Kratt lifted his snout to note the striking of his apostle clock, though not the time. His thick finger punched another button. ‘That you Hare? Test finished, is it?…’ The cheap cigar was ground out with great force in an ashtray shaped like a gingerbread boy. ‘Just what I figured. Jesus Christ, I knew that Franklin was just pulling his pecker on company time, I’ll get back to you… Hello, Franklin? This is Kratt, Hare tells me this great super-robot of yours don’t work. Supposed to be this perfect replica that could pass for human, eh? I get three patent attorneys busy tying up patent space for it, I get a lawsuit from some wacky cult, I get valuable research time wasted, and I get every goddamned thing but a working robot. Hare says all it does is run around in circles, squeaking “That’s the way to do it! That’s the way to do it!”… Yes I know it’s like Mr Punch, only I didn’t order a goddamned puppet. Listen, bub, you got fifteen minutes to clean out your desk; I’m having security men escort you out of the building.’
He stabbed at another button. ‘Connie, tell security to help Franklin clean out his desk and leave? And then get me this California law firm, Moonbrand and Honcho.’
He went to the window and looked down on the city that had given so much, but had so much more to give. Today it looked worn and greasy, like an old dime. He thought of the childhood trick of rubbing a penny with mercury and passing it as a dime. He was staring once more at the apostle clock when the phone rang. ‘Moonbrand? I just wanted to say first of all I admire your style there, doubt if your client, your Church of Plastic Jesus, your Reverend Draeger, doubt if he would have thought of this by himself. Sounds more like your idea, lawyer’s idea, right? Anyway, look, we’re withdrawing our patent application so you lose, nice try. But how would you like to take on a job for us? Still in the artificial intelligence line… You fly over here and we’ll discuss it, fix it up with my secretary, okay? Think you’ll find KUR a good client to work for… Who is holding? Fleischman again?’
General Fleischman sat back, resting his head against the fireproof walnut panelling as he stared at the Grant Wood landscape whose bulbous trees and swollen hills seemed somehow pornographic. He brought out a small silver comb and applied it to his magnificent white frothy sideburns.
‘Fleischman, what do you want now?’ said the phone on his desk. He automatically leaned forward to speak to it.
‘Mr Kratt, I just want to tell you that I had this troubleshooter in here that thinks maybe Beamish didn’t take the money after all. She thinks the computer could have an internal fault, and we haven’t lost a penny.’
‘Who is this troubleshooter?’
‘Shirl something, name’s around here somewhere. She’s bringing in her assistant, soon as I watch the news I’m getting right down there to see them.’
The news was coming on now: a burnt-out supermarket in someplace called Himmlerville, with Indica Dinks and some man answering questions.
‘What did it feel like, Indica, being held hostage for almost six weeks in the African bush?’
‘…bad.’
‘What about torture?’
‘Well there was this guy Beamish. They drowned him… he kept shouting… they took him… they drowned him. It was filthy…’
‘Dr Tarr, Jack, can I ask you about the tortures? Executions?’
‘Ferocious, real killers…’
‘Aren’t they cannibals?’ the reporter’s voice asked, while Tarr nodded.
‘They kill their victims with a blow to the back of the head… Then they eat… parts, the liver…’
‘Are you glad to be going home, folks?’
They were. The reporter wound up:
‘An innocent tourist tortured, others cannibalized, where will it all end? Is General Bobo’s reign of terror over? Will the people of Bimibia now start picking up the pieces and rebuilding?’ There was a quick shot of a motel with bullet-riddled walls, the camera moving on to show a lawn littered with large packing cases marked KUR Overseas. ‘Or is this only the beginning of a long night of tragedy? No one knows for sure but General Bobo — and no one knows just where he is. This is Bug Feyerabend, GBC News, Bimibia.’
Shirl and her assistant were watching the news in the bank computer room:
A woman in New Jersey had burned her child’s hands off in a microwave oven, at the command of St Anthony, and to cure thumb-sucking. In Florida a rally of angry red-haired people were demanding an end to stereotyped ‘redheads’ in the media (‘We’re sick and tired of being laughed at, being treated like a bunch of kids, brats at that. They talk about us as if we’re born troublemakers. If we don’t get equal treatment, we’ll make some real trouble! This is Red Power and we’re fighting mad!’). Luddites smashed up an auction of rare clocks in New York. A new brand of pizza-flavoured yoghurt fudge was found to contain a poison similar to oxalic acid. Another nuclear power station accident had been covered up; the authorities claimed it was an accidental cover-up.
Shirl said to Roderick, ‘Back to work. Now I’ve already been all the way through this old machine, but I want you to find your way through, too. Because I just don’t believe what I found.’
‘But why me? There must be plenty of competent people who could do a good job here. I hardly know how to begin.’
‘People.’ She pushed back her fine auburn hair. ‘I don’t trust people. It’s people that got this poor old machine in this mess. No, I want a machine to look it over. I want the honest opinion of an honest machine.’
‘I guess that means you know me inside and out,’ he said, and went to work. The first thing to do was to find out when and where the missing money was last seen. After finding the date, he narrowed down the loss by time and by department, unticlass="underline"
| Dept 45 | Dept 45 |
| 0435 hrs | 0435 hrs |
| 31.000494958 sec | 31.000494959 sec |
| Assets: | Assets: |
| 475 843 722.44 | 415 843 722.44 |