No, I couldn't go around risking death on Heller's account. So, sitting lopsided in the ornate hotel chair, I picked up the ornate white and gold phone and called Rockecenter's office.
That produced quite a spin at the hotel switchboard. I told them who I wanted to speak with and they didn't believe me. They acted like I was trying to call a God.
Finally the hotel switchboard supervisor got the telephone company emergency-assistance supervisor who got onto the chief information supervisor of the city of New York. They kept saying one had to call the Octopus Oil Company in Ohio. I argued this down and they said you called the Octopus Oil Company in New Jersey. They were arguing with one another over the phone like it was a conference call. After a while somebody thought of getting the emergency assistance information supervisor of the Continental Telephone Company and he got the idea maybe the International Phone Company would know. More and more people kept getting added on to this conference call. It appeared no one had ever before tried to telephone Delbert John Rockecenter and they weren't sure that it wasn't sort of sacrilegious.
Eventually they included in an Arab emergency assistance supervisor in Saudi Yemen and in broken English he said they should query the local operator at Hairy-town, New York, because he had heard his king went there once, and he had had to phone him about a palace revolution. So that local operator got added to the babble on the lines and she said, why, yes, she'd ask the butler at the Rockecenter Estate near there—Pokantickle, it was called—and maybe he'd know how you could phone Delbert John Rockecenter. The fourth assistant butler got on the line and said, in a lofty tone, that if it wasn't Miss Agnes calling, all such calls should be referred to the attorneys, Swindle and Crouch of Wall Street.
So the receptionist at Swindle and Crouch was added and she was horrified. Nobody ever called Delbert John Rockecenter! It should be reported to the police!
I had an inspiration. In a tough voice I said, "Put Mr. Bury on the line!"
She said, "Oh, I am sorry, but Mr. Bury is at his special office in the Octopus Oil Building at Rockecenter Plaza. He has an appointment with Mr. Rockecenter at ten and won't be in today."
A wheeze of relief went from New York to London to Saudi Yemen. They had run God to his lair. I am sure most of them had a coffee break to celebrate the instant they went off the line.
The hotel switchboard girl said, "That's only a few blocks down the street! I'll connect you."
Magic. The fourth assistant receptionist in Mr. Bury's Octopus Oil Building office had an open moment at one o'clock sharp and would see me.
Of course, I took a bath, put a Band-Aid on the red spot to cushion it and got all dressed up in my most Federal-looking investigator suit. I polished up my credentials and at one o'clock sharp was sitting, slouch hat in hand, before the iron-barred and bulletproof glass-protected desk of the fourth assistant receptionist in Mr. Bury's special office in the Octopus Building. At one-fifteen he came in from lunch.
I lifted my credentials up so he could see them through the glass.
He sat down at his desk. He said, "I'm sorry. We don't have any orders for the Senate today."
I said, "You better let me see Mr. Bury or you really will be sorry!"
He looked closely at my credentials again.
"The servant's entrance is in the basement," he said.
"I want to see Mr. Bury," I said firmly.
"Mr. Bury has just come back from an important appointment," he said. "He is exhausted! I'm scandalized that you would presume such a tone!"
I said, "You get on that blower, sonny, and tell Mr. Bury that Delbert John Rockecenter will be the one that's scandalized if I don't get to him."
"Are you threatening me?" He was pushing a buzzer. Two armed guards, carrying riot shotguns at port, burst in the door behind me.
"You tell Bury that I came here to avert a scandal!" I said, "or it will be bursting all over the papers!"
The guards grabbed me.
"What kind of a scandal?" said the fourth assistant receptionist.
"Family!" I said, struggling.
Hastily the fourth assistant receptionist held up his hand to the guards. It was time, too. They almost had me out the door.
Magic!
Two minutes later, the guards had me standing in the middle of Mr. Bury's office.
Mr. Bury was even more dried up. Life was being hard on him. He had more wrinkles than a prune.
"Now, what's this about a scandal?" he said.
I glanced either way at the guards. Bury nodded. They frisked me and took my gun. They left.
"Cheap fuel," I said.
"That's not a family scandal."
"It will be if I don't get to see Delbert John Rockecenter. Cheap fuel could wipe out the whole family fortune."
The Wall Street lawyer thought it over. "That cheap?"
"Cheaper," I said. "The dastardly plot was revealed in a long and careful investigation."
"Who knows about it?"
"Twiddle and me. And he knows no details. I came straight to headquarters with it when I was sure."
"What is this fuel?"
"That's what I'll tell Delbert John Rockecenter."
"No, no," said Mr. Bury. "You tell me and I'll tell him."
"That's what everybody says," I grated. "This stuff is as cheap as sand. You think I'd tell anyone else? Would Rockecenter want me to tell anyone else? It violates the old family policy, 'Trust nobody!'"
"Ah," he said contemplatively. "I see what you mean. Mr. Rockecenter is a stickler in adhering to family policy. But what's your own payoff? I've got to be sure this is honest dealing."
"Enemy," I said. "Personal revenge."
That made sense. That was something he could understand. But he hesitated. "Actually, I think you had better tell me. You have no other route to Mr. Rockecenter. There are none."
"There's Miss Agnes," I said, taking my cue from the fourth assistant butler at Pokantickle Estate.
"Oh, God (bleep)!" said Mr. Bury. "I told him and told him to ship that (bleepch) off!" He recovered from his unlawyerlike outburst. He passed a tired hand across his prune wrinkles. "All right," he said at last. "If you're up to it, I'll put you through the mill. But you'll be wearing concrete shoes in the East River if this is not on the level."
He saw I was determined. He pushed a buzzer and shortly two different guards came in. Bury pushed some more buttons and spoke rapidly into an interoffice phone. A huge, apelike fellow in very expensive clothes came in.
Bury said, "Take him through the precautionary sector and then take him to see Mr. Rockecenter."
"What?" yelled the apelike man, incredulously.
"That's what I said," frowned Bury. And to me, he added, "If I never see you again, don't come back."
Heller, I said to myself, write your will. You're as good as dead! Maybe worse!
And then, thinking of all this security and precaution, I amended my optimism: Heller was in the soup only if I could actually get to and handle Rockecenter!
We left the black onyx and silver aluminum front of the Octopus Building. We walked through its landscaped plaza. We crossed the Avenue of the Americas. The alert guards kept a firm grip on me.