"A portable TV," I misinformed him. It was Krak's viewer. "I want to catch the show the way it goes out over the air as well as in the theater."
"All right. Your seat is middle row and on the aisle. Here's a two-way walkie-talkie that connects with me, in case you spot anything we don't."
"Good thinking," I said, taking it. "But you keep your eyes open, too. I'm not seeing very well today. I'm counting on you."
"Oh, you can," he said, giving his huge automatic's holster a pat. "I'm practically spending my part of that bounty money already. Oh, one more thing: these ABC people cautioned us that once the red light is on, we have to be quiet and we're to stay off the stage unless the woman herself shows up. Then Snide can give us a signal and they can get the nab on the camera."
"Fine," I said and made my way to my seat.
The place was packed with women and one more skirt went totally unnoticed.
I settled myself. I had a good seat from which to see things. The place was like any other theater except it had more camera and spotlight positions. It was, however, hard for me to take in everything through my bandages. Things looked kind of pink and I suspected my forehead was bleeding again. But minor things must not stand in the way of an Apparatus officer. Lombar Hisst and the fate of the Voltar Confederacy were depending on me, to say nothing of the fate of Earth!
The show was about to start: a big clock was giving a countdown to curtain. Some music was playing to keep the audience quiet, but there was a lot of excited chatter going on all around. Housewives of every shape and hue were packing this show today to lay eyes on the Whiz Kid.
I concentrated on Krak's viewer. It was hard to see.
She was sitting in a little room. A slight twinge of alarm went through me. She ought to be preparing herself in some disguise or other to penetrate this show. She wasn't. She had a little TV set in front of her and she had a couple of microphones in her hands.
Where was this room?
In this building? Miles away? Lacking recorded strips to check back on, I could not tell how she had gotten there.
This whole thing was very irregular. The show was about to begin.
But then I relaxed. She could not possibly resist the bait of the Whiz Kid double. She thought he was vital to her plan to find out who was behind this barrage of legal suits on Heller.
Bang-Bang's voice came through the viewer speaker. "I introduced him."
Krak said to the dimness beyond the TV set, "And he knows the route?"
"Showed it to him twice," said Bang-Bang.
I was a little bit baffled. How could Bang-Bang have introduced anybody to anybody? The show hadn't started! I thought, she certainly better get a move on or she'll be late for this show.
The curtains parted. Buzzers went. Red lights flashed. On the Air appeared in a big panel. A girl in a housecoat held up a huge card. It said:
APPLAUD
Music blared. Tom Snide himself pranced out on the stage throwing kisses. He was an older man with curly hair and a very false smile. "Good afternoon, good afternoon, housewives of America, my dearest friends who keep sweeping my popularity from coast to coast."
The girl in the housecoat held up a card:
LAUGH
"Just don't sweep it under the rug," said Snide. The girl held up a card:
LAUGH HARDER
"Welcome to 'Weirdo World'!" said Snide. "I'm sure all of you feel right at home."
The girl held up a card:
HOWL WITH LAUGHTER
"Today we were lucky enough to get on our show a young man who has stirred the hearts and skirts of America and the world. And here he is, the weirdo you've been panting for, the notorious outlaw, WISTER, THE WHIZ KID!"
The girl held up a card:
SHRIEK!
The Wister double peeked out from behind a potted palm, raced over to cover behind a desk and then hid behind a piano.
"What are you ducking for?" said Snide.
"I'm afraid that audience will swarm over the footlights and rape me," said the double.
The girl held up a card:
SAY OOOOO WITH DELIGHT
"No, no," said Snide. "We've packed the place with security guards so they can't get at you. Come out in plain sight."
"And no process servers?" said the double.
The girl held up a card:
SHRIEK WITH LAUGHTER!
The audience shrieked, but Tom Snide had lied. The shabby man in the shabby coat was peering out from under the brim of his shabby hat, just two seats away from me. His face was all bandaged up, too! But he was waiting for the Countess Krak, commitment paper in his hand. And then I looked just beyond him. Two Bellevue attendants! They must have a wagon outside waiting.
I glanced at my viewer. The Countess Krak was sitting there watching the show on TV!
A camera swept the shrieking housewives. I saw it on the Countess Krak's screen. The camera, amongst the others, SHOWED ME!
I scrunched down. Oh, Gods, she had better not notice!
Then her screen, seen through my viewer, was again showing the stage.
The Whiz Kid swaggered into full view. He was dressed in the black of a Western outlaw, but had red hearts for pistol holsters. His buckteeth and hornrimmed glasses did not go too well with the rig.
He sat down in the interview chair.
"How do you do it?" Snide said. "Get all these women so crazy over you that they sue you for billions?"
"I guess it just comes natural," said the double.
The girl held up a card:
LAUGH WHILE SAYING OOOOOO
"When you really get into it, it's easy to understand," said the Whiz Kid.
Card:
LAUGH LOUDER WHILE OOOING LOUDER
"The women all over the country seem utterly crazy over you," said Snide. "Doesn't that seem sort of weird?"
"It's a hard life," said the double. "And the longer I'm at it, the harder it gets."
Card:
SCREAM WITH LAUGHTER
WHILE OOOING WITH SCREAMS
"Most men," said the double, "couldn't stand up to it, and I admit I have been lying down on the job."
Card:
SHRIEK WITH LAUGHTER
"I understand they want to arrest you now for raping a minor," said Snide. "I shouldn't have thought you would have stooped to that."
"Well, she was pretty short," said the Whiz Kid.
Card:
HOWL WITH LAUGHTER
"With all these legal entanglements," said Snide, "I should imagine you have pretty steep legal fees."
"It's worth it," said the Whiz Kid double. "But the real cost is in replacing pants I have to leave behind when the husband comes home unexpectedly."
Card:
LAUGH LIKE MAD
Snide said, "Well, if you are going to devote all your spare time between robbing trains and stealing cities to hopping in and out of beds, I think your legal fees will soon exceed what you find in the Wells Fargo boxes. The law is a pretty expensive business. How do you propose to solve it when this bed-hopping bankrupts you?"
"I'll act as my own lawyer," said the double. "Nothing is going to keep me from tasting the pleasures of the flesh. The country is absolutely crammed with beautiful women with nothing to do after their husbands leave for work." Then in a whisper, barely audible on the program, he said, leaning toward Tom, "Hey, you're off the script."
"Well," said Snide, ignoring the double's aside, "we'll just see how well versed you are in law. We have a lawyer here to interrogate you on the subject of law."
Another sound. Voltarian! I thought I had lost my wits. Then I located it. It was coming from my viewer. The Countess Krak had her left-hand microphone in her hand and into it she had said, "Cue. Walk to center stage." In VOLTARIAN!
Snide had risen and was making an elaborate, ushering bow.