We passed the City Musical Hall. We walked through a whole street made into gardens and which ended with all the United Nations flags. We crossed Fifth Avenue. We walked below a bronze statue of Atlas bearing a huge skeletal world upon his back and I wondered if Delbert John Rockecenter must feel that way. We went north a block, passing St. Patrick's Cathedral.
The guards marched sternly on both sides of me.
I wondered what this strange promenade was all about. Were they trying to confuse me or lose me? Or was this a guided tour to show me all the buildings Rockecenter owned personally?
The apelike man stopped in a shop and bought a quart of goat's milk and a bag of popcorn.
We went all the way back, the way we had come, I supposed, though I was totally lost. We went into an ornate lobby, huge murals all around. We stepped through a small door which had been a blank wall an instant before. We were in an elevator.
We went up. It opened. We got out.
I was transferred to the burly guards in the front room and the original guards gave the new guards my gun and left. The ape-man stayed on, carrying the bag of popcorn and quart of goat's milk.
The burly guards frisked me. They shoved me through a barricade—rather tight, getting past two machine guns, manned.
Guards in the new room took over. They frisked me. They took my new I.D. Then they phoned Senator Twiddle's office and verified it.
They passed me through another barrier. They also passed them my gun. New guards there took the serial numbers off the gun. They also fired a round in a soundproof box. They phoned the results through to somebody. A sign flashed on a computer:
Weapon has not been used in the assassination of heads of state lately.
They passed me through another barrier. New guards took over. They frisked me. They took my fingerprints and an instant photograph. They punched it into the FBI's National Crime Index Computer. It went to Washington. It came back. The screen said:
Not wanted yet.
They put the fingerprint card and photograph in a shredder.
All this time, the ape-man was coming along with the bag of popcorn and quart of goat's milk.
They pushed me through a barrier to a new set of guards. There was a dental chair. They X-rayed my teeth for poison capsules. They X-rayed my body for any implanted bombs.
They passed me along to the next room and a new set of guards. They examined my wallet for concealed knives. They examined my keys for trick blades. They X-rayed my shoe soles.
They passed me along between two howitzer cannons—a tight squeeze—and I found myself in a room all dark except for one pool of light in the center. There was a desk over to the side. A sign said:
Chief Psychologist
I knew I was amongst friends.
He took me under the light, made me sit on a stool. He examined the bumps on my head. He drew back and nodded.
The ape-man pushed me to a revolving door. I went through. It was a miniature hospital operating room. Two attendants in blue-green gowns put out their cigarettes and donned masks.
They stripped me of all my clothes. They took my temperature and blood pressure. They got samples of sputum and put it under a microscope. They took a blood sample and examined that.
The senior of the two nodded and the other rammed me into a sort of glassed closet. They seemed to be filling bottles.
"Hey," I said to the ape-man. "Is all this necessary?"
"Listen," he said, "if the Prime Minister of England can go through this without a beef, so can you!"
They had their bottles full. They hit some knobs. I was sprayed with antiseptic.
I came out. They threw my clothes in and they, too, were sprayed with antiseptic.
They stood me and my clothes in front of a dryer.
As soon as I was dressed, the ape-man pointed at the next door. It had steel teeth on both sides that, apparently, could be closed instantly.
A girl was sitting with her feet on the desk, chewing gum. I recognized "Miss Peace" from the news photograph. Aha! He used his own staff for greeting ceremonies. How wise!
The ape-man said, "It's cleared so far."
She took her feet off the desk. She opened a gigantic drawer. It was lined with stocks of badges. They were huge. They said, "King" and "Banker" and such things across the top and had a blank line for a name to be filled in under the title.
"Oh, (bleep)," said Miss Peace. "I'm totally out of 'Unwanted Guest' buttons. I don't want him to think I'm inefficient."
"Give him anything," said the ape-man. "This milk is liable to go sour and I'm late already."
She picked up "Derby Winner" and dropped it. She picked up "Hit Man of the Year" and dropped it. She was dithering. "(Bleep)! If I don't put a button on this guy he won't know who he's talking to!"
Apparatus training tells. My quick eye spotted "Undercover Operator Up for Promotion to Family Spy." I said, "That is the only one you've got that covers it. I'm not a king."
"That's right," she said, glancing at me. "You sure ain't no king."
"Hurry up, will you," said the ape-man. "This popcorn will get cold, too! You want me to lose my job?"
She grabbed my I.D. and scrawled Inkswitch on the ''Undercover Operator Up for Promotion to Family Spy" one. She jabbed it into my lapel and into me.
What a man this Rockecenter must be to have such a loyal and dedicated staff!
There was an arched church door on the other side of the office. The ape-man pushed me through it.
I was in an enormous room. It had a vaulted ceiling of cathedral height. It had saint niches with votive candles burning under each saint. The statues were all of Delbert John Rockecenter. There was a big desk—actually an altar.
He was not, however, sitting at his desk. He was in a gilded throne chair, staring at a wall I could not see. Ah, I thought, Delbert John Rockecenter was deep in thought, sorting out the cares of the world with his mighty brain.
I was pushed further into the room. Then I saw what he was looking at. It was a one-way mirror. On the other side of it was the dressing room and toilet of chorus girls. They were taking off their costumes and getting into even scantier costumes. They were also going to the toilet.
Delbert John Rockecenter became aware that somebody had entered his office. He leaped forward, turned and glared. He was a tall man, past middle age, not much hair. His features were unmistakably those of a Rockecenter—a cross between a politician and a hungry hawk. But it was hard to tell. The whole cathedral office illumination was red.
"Can't you see I'm having my afternoon snack!" he roared at us.
"I brought it," said the ape-man, holding out the popcorn and goat's milk.
"You shouldn't come in here while I'm concentrating," said Delbert John. Then he saw me.
He stepped closer. He peered at the big button. "You haven't been sworn in yet," he said, "but you might as well start apprenticing." He waved a hand at the one-way mirror. "I'm just making sure none of those girls are pregnant. I hate babies. You've heard of my abortion and infanticide programs, of course. Got to keep the population down. Riffraff!"
He quickly forgot about me. He sat down and resumed his close inspection of the possible pregnancy of the chorus girls. He began on the goat's milk and popcorn.
This office was apparently parallel with the back of a theater, disguised, perhaps, by the height of the theater stage loft. It was certainly big. The other end of the cathedral room had a balcony that overlooked the parks and city. Its doors were heavy glass, possibly bulletproof.
The ape-man had vanished.
After a while, Rockecenter sighed and punched a button on the side of his huge chair. With a whirr, curtains closed to obscure the one-way mirror. He tossed off the last of the popcorn and then drained the last drops of goat's milk. "Great stuff," he sighed. "This is what made Ghandi a world leader."