"Hey, Murph's no dumbbell. You think you're the Invisible Man or something?"
"It's got to be tomorrow. Believe me, he'll never see me, but I'll see him. You was to ask me, going in today bare-ass, before I can case the house, would be the best way to get my balls in a sling. For all I know, he's got a friend staked out there for when he's at work. And I wait till the day after tomorrow, when he's at work again, he may have already sold it to Maldonado. Am I right or am I right?"
"Jeez." Mendoza turned to look straight at Starhawk. "You going in there, with Murph at home, I don't like that at all. What I don't want is somebody gets dead, him or you. That happens, my ass is grass and the whole department is the lawn mower."
"Anybody in the department ever link me to a killing? Even suspect me? You know better than that, Mendy. I don't go in bare-ass, you know. Already, I got three plans."
"Then you're really in."
"Oh, I'm in." Starhawk stopped cleaning his nails and returned the key to the ignition. "I wouldn't miss it for the world. The only thing I like better than stealing from a cop is fucking a cop."
"Funny," Mendoza said. "Remind me to laugh on my day off. That attitude is going to get you in a lot of trouble some fine day, my friend."
THE FIRST FURBISH LOUSEWART
You must take the bull by the tail and look the facts in the face.
–W. C. fields
The first Furbish Lousewart was a retainer on the Greystoke estate in England in the thirteenth century. He was a foundling, the bastard offspring of the local curate and a nun who, oddly enough, later told Chaucer a story he considered good enough to retell in verse. The nun was also the model for the Prioress in the earliest Tarot deck and her basic features remained even after that card became the Female Pope and, later, the High Priestess.
Lord Greystoke named the infant Furbish Lousewart because he looked so dainty when they found him in the manger. Furbish Lousewart was as dainty a name as you could have in Merrie England in those days, being the vernacular term for herba pedicularis, a most lovely flower of the snapdragon species.
Furbish Lousewart grew to manhood, married, fathered three legitimate children and died in the Third Crusade. One of his illegitimate children, by Lady Greystoke, was the only Greystoke to survive that Crusade and carried on the Greystoke line, unknown to his brothers and sisters, who continued the plebeian line of Lousewarts.
NOTHING
Everyone who is a lawyer must either be mentally defective by nature or be bound to become so in time.
–furbish lousewart v, Unsafe Wherever You Go
And Dr. Glopberger, like Frankenstein, looked on his work and saw that it was very good. So far.
But the nurse, Ms. Ida Pingala, returning along the long white hall permeated with Lysol to the snug white cubicle of the nurses' lounge, seated herself smoothing the starched white hem of her skirt over her pale white knees and punched numbers quick and neat on the phone console, white keys on white plastic the colorless allcolor of antiseptic sterility.
"Ubu, here," came the Voice in her ear.
"Roy. It's Ida." Ms. Pingala was equally crisp.
Sounds of canine panting; Roy was always a cut-up.
Ms. Pingala laughed merrily. "Tonight?" she asked.
Sounds of louder, more passionate panting.
She giggled again. "Your place or mine?"
"Yours. You know how the Bureau is…"
"Eightish?"
"Nineish, to be on the safe side. All hell is breaking loose again."
"Nineish, then. You devil."
More panting.
"Oh you devil you wild man you animal."
"Nineish gotto go now love you bye."
Roy Ubu, in Washington,* hangs up and glances at his wristwatch. Time for the meeting with Babbit.
*Terran Archives 2803: Washington was the capital city of Unistat. It was governed ostensibly by a baseball team called the Senators, but by the time of our story real control had fallen into the hands of the FBI and the Beast.
A listless Santa Claus dingdonging his bell with empty junkie eyes as light snow fell in sparse crystals, not sticking to the sidewalk, but a biting Washington wind stings Ubu's eyes as he leaves the FBI office, turning up his collar to slouch hands deep in pocket to his car. Shifting from first gear into second turning up Pennsylvania Avenue the snowflakes growing thicker and heavier as he drives, snaps on the car radio.
and so the second black uprising in Miami has ended in flame and tragedy. In Washington, President Lousewart ismeeting this morning with the Stentorian Ambassador to discuss balance of payments amid a mood of cautious optimism. Parents in Bad Ass, Texas, continue to keep their children out of school in the bitter dispute over biofeedback training. School Superintendent B. S. Curve, still hospitalized from the bomb blast which destroyed
Ubu parks carefully with neat precision flashing his ID at the Secret Service man to be passed quickly into the White House over thick carpets under brilliant chandeliers to the ofFice of Mountbatten Babbit, scientific advisor to the President: a bald and ovoid head with impatiently piercing eyes that scanned for the exact measurement and the precisely calibrated number.
"This ah is a very delicate matter," Babbit began at once. "We give it an Urgent rating but at the same time we do not wish to alarm the public you understand the whole investigation must be carried on with kid gloves as they say The President Himself has instructed me to make it clear to you, to make it absolutely clear, that no leaks will be tolerated no leaks whatsoever or a very big ax will fall on the whole Bureau a very big ax have I made myself clear?"
"Yes sir absolutely sir."
"Good. Now, have you noticed a certain ah a certain decline in American science and technology in recent years a withering away of talent and originality so to speak?"
"Well sir law is my background you know sir I wouldn't know a test tube from a bevatron sir…"
"The decline has been accelerating and is becoming critical in some respects, critical."
"Yes sir but so what sir a lot of science is classified as non-ec and not very popular with the Administration."
Babbit's eyes were scanning Ubu without warmth. "You think it is possible to draw a hard line a sharp boundary between ec science and non-ec science?"
"Well of course sir President Lousewart himself is always saying…"
"I'm not talking about Administration rhetoric Mr. Ubu I am talking about reality. Could you draw such a line and say this is ec research and this is non-ec?"
"Well sir I don't get involved in politics I investigate and find out the facts and that's my job sir administrative decisions are not our business at the Bureau."
"There is no difference between ec and non-ec science," Babbit said with icy deliberation. "I will never say that in public as long as I am part of the Administration you understand the President has a right to expect loyalty from Members of the Team of course but I tell you in private ec and non-ec are terms in theology in metaphysics in value judgment, they have nothing to do with science. It's all as absurd as saying some research is chocolate and some is vanilla and the chocolate is better than the vanilla."
"Yes sir I understand you sir you have my word I'll never repeat any of this sir."
"Good now officially the Administration only wishes to discourage non-ec science but in fact we are suffering a drastic a dangerous possibly a lethal decline in all science right across the board…"
"But sir isn't that what President Lousewart stands for? Tightening our belts, the simple rugged life of our pioneer ancestors, lowered expectations…"
You damned fool we're not talking about political speeches we're talking about the realities of survival." Uh yes sir yes."