don't even allow a phone call. So just run if it looks bad. I'll keep the engine going for a quick getaway."
Bang-Bang reached into the cab and put the flag down. A police radio at once turned on. It was a dummy meter. Illegal!
Heller went in and was shortly giving all sorts of particulars to a receptionist in nurse's costume. He showed her his student papers. Then he filled out a long form about previous mental illnesses by writing on it, Prevailing opinion in dispute.
"You can go in now. You don't have an appointment with Doctor Schitz, so I don't have to sedate you first." The nurse pushed him through a door.
Doctor Kutzbrain was peeling an apple at his desk. His hair stood out straight on either side of his head. His glasses were so thick they made his eyes look like black carp swimming in bowls.
"Is this Lizzie Borden?" said Doctor Kutzbrain. He cut himself and swore.
"This is Jerome Terrance Wister, the engineering student you asked to see," said the nurse. Then added, "I think." She laid the card on the desk.
"Too bad you never seem to come up with Lizzie Borden," said the doctor. "Now, I could have done a lot with that case. Could have gotten rid of thousands of parents." He cut himself again. Then he lowered his head and peered at Heller. "What did you say your name was?"
"Jerome Terrance Wister," said the nurse. "You know. That one. I'll leave you two now. Don't be naughty. Unless I'm here, that is." She closed the door behind her.
"Well, Borden," said the doctor. "This is pretty grave. Cutting up your parents that way with an axe. Pretty grave. Pardon the Freudian slip."