The Project Gutenberg eBook of Newshound, by Milton Lesser
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Title: Newshound
Author: Milton Lesser
Release Date: November 2, 2021 [eBook #66648]
Language: English
Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEWSHOUND ***
NEWSHOUND
By Milton Lesser
The Fourth Estate was highly specialized
in the 22nd Century; for example, a good newsman
predicted coming events--and made them happen....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
July 1955
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Darius McLeod leaned back comfortably and watched the mayor sweat.
His Honor popped a phenobarb tablet between his lips, tossing his head
and gulping the pill down without water. His moist, nervous hands left
their wet imprint on the desk top when he reached into his breast
pocket and withdrew a clipping from the morning's _New York World_.
"You people elected me, McLeod," he said. "Now get me out of this mess."
"We merely supported your candidacy, Your Honor," McLeod said easily.
"But let's see what you got there."
"It amounts to the same thing," the mayor pleaded. "For God's sake,
give me a break."
McLeod shrugged and unfolded the _World_ clipping on his desk.
"Naturally, the _World_ will oppose your administration," he began.
"Otherwise they'll never be able to live down the _Star-Times'_ scoop
on your election."
"That's precisely what I was saying. The way I understand it, you
people will have to support your man. The _Star-Times_ can't abandon me
to the wolves, not now."
"I'm only a reporter," McLeod explained. "We report events, not make
them."
"That's it. That's what I mean. The attitude. You're treating me like a
child."
"You're acting like one."
"All I want is what's fair. Whatever you think is fair."
"Then let me read this thing." The column clipped from the _World_ bore
the cut-line COMING EVENTS. McLeod had always liked the _Star-Times'_
LOOKING FORWARD better, although he had to admit that the _World's_ cut
of a swami rubbing his crystal ball had a certain fundamental appeal
for the masses. House-written, the _World_ column appeared under the
by-line of Nostradamus.
McLeod scanned the printed lines quickly. There was a prediction on
the outcome of the World Series. It had better turn out incorrect,
thought McLeod: the _Star-Times_ had spent a small fortune building
up the opposing team. There was something about the dangers of forest
fires and an indirect reference to the possibility of a conflagration
next week in the Adirondack Game Preserve. (The _Star-Times_ would be
alerting its fire-fighting unit to prevent such a possibility, McLeod
knew.) There was a talk of an impending war between Yugoslavia and
France at a time when relations between the two countries were never
more harmonious. McLeod wondered how the _World_ would ever swing it.
He read the last two items aloud.
"'We think it's high time the mayor of New York be exposed for his
corrupt political dealings. We wouldn't be surprised if the mayor were
forced to resign his office in January.... What ace reporter of what
rival New York daily is going to meet with a fatal accident next week?
Remember, you read it here first!'"
"January," said the mayor as Darius McLeod folded the column and lit a
cigaret. "That's next month."
"They could be talking about me."
"Eh? If I'm forced to resign, you'll be scooped."
"Yeah, scooped," McLeod mused. "We're their chief rival. I'm the big
Huck-a-muck over here. Those dirty sons--they can get me out of the way
and scoop us at the same time. Listen, Your Honor, check back with me
later. I've got to see the City Editor."
"But I'm not politically corrupt--"
"We'll decide. We'll let you know," Darius McLeod shouted, already
running from his glass-walled office and through the clattering din of
the City Room, disturbing the milling knot of scribes and gunmen going
over last minute instructions from the Crime Editor, shouldering by
the line of trim, pretty co-respondents receiving their briefs from
the Society Editor, almost knocking down the Medical Editor who was
either on the point of finding a cure for the _World's_ latest plague
or dreaming up one of his own, McLeod didn't remember which.
* * * * *
McLeod found Overman, the City Editor, perched on a corner of his desk
and barking orders into a microphone. "What do you mean, he won't jump?
We said he'd jump. Coax him. Push him if you can get away with it, I
don't care. Don't make it obvious." Overman cocked his gaunt head to
one side, listening to the receiver imbedded in his ear. He looked like
a walking ad for hyper-thyroid treatment, with bulging eyes, hollow
cheeks and fidgety limbs. He couldn't sit still and he didn't try.
"All right, we'll hold up the story. And you're the guy who asked for
a raise." Overman dropped the microphone hose back into its cubby and
looked up. "Sometimes I wonder what the hell they think a reporter
draws his salary for. What do you want, Darius?"
"The _World's_ gunning for me, chief."
"I already saw it."
"Then don't just sit there."
"What do you want me to do, hold your hand? Of course the _World's_
gunning for you. Great story for them, and they also kill off our star
reporter in the process. _If_ they get away with it."
"Damn it!" McLeod exploded. "This is the twenty-second century. If the
_World_ says I'm going to meet with a fatal accident, then my life's in
danger." McLeod winced at his own words. In a matter of minutes he had
been reduced to the mayor's level and he didn't like it.
"Counter-prognostication has already taken steps, Darius. Don't go off
the deep end on me. It happens like this every time. Even a top-flight
reporter sheds his own sophistication when the story's about himself."
"How do you expect me to take it?"
"Just relax, that's all."
"Maybe you want me to write my own obituary."
"Don't try so hard to be funny. Excuse me." Overman cocked his head
again and listened, then pulled out his microphone and barked: "All
right, all right. Don't cry. We can't get them all. I'm not saying it
was your fault. Report back in."
"What's the matter?" McLeod wanted to know.
"Harry Crippens is the matter. Remember Congressman Horner? That story
yesterday?"
McLeod recalled it vaguely. Something about Horner committing suicide
unexpectedly.
"Well, he didn't jump. The _World's_ Security Forces rescued him and
got a scoop. Another wrongo for us, Darius. That's the second story
Crippens bungled this month."
"Maybe it wasn't Cripp's fault, chief." Crippens was a plump, owl-faced
man with big, watery eyes swimming behind concave glasses. McLeod had
always liked him. He was the grimmest, saddest, cryingest, most logical
drunk McLeod had ever met. Wonderful drinking partner.
"I didn't say it was. Just thinking, though."
"If psychology flubbed a dub on Horner, you can't blame Cripp."
"Not what I mean. The _World's_ prediction is vague, see? Who's a star
reporter? How do you single the man out? Any big by-line guy will do,
right?"
"I guess so."
"Crippens gets his share of by-lines, Darius."
"Hey, wait a minute--"
"Why spend the time protecting you next week if we don't have to? It's
expensive and not a sure thing. We'd hate to lose you, Darius."
"Thank you."
"But Crippens is bungling. He ought to meet the _World's_ requirements.
We do the job for them the first of next week. They get their story and
we keep our number one man, alive. How does it sound?"
"Rotten," McLeod said. "I'm not going to sit by and let Cripp take that
kind of rap for me. What kind of louse do you think I am, anyway?"
"Let it simmer, Darius. There's no hurry. I suppose His Honor has been
around to use your crying towel?"
McLeod nodded. "That's right."
"I thought he would. It was your series of articles that got him
elected in the first place. You saved my life, now support me. One of
those deals. It was obvious the _World_ would try to show corruption
after their own candidate lost."
"Is the _Star-Times_ going to protect Mayor Spurgess' record?"
* * * * *
Overman jerked his head from side to side, the stretched, translucent
lids blinking over popping eyes. "It's always easier to prove
corruption than disprove it, you know that. We'd be backing the wrong
animal, Darius. I've got it figured, though."
"How do you mean?"
"They won't have much of a story if something violent happens to the
mayor between now and next month. I don't want to see it in LOOKING
FORWARD, though. Just make it happen and get the scoop. See? We can't
let the mayor resign. This is the surest way."
"Anything particular in mind?"
"It's your assignment, Darius. Whatever you do is all right with me."
"That poor guy treated me like his father-image before. Well--"
"You're not weakening, are you, Darius? There's no time for emotion in
this business, none at all. You've got to go out and get a story before
some other outfit changes it on you. Or you've got to make _their_
stories fail to happen. And whatever you do, you've got to keep the TV
outfits guessing. If news starts happening according to Hoyle, we're
all through. Us and the _World_ and all the other newspapers wouldn't
stand a chance, not with TV right on the spot. Keep TV guessing.
Confused. Never sure. Give some crumbs to the _World_, even, if you
have to.
"So there's no time for thalamic responses, Darius. Do I make myself
clear?"
McLeod bristled. "You never had to give me that kind of lecture. You
think I'm a cub or something? Don't worry about Mayor Spurgess, we'll
fix him up."
"Splendid. But there's something else. Crippens."
"I told you how I felt about that. I don't want any part of it. Talk
about your Judas's--"
"Crippens or you, Darius. The _World's_ gunning. You know it."
"I can't tell you what to do. But I'll warn Cripp, that's all."
"That would make your own assignment rather difficult."
"What assignment are you talking about?"
"Crippens. The way I figure it, you have a lot at stake there. We'll
let you handle Crippens."
"You're crazy!"
"You are if you refuse. We won't give you a single Security man for
protection. Remember what they said in COMING EVENTS. Your one chance
is to get Crippens before they get you and then let the _World_ scoop
us. I would suggest the first thing next Monday morning, but then, it's
your baby."
"First Mayor Spurgess and now Crippens. Are you trying to make me a
hatchetman?"
"A reporter, Darius. You've always been a good one."
"But Crippens is my friend."
"I wish we had another way out. Crippens has his place on the
_Star-Times_, but we thought too much of him. We don't want to lose
you, Darius. You can take that as an objective compliment and sleep
easy. Your job's secure."
"Thank you very much."
"Don't be bitter. A man in the newspaper business is top-dog these
days, see? I don't have to tell you. We're not passive receptors.
We control things. We make things happen. We play God, but we've got
competition. You've got to take the good with the bad, that's all. See
what I mean?" All the while they had spoken, Overman had not moved from
where he had perched his small frame on his desk, but his nervous legs
had walked miles, his scrawny, sleeve-rolled arms had waved, flapped
and gesticulated, his wide, bulging eyes had darted about the frenzied
confusion of the great room where news was created and missed nothing.
It was Overman's passion, McLeod knew, his alpha through omega. He
suddenly wished it were that simple for himself. Less than half an hour
ago, it would have been.
"We'll have our obituary people compose something tender for Crippens,"
Overman said. "Keep me informed, Darius."
"I haven't told you I'd do it."
"Whose obit would you rather see them write?"
"You could protect me instead."
But Overman jerked his head side to side again. "It's the same as
politics. Much simpler to make news than to prevent it. The one sure
way to protect you, provided you don't foul things up with Crippens."
"Well, I don't--"
"One of you makes the obituary page next week. The _World's_ already
seen to that. Take your choice, Darius."
"Yeah ... sure."
"And don't forget about Mayor Spurgess. You've got a busy time ahead of
you. Good luck."
Walking back toward his own office, McLeod saw that the flow of
co-respondents had slowed to a trickle. He swore softly. The last
girl in line was Tracy Kent, a tawny-haired divorce specialist
with an admirable record. McLeod liked Tracy, but it was strictly
brother-sister stuff.
Tracy was going to marry Harry Crippens.
CHAPTER II
"Hey, Darius. A girl gets hungry for lunch around this time every day."
McLeod smiled. "Won't Cripp be along soon?"
"Search me." Tracy rubbed her stomach under the smooth, tautly drawn
fabric of her dress. "When this piece of machinery starts to gurgle, I
eat."
"Well, I was going to head over to the Press Club in a few minutes
anyway. Don't you have to get yourself caught with someone today?"
"Later on. Tonight. Now I'm hungry."
Tracy Kent was long and almost lean with hips angular rather than
rounded and the clean lines of her long-striding legs accentuated
by the tight sheath of skirt as she walked with McLeod toward the
elevator. She was all woman unless you happened to look at her a
certain way, when you caught a glimpse of something coltish, almost
like Peter Pan, in the way she carried herself or smiled at you. She
did not look like a vamp, thought McLeod, which helped explain why she
was such a successful co-respondent.
"One of these days I'm going to stop feeling like a brother toward
you," McLeod promised as they climbed into his copter on the roof.
"You're flattering but tardy, Mr. McLeod. I'm going to marry the guy."
"Crippens?"
"Don't look at me that way. He's your friend, too." Tracy grinned as
the rotors flashed above them, then pouted. "Darius, do we have to go
to the Press Club for lunch?"
"Mixing business with pleasure, I guess. Got to see some people. Why,
does someone bother you over there?"
"That Weaver Wainwright, always staring at me like he wants to sit
down at his thinkwriter and let the world know what it's like with a
co-respodent. Me."
"Wainwright's one of the men I want to see."
"The _Star-Times'_ hot-shot reporter hob-nobbing with that riff-raff
from the _World_?"
"You named it," Darius McLeod said as their copter rose up from the
roof of the _Star-Times_ building and retreated from the checkerboard
pattern of other copters resting on their landing squares. "Why the
sour face?"
"Because I read COMING EVENTS, Darius. Do you think Wainwright's been
assigned the job?"
"It's a damned good guess. He just got back from overseas. He's been
sopping up spirits like a blotter over at the club and making nasty
noises while waiting for a new job. This is probably his baby."
"Why, Darius?"
"Because he's their number one boy."
"No. I mean, why you?"
McLeod shrugged. "Does there have to be a reason? It's good copy for
them. The _Star-Times_ loses a guy who's been around, too. That's the
newspaper business, Tracy. Don't look for any reason."
"Don't be so calm about it. What's Overman going to do?"
McLeod considered the question as he brought the copter down expertly
through the lanes of local traffic here at the edge of the city. Off
in the distance, rank on rank of hemispherical suburban homes marched
off, in orderly rows, to the eastern horizon. The Press Club, almost
directly below them now, had snipped half a dozen square miles from
the patterned picture. It was castle, game preserve and sylvan retreat
not for one monarch, but for hundreds. Newshounds, newshens, gunmen.
Flashing letters swam up at them from the green woodland, blinking on
and off garishly--THE FOURTH ESTATE.
If he told her Overman had failed to offer any protection, she'd
realize another alternative had been selected. It would be better if
he lied. "What's Overman going to do?" he repeated her question. "The
usual. I'll be protected. Don't worry about me."
"But if Wainwright's all they say, he's like a bloodhound. Be careful,
Darius."
"Hell, I said don't worry. I have till next week, anyway."
"This is Friday."
"Yeah, Friday." Their copter alighted with hardly a quiver. Uniformed
lackies were already polishing the chrome and glass by the time McLeod
helped Tracy to the ground. She came down lithely, long hair whipping
about her face and brushing against McLeod's cheek. A girl scantily
clad as an American Indian led them across the landing field and along
a path through the gnarled oaks which made the Fourth Estate resemble
more a chunk of Scotland than Long Island. But while they couldn't see
the acres of neon tubing from the ground, their pulsing glow spoiled
the effect.
* * * * *
The clubhouse itself was an architectural nightmare of quarry-stone,
turrets, battlements--and great, soft-hued thermo-glass walls. Music
stirred the air faintly with rhythm as they crossed the drawbridge
(which actually worked, McLeod knew) and entered the lobby. The pretty
little squaw disappeared and was replaced at once by the weaponcheck
girl, dressed in top hat and tails, but not much else.
She smiled professionally at Tracy, then frisked her expertly, finding
the trick pocket in her skirt and removing the tiny but deadly
parabeam from her leg holster. Tracy grinned back like a yawning cat.
"I'd have given it to you."
"I'm sorry, m'am. They all say that." The weaponcheck girl turned to
McLeod. "It's the law around here, you know that. Good afternoon, Mr.
McLeod."
The hands darted with quick, practiced precision over him after he
nodded. He felt the sleeve-holster slip out by way of his armpit, was
given a numbered check for both weapons as the girl hip-wagged away and
suspended their weapons from hooks in her arsenal. They were then led
to a table near the bandstand, where they ordered cocktails.
"It's an awful lot of fuss just to eat lunch," Tracy said. "Every time
that weapon hen paws me like that, I want to scratch her big, wide eyes
out. Darius, I'm still afraid for you. Is Wainwright here?"
"I haven't looked, but don't worry. I have till next week, anyway."
"They could kidnap you and hold you somewhere till they're ready to
kill you."
McLeod tried to hide his momentary confusion by making a production of
lighting his cigaret and smiling at someone he hardly knew at a nearby
table. Tracy certainly had a good point--which he hadn't considered
until now.
Tracy glanced about uneasily in the dim light. "Did Overman think of
that? I don't see any Security men around."
McLeod exhaled a long plume of smoke and watched it get sucked into
the unseen currents of the climatizer. "They don't let themselves get
seen," he said easily. "They wouldn't be good Security men if they did,
would they?"
"But what are _you_ going to do, Darius? Can't you take some kind of
positive action? It's not like you, just sitting around and waiting."
McLeod wanted to change the subject, for Tracy had a way of ferreting
out the truth even if she suspected nothing. He'd always thought she
was wasting her time as a co-respondent and often told her so, but
she'd always countered by striking a bump-and-grind pose and saying she
had all the equipment. "Have you heard about Cripp?" he asked her now.
"Only that he was going out on an assignment. Suicide I think."
"Unfortunately, the guy had a change of heart. They had to tear up the
obit."
"Was it Cripp's fault?"
"I doubt it. Suicide and murder are two different things. Psychology
fouled up, that's all."
"But Overman must have been furious, anyway. Poor Cripp."
"Overman'll get over it. Cripp's a good man."
Tracy shook her head slowly. "Thanks for saying it, but Cripp isn't cut
out for the newspaper racket and you know it. A couple more flubs and
Overman will begin to think Cripp belongs to the Anti-Newspaper League
or something."
"Very funny," McLeod told her. "I can just see it now: Cripp a
subversive."
"Shh!" said Tracy, raising a finger to her lips. "We shouldn't even
talk about things like that. Mentioning the Anti-Newspaper League in
here is like eating beefsteak in Delhi."
A figure approached their table and sat down at the empty chair without
receiving an invitation. "Did I hear something about the Anti-Newspaper
League?" the man demanded, chuckling softly. He was tall and gaunt but
well-tanned, the whites of his eyes very bright against the skin of his
face. He had a long, sad nose which drooped mournfully almost to his
upper lip, mitigating the effect of his smile.
He was Weaver Wainwright, ace reporter of the _World_.
* * * * *
"We're just a couple of subversives, Mr. Wainwright," Tracy said.
"So that's why the _Star-Times_ is filling its pages with wrongos these
days. How do you do, McLeod?"
"Never felt better. Ought to live to be a hundred, at least. Can we get
you something?"
"As a matter of fact, I've just had lunch. Brandy might help my
sluggish liver, though."
"Brandy it is," said McLeod, and gave the new order to their waiter
when he arrived with a pair of Gibsons. "According to what I read
in the papers, the _World's_ thinking of starting a Tong War with
us." McLeod hid his impulse to smile by making a conventional toast
to Tracy. He wondered how much his unexpected candor had unnerved
Wainwright and decided to study the reporter's reaction carefully.
But Wainwright merely grinned, making the upper lip all but disappear
and the nose become more prominent. "At least you read a good
newspaper," he said. "I don't think it's fair for you to say we had
war in mind, McLeod. Nothing of the sort. Our Prognostication division
merely indicated that a certain well-known opposition newsman was going
to meet with an unfortunate accident next week. While prognostication
is pretty reliable--especially coming from a good newspaper--it's
hardly the last word. Ah, here's my brandy." And he began to sip and
stare over the rim of his glass at Tracy.
"Nice stay in Europe?" McLeod wanted to know. Under the circumstances,
Wainwright's composure had been admirable.
"Fair. But then, you read the papers."
"You mean that business about Yugoslavia and France?"
"That's right. Your man--What's his name, Kitrick?--thought there would
be peace. He's wrong, you know. All you have to do is touch a spark to
the right fuse in the Balkans, I always said. Kitrick was trying to put
the fire out by spitting."
"Wayne Kitrick didn't think there was any fire to put out," Tracy told
the _World_ reporter. "As of now, there isn't."
"Give it some time," Wainwright promised. "You see, the President of
Yugoslavia was indiscreet in his youth, most indiscreet. With elections
approaching there, he had the alternative of--well, you know what a
newspaper can do to a man of position who's been indiscreet. Drink to
it?"
They did. In spite of everything, McLeod had to admire Wainwright.
In the old days, nations went to war for economic reasons, over
diametrically opposed political philosophies, because of religion.
Today, a sharp reporter dug deep to unearth closeted skeletons and
moral potsherds and literally blackmailed a chief of state into war.
Wainwright was sharp, all right. History might one day write up the
whole series of twenty-second century wars as Blackmail Wars, but
meanwhile the U. N. could only gnash its collective teeth while
Wainwright picked up a fattened paycheck.
"I'll bet you're proud of yourself," Tracy said.
"I don't see why not. Kitrick will be reamed, my dear."
"And so will a few million innocent people."
"Perhaps you weren't fooling when you mentioned the Anti-Newspaper
League. But of course, you're pulling my leg."
"I'm a co-respondent," Tracy said coldly. "I don't have to turn
cartwheels over your end of the newspaper game."
"Tracy," McLeod said. This was one facet of the girl's character he'd
never seen before. He could almost see the gears meshing into place
inside Wainwright's skull. He didn't mind talk which bordered on the
subversive, as long as it came from Tracy, who was quite outspoken
about a lot of things, but Wainwright might have other ideas.
But Wainwright said, blandly, "From a moral standpoint you carve out
your pound of flesh every now and then too, my dear. Or don't you think
framing innocent men in compromising circumstances is immoral?"
"You wouldn't understand the difference," Tracy said.
"It is a difference of degree, not kind."
* * * * *
Tracy bit her lips and did not reply. It was like a revelation to
McLeod. He suddenly wondered if Cripp knew how maladjusted his fiancee
was.
Abruptly, Wainwright changed the subject. "Are you well insured,
McLeod?"
"I never could figure out who to name as beneficiary."
"That's a shame."
"If you've planned anything now, I thought you'd like to know
_Star-Times_ Security Forces are all around us," McLeod bluffed.
"You underestimate me, sir. Prognostication comes up with the raw
facts, which I sift for story material. I merely wait for things to
happen. However, in case you have any inclinations to put the shoe on
the other foot, I'm sure you realize _World_ Security men often lunch
at the Fourth Estate."
That, McLeod suspected, was no bluff. Tracy was still nibbling on her
lip but managed to cast a worried look in his direction. They ordered
and ate in silence while Wainwright swirled and sipped another brandy.
"Have you heard about poor Mayor Spurgess?" Wainwright asked as McLeod
cooled his coffee with cream.
McLeod scalded his lips. The _World_ reporter was playing cat-and-mouse
with him, taunting him overtly. Perhaps Wainwright figured he could
kill two birds with one stone, getting McLeod while McLeod tried to
protect the mayor's record. He hoped Wainwright had not thought of
Overman's alternative.
"You're a busy man," McLeod finally said.
"I detest inactivity. I assume since you wrote Mayor Spurgess into
office, you are going to protect his name. Miss Kent, could you excuse
yourself for a moment?"
Tracy waited until McLeod nodded, then stood up and mumbled something
about going to powder her nose. McLeod lit a cigaret and waited.
"Now we can talk," Wainwright said. "Recognize the spirit in which
this is said, McLeod: you're a fine reporter."
"Thanks."
"But you're as good as dead. We've written your obituary."
Strangely, the announcement brought no fear. Although it had only been
a couple of hours, McLeod felt as if he'd been living with the idea for
years. "You haven't printed it yet."
"In time. But we don't have to print it. Naturally, it's news, McLeod.
You have a well-known name. But there are others equally well-known.
More well-known. We can come up with a wrongo occasionally. Basically,
we want to kill you because you're too valuable to the _Star-Times_."
"Your motive doesn't interest me. And I have some news for you: I'm a
long way from dead."
"Don't be melodramatic, McLeod. We'll get you. A routine
assassination-accident doesn't often become a wrongo, you know that. We
have decided to make an offer to you."
Now McLeod's skin did begin to crawl. Statistically, the
assassination-accident case was more fool-proof than any other. Gunmen
commanded good salaries and did their work expertly. Ninety-five per
cent accuracy could be expected. "I'm listening."
"Join the _World_."
"Come again?"
"I'm sure you heard me. Quit the _Star-Times_ and join us. We'll match
your salary, we won't kill you--"
"But the _Star-Times will_!"
"You'd be valuable to us, aside from your abilities as a reporter. No
doubt, they've included you in any long-range plans they might have.
We'll have them piling up wrongos from now till doomsday."
"Which is exactly why they'll have me killed if I become a turncoat."
"We'll offer you full protection."
"I'm already getting full protection--from the _Star-Times_," McLeod
lied. It was almost a tempting offer, although its virtues were purely
negative. The _Star-Times_ had refused to offer him protection because
Overman thought it would be simpler and more certain to serve up a
substitute reporter for the kill. If McLeod accepted Wainwright's
offer, at least he'd be able to sleep easy regarding Crippens. But if
the _World's_ real purpose was to remove McLeod from the _Star-Times'_
staff, one way or the other, they might risk an all-out Tong War and
still gun for him.
Besides, no turncoat newspaperman had ever survived six months.
McLeod knew it and was sure Wainwright knew it and guessed the _World_
reporter was promising him all he could under the circumstances--a
temporary reprieve.
"I know what you're thinking," Wainwright told him. "The _Star-Times_
will get you if you turn on them. If necessary, they'll drop everything
else until you're dead."
"Well, yes. That's just what I was thinking."
"I don't envy your position," Wainwright admitted. "You believe I'm
offering you a few months more of life at best. But you're mistaken,
McLeod. _It will appear as if we have killed you._ We can do it,
working together. But I offer you life. The accident will all but
destroy you, although means of identification will remain. Don't you
see what I'm driving at? We can substitute some derelict for you, then
change your appearance and employ you on the _World_. The _Star-Times_
will never know the difference."
* * * * *
It was a daring plan. It was just the sort of thing which made the
newspaper business in general--and Weaver Wainwright in particular--so
omnipotent these days. McLeod did not try to hide his interest. The
plan had more than negative virtues, after all.
"How do I know I can trust you?" McLeod asked.
"I'm afraid you don't. But let it simmer. What it boils down to is
this: you're going to have to take a calculated risk either way,
McLeod. No doubt, you've devised some scheme to give us a fat wrongo
instead of your corpse. It may or may not work. Statistics say it will
not. On the other hand, I promise you life. My plan not only could
work, it _should_ work. The risk there is that I may not be telling the
truth. You'll have to decide ... here comes Miss Kent."
"The girl with the crooked face," said Tracy, sitting down. "Unless you
tell me it's straight."
"As an arrow," said McLeod, hardly hearing his own words. The more he
thought of Wainwright's plan, the better he liked it. If Wainwright
were telling the truth, he'd be able to get both Cripp and himself off
the hook at the same time. "I'll think about it," he told the _World_
reporter, who was smiling and getting up to leave.
"Call me," Wainwright said, and was gone.
"What did he want?" Tracy asked.
"The usual," McLeod told her, realizing a near-truth was often the best
lie. "That I join up with the _World_ and get protected."
"You wouldn't last a month and you know it. So why did you tell him
you'd think about it?"
"To let him think I was playing both ends against dead center, I guess.
I don't know. I just want to come out of this thing alive, Tracy."
"I was thinking. There must be something we could dig up about Weaver
Wainwright, something we could hold over his head so he'd rather be
guilty of a wrongo than see it revealed."
"I doubt it. Anyway, you don't blackmail newspapermen."
"You don't kill them, either. Darius, did you ever stop to think
how--how awfully evil this whole setup is? I don't mean just about
you and how the _World_ wants to make a story out of killing off the
opposition. I mean everything. I mean Weaver Wainwright starting a
war in Europe so his paper can get the inside story on it. I mean
the President of Yugoslavia being blackmailed by a garden variety
newspaperman. I mean Cripp getting chewed out because he went to cover
a suicide and the man didn't jump. We ought to celebrate, don't you
see? A human life was saved. I mean me getting myself caught with
important men so their wives sue for divorce and we get the story.
I mean disease that doesn't have to happen and medical cures held
back until one paper or another can scoop them. I mean scientific
discoveries which aren't made because research scientists and
development engineers are on newspaper payrolls and perform their basic
research and experiments, then wait for the newspaper stories to be
released at an editor's leisure. I mean ... oh, what's the use? You're
laughing at me."
McLeod was trying not to smile but meeting with little success. "I just
never heard you talk like that before, that's all. Tracy, you're like a
little girl in a lot of ways--idealistic, romantic, building castles on
air and not accepting the real world, but--"
"Real!" Tracy cried. "It's phony from the word go. We're making it--to
suit headlines."
"Stop shouting," McLeod said in alarm. "People are staring at you."
"I don't care about them."
"Well, I do. Before you know it, they'll be investigating you for
Anti-Newspaper tendencies. What's the matter with you?"
"My God! Don't sound so gosh-awful righteous, Darius. You treat this
newspaper business like a religion."
"Maybe I like being top-dog."
"So now you're going to get yourself killed. A sacrifice to the
Headline God."
"Stop it," McLeod said. "I won't get killed if I can help it."
"And if Wainwright can help it too, is that the idea?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Sometimes I ... I hate you, Darius McLeod. That's what I'm talking
about. They're going to kill someone else and change your face and let
you work for the _World_." Tracy stood up and patted her lips with a
napkin.
McLeod climbed to his feet too. "How did you know about that?"
"Don't bother getting up. I can find my way back alone, thank you."
McLeod sat down, staring at her.
"Maybe it's because I'm a spy. Maybe I work for the _World_." Tracy
pivoted and stalked away, her heels click-clacking defiantly on the
marble floor. McLeod gaped after her until she disappeared.
CHAPTER III
McLeod made an appointment to see Jack Lantrel, the Gunman Chief of
the _Star-Times_, Saturday morning. He spent the remainder of Friday
pondering and drinking a little too much. The combination yielded
a hangover, but not even tentative conclusions. While Tracy Kent
had become an unexpected enigma, he couldn't spend too much time on
it. Wainwright's proposal nagged at all his thoughts, but he kept
telling himself he couldn't trust the _World_ reporter. And for the
first time he found he didn't like the feeling of power inherent in
a newspaperman's position. Having the power of life and death over
nameless, faceless people was one thing, but playing the role of the
Greek hag who snipped the thread of life with a pair of indifferent
scissors for Crippens was quite another.
Lantrel met McLeod in the Gunman's office, greeted him and said,
"Dragging me down on Saturday, this better be important." Jack Lantrel
was a harried-looking little man. You always expected a great, bosomy
wife to come charging in to henpeck him, although, like McLeod, Lantrel
was a bachelor. He straightened the thinkwriter and the other items of
office equipment on his desk with mechanical efficiency. He was an old
fuddy-duddy, thought McLeod, but he had signed the death warrants for
hundreds of people.
"It's a job," said McLeod.
"Well, that's what I draw my check for. But we work on a rigid
schedule, Darius."
"Then call it a priority job. Mayor Spurgess."
Lantrel looked up from where he'd been drumming his fingers idly on the
desk. "Motive is none of my business," he admitted. "But did you say
you want to have Mayor Spurgess gunned?"
McLeod sighed. "Yeah."
"I'm glad my particular job is comparatively simple. You just elected
the guy."
"And now we want him killed. Overman would sleep easier and so would I
if you did it by tomorrow night."
Lantrel grunted something, prodded the intercom button on his desk and
demanded in his high-pitched voice, "Will you please get me the habit
file on Mayor Spurgess?" He turned to McLeod. "Sunday night, eh? That
doesn't give us much time."
McLeod shrugged and watched a secretary bring in a bulging plastic file
envelope which Lantrel flipped through expertly. "Here we are. Subject
generally dines late Sunday night, reviews his Monday morning schedule,
smokes a pipe and plays with the TV set until he's convinced there's
nothing to interest him, then ... oh! here we are ... takes a walk
around twenty-two hundred hours, alone, without his wife."
"Sounds simple," McLeod said.
"An assassination-accident," Lantrel informed him with surprising
enthusiasm, "is never simple. Despite the statistical expectancy
of success, there are too many random factors you have to contend
with. If the weather's bad, perhaps subject won't take his evening
constitutional. Perhaps subject's wife will break the pattern with some
company for dinner. Subject might conceivably take a friend along with
him. You see what I'm driving at?"
McLeod nodded. "All I want to know is this: can you do the job Sunday
night?"
Lantrel scanned the file again. "Subject leaves his house at twenty-two
hundred, returns by twenty-two forty-five. That gives us forty-five
minutes. Probably, Darius."
"Good enough."
* * * * *
Lantrel slid a gunman form into his thinkwriter, hunched himself down
in his chair and watched the machine type. Presently the sheet of paper
slipped out the other side of the squat machine and McLeod read:
DATE: 14 Dec 2103
NAME: Darius John McLeod
ASSIGNMENT (CURRENT): City Desk
JOB NO.: 03-4-12
CLASSIFICATION: Top Priority
SUBJECT: Peter Winston Spurgess, Mayor, New York City
DATE OF EXECUTION (APPROX): 15 Dec 2103
METHOD: Vehicular, or other, accident
CODE: 4-12-DJM
APPROVED:
/s/Jack Lantrel
JACK LANTREL
GUNMAN EDITOR
THE UNDERSIGNED HEREBY CERTIFIES THAT JOB NO. 03-4-12, HEREAFTER
REFERRED TO AS 4-12-DJM, HAS BEEN ORDERED IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE
EXISTING REGULATIONS GOVERNING ASSASSINATION-ACCIDENTS, AND THAT
4-12-DJM HAS BEEN APPROVED, ORALLY OR IN WRITING, BY THE City Editor.
THE UNDERSIGNED IS COGNIZANT OF THE FACT THAT ANY FRAUD OR DECEIT IN
THIS APPLICATION, WHETHER FOR PERSONAL GAIN OR OTHERWISE, IS PUNISHABLE
BY SUMMARY REVOCATION OF HIS (HER) NEWSPAPER LICENSE.
DARIUS JOHN MCLEOD
It suddenly was no simple matter for McLeod to scrawl his name at the
bottom of the sheet. He was aware of Lantrel, a puzzled expression
on his face, watching him. It seemed entirely routine to affix his
signature, but quite suddenly he was aware of the machinery that would
put into operation. Gunmen would be selected for the job, would study
Mayor Spurgess' habit file, would agree with Lantrel on the _modus
operandi_. Within thirty-six hours, Mayor Spurgess would be dead.
Darius McLeod executioner?
Hardly. He was merely carrying out an assignment. Newspapers were
active agents in the modern world. If it had not been his assignment,
it would have been someone else's. You could hardly consider it
murder. Murder was punishable today as it had always been--by capital
punishment or a long prison term. A newspaperman was above reproach--or
imprisonment.
McLeod saw the parallel that he had first seen in Overman's office
yesterday. He was both executioner and victim. Even now as he was
signing the application for Mayor Spurgess' death, perhaps Weaver
Wainwright was signing one which read, SUBJECT: Darius John McLeod,
reporter, New York _Star-Times_. The _World_ Gunman Editor might now be
studying _his_ habit file, weighing the various factors to determine
what situation seemed most promising as a vessel for his "accidental"
death. Did the editor know that McLeod often spent weekends racing
across country or down to South America in his jet? It was there in
his habit file in all probability. Did he know that McLeod visited
the _Star-Times_ space station once every fortnight because he was
being groomed to cover the _Star-Times_ dash to the moon, if ever they
got the jump on the _World_ space station and could leave Earth's
gravitational field without the near certainty of being tracked and
shot down by a _World_ rocket? Did he know the thousand one little
habits which, combined in various predictable patterns, made up
McLeod's life? Unfortunately, the answer had to be in the affirmative.
It left McLeod feeling a little sick.
"What's the matter, Darius? Is something wrong?"
"Huh? No. Nothing." McLeod signed the application. "There you are."
"Fine," said Lantrel, placing the application in his out basket. "Call
me at home tomorrow afternoon, Darius. I'll give you the details so you
can cover the assignment. You know the number?"
McLeod said that he did and left. He wondered if Weaver Wainwright
would make a similar call. The worst part of it was that he didn't know
when.
* * * * *
When he reached his bachelor apartment in the East Seventies, the door
recorder told him that two visitors, one male and one female, were
waiting for him. McLeod felt the comforting bulk of his parabeam
in its arm holster and loosened it there. If they had entered his
apartment it was because their fingerprint patterns had been included
in the locking mechanism, but he couldn't take any chances. He opened
the door and sighed his relief.
"Morning, Darius," Harry Crippens greeted him cheerfully, bouncing up
from a web-chair and extending his hand. "Shake hands with a reporter
who just got a big, fat, unexpected raise."
McLeod lit a cigaret and said, "I'm very glad to hear that, Cripp. Did
Overman tell you?"
"Nope. First I knew of it, I read it in the paper. Take a look."
As McLeod took this morning's _Star-Times_ from Crippens, Tracy entered
the living room from the kitchen. "Coffee in a minute, Cripp," she
said. "Oh, Darius. We're making ourselves to home, as the expression
goes. Did you see that crazy thing in the paper?"
"I'm about to," said McLeod.
"Crazy!" Crippens cried in mock horror. "I get a raise right before we
get married and she says crazy."
"Well, it doesn't make sense."
McLeod turned to the Internal Affairs page of the _Star-Times_. With
the newspaper profession supplanting Hollywood fifty-odd years ago as
the world's most glamorous, articles on internal affairs had evolved
from small islands of type in a sea of advertisements to a place of
importance with their own daily page and special editor.
"Three column head," Crippens said proudly. "Liberal quotes from the
King himself. Maestro Overman."
"That's what I mean," Tracy repeated. "Crazy. Only yesterday, he was
chewing you out."
The article said that a new star was on the _Star-Times_ horizon,
and went on to discuss all the successful assignments Crippens had
handled. There was no mention of his wrongos which, McLeod knew, were
considerable. A two-column cut of Crippens at his thinkwriter was
included and the caption rendered a thumb-nail biography. The article
concluded by mentioning a raise in salary which gave Crippens more than
Tracy and almost what McLeod earned.
"That's great," McLeod said, finding it difficult to maintain his
enthusiasm. Damn Overman, he didn't miss a trick. Fattening the calf
for slaughter.
"Now the girl's got to marry me," Crippens declared. "I earn more
money than she does." He was flip, building effusively in the best
newspaperman fashion. He was not the serious, intent Crippens McLeod
had always known, although, on closer examination, McLeod realized that
the owlish eyes looked quite sober.
"Quit your kidding," McLeod told him. "Harry Crippens would probably
celebrate by discussing his next assignment, or making a study of the
moral factors involved. What's the matter?"
"Not a thing," Crippens assured him easily. "Here, have a drink. It's
your whisky."
"In the morning?" asked Tracy.
"This is a celebration, girl. There you go." And Crippens sloshed
liquor into three glasses. His hands were shaking.
"I said what's the matter?" McLeod ignored the drink.
Crippens didn't. "Not a thing. Not a single, solitary thing."
"Go ahead and talk to him," Tracy said.
"Don't mind her, Darius. Have another?" Crippens poured for himself.
"Darn it, Cripp. Even if it means making me feel better?"
"Darius wouldn't do a thing like that, that's all."
"Like what?" McLeod wanted to know.
"I have to hand it to you," Tracy told him. "I thought you'd do your
best to change the subject."
"Like nothing," Crippens said. "I mean it, don't mind her. She had some
silly idea.... I don't even want to talk about it."
"Darius," Tracy asked abruptly, "what have you decided to do about
Weaver Wainwright?"
"Please," said Crippens.
"I haven't made up my mind yet. I'm not going to let him kill me if I
can help it."
"Do tell. Does Cripp fit into the picture at all?"
McLeod hoped he could substitute evasion for outright lying. "Why don't
you ask Overman?"
"Because I'm asking you."
He didn't think Tracy would ask Overman. He didn't think Overman would
tell her the truth if she did. He saw she was waiting for an answer and
said, "If the answer to that question were yes, you wouldn't expect me
to tell you. If it were no, I ought to consider it an insult, coming
from friends."
"We never stood on ceremonies before, Darius."
"Tracy, for gosh sakes!" Crippens pleaded. "Darius is my friend."
"I'm still waiting for an answer."
McLeod walked to the door and opened it. Crippens opened his mouth to
speak, but changed his mind. He glared at Tracy.
"Get out of here," McLeod said. He was behaving like a child he
realized. But more than anything else, he needed time to think.
Tracy went through the doorway, staring straight ahead. McLeod wished
she would look at him, or holler, or slap him. She said, "All right,
Darius. If that's the way you want to play it."
McLeod heard them arguing in low tones as he shut the door behind them.
Just what do you do, he thought, when your whole world starts to blow
up all around you? You don't kick over the remaining traces. You try to
re-establish the familiar, comforting pattern in some small way.
McLeod called the mayor's residence and got through to Spurgess at
once. The flabby, thick-jowled face looked sickly white, like putty.
"McLeod, thank God. I thought you'd forgotten."
"Not on your life. I just wanted to tell you everything's going to be
fine. You won't have to resign your office for political corruption.
We'll see to that."
"Oh, thank you," said Mayor Spurgess. "Thank you very much."
"Sure," said McLeod, and cut the connection. Give or take a couple,
Mayor Spurgess had about thirty-six hours to live.
And McLeod?
* * * * *
Snow was falling in thick, slow flakes which melted on contact with
the ground when McLeod went outside after lunch. Since neither the
_Star-Times_ nor the _World_ was depending on the cold virus or
influenza for medical headlines this season, it was comparatively safe
venturing out in this weather.
This, McLeod thought, seeing it for the first time in a strange,
new light, was the city. Gray-white sky, overflowing snowflakes.
Slidewalks, covered for the winter, conducting crowds of bovinely
unaware people from place to place. Steel and glass and stone, soaring
skyward, disappearing in the feathery white snow which, up above, was
not feathery at all but a solid gray pall.
Did the cud-munching people know the truth about newspapers? McLeod
doubted it. The old name had remained--newspapers--but the function had
changed. We give them each day their daily cud. We don't report. We
motivate. You didn't find it anyplace. It wasn't written. It happened
and it was accepted. Maybe they did know. It might make a good book, if
people ever went back to reading books again. Not yellow journalism,
but ROY G. BIV journalism, for all the colors in the rainbow. Concepts
had changed. How? After the Third World War? The Fourth? People wanted
to believe what they read. Each individual existence was precarious,
cliff-edged, ready to fall or scramble back to safety. People believed.
Almost, it was as if they had forgotten their Western Christian
heritage, in which they moved through time from past to future, active
agents in a static environment. Now they embodied the old Greek idea.
People didn't flow. Time did. They stood backwards in the river of
time, with the future flowing up, unseen, behind them, becoming the
present, flowing on and becoming the past which lay, decipherable,
before their eyes. Only newspapermen had eyes in the back of their
heads.
Look out, cancer's coming. I read it in the _World_. (The _World_
Medical Corps sows the seed, and the incidence of cancer increases.)
Good newspaper, the _World_. Always lets you know what's coming. I see
where the _Star-Times_ says the cancer rate is dropping. Hope they're
right. (Newspaper Medical Corps battle mightily, offstage, and the
_Star-Times_ wins. Temporarily, no more cancer.) What do you know, the
_Star-Times_ was right.
_Star-Times_ says we ought to have a spaceship on the moon soon.
Thrilling, isn't it (_Star-Times_ astronauts prepare to launch a
two-stage rocket from their space station, but _World_ astronauts
intercept it with a guided missile and destroy it.) Well, looks like
the _World_ was right. Space travel soon, but not yet.
Senator Blundy's daughter was attacked on the campus of that
there college up-state, what's its name? You read about it in the
_Star-Times_? You know, it's not so bad, being small time, I always
say. Things like that only happen to important people. Yes sir, we're
lucky.
_World_ says it's a Brinks, one of those unsolved robberies. Three
million dollars from the Bank of New York! (But _Star-Times_ detectives
go to work and find--or sometimes frame--the criminal.) Hey, it's not a
Brinks anymore. Maybe I ought to read the _Star-Times_ more often.
That Weaver Wainwright earns six hundred thousand dollars a year, but
my kid wants to be a politician. Some kids you just can't figure.
McLeod wandered into a bar and got himself mellowed, then found another
and repeated the process. When he returned to the street and made his
way to the slidewalk, the snow had finally begun to stick. Someone
in the bar had recognized him and asked for an autograph. It hadn't
stirred him at all. Was he maturing or turning sour?
Returning home as dusk descended on the city and street lights gleamed
on three inches of snow, McLeod learned from his door recorder that he
had one female visitor. That would be Tracy, he thought, and prepared
himself for more unpleasantness. Why couldn't they leave him alone?
"Come in, Darius. Shut the door." He did both, turned, and saw Tracy
pointing a parabeam at him. His hand fumbled with the trick sleeve of
his jacket, but the storm-coat got in his way. Tracy's parabeam zipped
audibly and McLeod turned to stone.
CHAPTER IV
"I'll unfreeze your head so you can talk. You realize I ought to kill
you."
His head tingled and he found that he could open his mouth, blink his
eyes and twitch his nose. He couldn't turn his neck. From the chin down
he was helplessly immobile. He was a disembodied brain with a face. He
wished he were sober.
"Cripp still doesn't believe me," Tracy said. "He insisted I come back
alone and apologize. So I came back."
"But not to apologize."
"To get some information, Darius. I could be wrong. I don't think I am."
"Out at the Fourth Estate yesterday, you knew what kind of proposition
Wainwright had made me," McLeod said, stalling for time while he tried
to summon a logical defense. His mind was almost a blank.
"Sometimes I talk too much. Yes, I knew. Never mind how. I'm doing
the questioning, and I want answers. When I read about Cripp in the
Internal Affairs section, I put two and two together. Wainwright's
assignment had been vague, so I guessed you and Overman had decided
some substitution might be in order."
McLeod was silent.
"I advise you to talk, Darius. If I killed you now, it would be a bit
ahead of schedule, but I think that would still satisfy Wainwright.
Don't you?"
"You're bluffing," McLeod said--and hoped. "You couldn't possibly be on
assignment to kill me. So you'd be subject to the same laws which face
the general public for murder."
"All right. Maybe I won't kill you. But you feel no pain under a
parabeam, Darius. Remember that. I could start burning your hand with
my lighter and work up to your elbow and you wouldn't even know--until
I unfroze you."
"You wouldn't," McLeod said. "Maybe we don't see eye to eye now, but
we're friends."
Tracy began nibbling at her lip. Her eyes were big and watery, as if
she'd been fighting back tears. "Sure--I liked you. Maybe I still do.
I don't know. I'm all mixed up. You know me, Darius. I'm liable to do
anything--anything ... when I'm all mixed up like this. I don't want
to hurt you, not if I can help it. I like you, Darius. We've had fun
together. Great times."
"That's better." McLeod's confidence was returning. He'd be out of
freeze in no time now. "Just unfreeze me, and we can talk about this
like two sensible people."
"I like you, but I'm in love with Cripp." Tracy removed her lighter
from a pocket of her blouse with trembling fingers. She lit a cigarette
and didn't extinguish the flame. She came closer to McLeod.
"Cut it out," he said. He felt sweat rolling down his forehead from
his hairline and making his eyes blink. Parabeaming did peculiar,
unpredictable things to the metabolism. The room seemed furnace-hot.
"Then answer my question."
There was no sense being maimed, McLeod finally decided. Tracy knew the
truth anyway. She just wanted to hear him say it. But now she brought a
tiny mini-recorder into view from where it had been resting on a table
and flipped the switch to on.
"What's that for?"
"Cripp. I want him to know. I want him to be able to protect himself
from you. We're recording now, Darius. Answer this question: do you
and Overman plan to use Cripp as a substitute corpse to satisfy Weaver
Wainwright and the _World_? Is that why Cripp got his raise and all
that unexpected publicity?"
McLeod licked his lips and tried to look down as Tracy's hand
disappeared from view with the lighter. He saw no smoke but imagined
his flesh beginning to crisp.
"Answer me. Did you and Overman plan to kill Cripp and give Wainwright
his story that way?"
McLeod read nothing in her eyes, not even hatred. He said, "Yes. That's
right."
Tracy shut off the mini-recorder, pocketed her lighter. She reversed
the parabeam and McLeod felt his limbs begin to tingle with minute
sparks of pain.
"Don't try anything," Tracy said. "I'm still pointing this at you." Her
voice caught. She tried to speak again but sobbed.
McLeod brought his arm up slowly and examined it. No damage.
"I--I guess you know I couldn't do it, Darius. I couldn't hurt you. But
I don't want you to hurt Cripp. I want to give Cripp a fair chance.
Have you signed an application for his death yet?"
"No."
"Will you?"
They were friends again. McLeod couldn't sense it. Friends who might
try to hurt each other, of necessity, but friends. "I don't know," he
said.
"Give him a break, Darius. There must be another way out. I could tell
you things, if I could only trust you...."
McLeod laughed easily, massaging his forearms. "Better not," he said.
"Better get out of here."
"Maybe someday."
"Maybe. Thanks for telling me you couldn't do it. That's good to know."
He shouldn't have said that. He was acting compulsively, striking back
blindly.
The color left Tracy's face. "That was only because you haven't
actually threatened Cripp yet. Don't rely on it, though."
She was striking back, too. He staggered to the door and watched her
go. Crippens had himself a good woman there, the lucky s. o. b. Maybe
that was why he hadn't rejected the idea of killing Crippens, McLeod
thought.
* * * * *
Sleeping that night, after a dinner which felt like slag inside him,
McLeod dreamed he had just signed an application for his own demise on
the steps of City Hall while bands played and people cheered. Mayor
Spurgess was there with a television camera and kept on pleading for
McLeod not to renege, but Tracy clung to the mayor's arm and tried to
lure him away to a co-respondent rendezvous. Weaver Wainwright and
Overman lurked on the fringe of the crowd, both pointing at McLeod and
laughing. Harry Crippens was the gunman.
When McLeod awoke, a gray dawn was seeping in through the windows. He
showered and downed some bicarbonate of soda in water, but still felt
like hell. A mantle of snow covered the silent streets outside and more
snow was falling. Even the meteorologist's job wasn't guesswork now,
McLeod thought wryly. Predicting snow, the _Star-Times_ had sowed the
clouds for it.
It was suddenly very important for Mayor Spurgess not to die.
Early in the afternoon, McLeod called Jack Lantrel at home, but a
pert-faced girl smiled at him from the screen. "I'm sorry, Mr. Lantrel
is not at home. Is there a message?"
"It's important that I reach him," McLeod said.
"Mr. Lantrel is out. He left no number. What is it in reference to?"
"4-12-DJM," McLeod said, and waited while the receptionist disappeared
from view.
"You're Mr. McLeod, aren't you?"
"That's right."
"You don't have to worry about 4-12-DJM, sir. Everything will be taken
care of."
"There's been a change of plans. I want the gunmen called off."
The professional smile was replaced by a frown. "Only Mr. Lantrel can
do that."
"That's why I want to reach him. I told you it was important."
"But I don't know when he'll be back. Confidentially, sir, Mr. Lantrel
just hates snow. When he read in the paper it was going to snow, he
said he was leaving town. I'm sorry."
McLeod asked if she knew where Lantrel usually went.
"That's hard to say. He likes to forget about business, you see. He's
down south," she added brightly. "Someplace down south. Is there any
message?"
"Yes," McLeod said. "I'll be home all day. If Mr. Lantrel calls, have
him contact me at once."
But as the afternoon dragged on, McLeod thought it unlikely that the
Gunman Chief would receive his message. He had reached the unexpected
decision about Mayor Spurgess quite suddenly and now found it almost
beyond analysis. He neither liked the mayor nor disliked him. It was
not the man who must live, but the symbol.
Symbol? Of what?
McLeod found the idea mildly ridiculous, almost as if he were drumming
up trade for the Anti-Newspaper League, self-proselytizing. It wasn't
that for the first time in his life, he told himself, he found an
intrinsic evil in the newspaper business. It was simply that the system
had hit home for the first time, unexpectedly. He had set the machinery
in motion for Mayor Spurgess' death; Weaver Wainwright had done the
same for him; Overman had decided the _Star-Times_ could not afford to
lose his services but could manage without Harry Crippens.
There was no logical connection. If Mayor Spurgess died,
that was that. Flowers and a sad song for the widow. But the
Wainwright-McLeod-Overman-Crippens problem still remained unsolved. Not
to mention Tracy Kent.
Had he become anti-newspaper? The term almost defied definition. The
Anti-Newspaper League was one thing, formal, organized, purposeful.
But anti-newspaper could mean a lot of things. It could mean slight
deviation, non-conformity, the simple desire to earn your keep in some
other line. Such a desire was never realized, however. There were only
three classes of newspapermen: working reporters, corpses and retired
hounds and hens who lived on newspaper farms in old-folk luxury. A
newspaperman simply knew too much to be allowed to change his line of
work.
No, there was a fourth type. There was the Anti-Newspaper League. What
was the old word--Quisling? It referred to politics or some other
fields of endeavor, McLeod thought. He wasn't sure what. They were on
newspaper payrolls but tried to gum up the works.
Logic was getting him nowhere. He belonged to no cut-and-dry category.
He wanted Mayor Spurgess to live.
Lantrel failed to call by dinner-time or afterwards. At twenty-hundred
thirty, McLeod zipped on an insulined jumper, checked his parabeam and
went out into the _Star-Times_ snow.
CHAPTER V
Hidden heat-coils melted the snow which managed to drift over the
slidewalks despite their protective canopies, but the streets were
covered with snow now more than a foot deep. McLeod felt it crunch
underfoot as he left the slidewalks and headed for the mayor's house.
His breath exhaled in quick vapor-puffs against the cold, brittle air.
His feet were heavy in the snow but dry. His were the only set of
footsteps marring the white blanket which covered everything.
It occurred to him all at once that Mayor Spurgess would likely forego
his evening walk because of the weather. Which necessitated another
type of accident. Lantrel's men were both experienced and imaginative.
You could write a book categorizing all the possibilities....
Wind whipped around corners and sprayed McLeod's face with snowflakes.
He heard a voice calling far off in the fuzzy white dimness, but
soon it was gone. Finally, he reached the mayor's house--a red-brick,
white-columned Georgian structure massive and secure on a large corner
lot. He crouched behind a leafless privet hedgerow in the driveway and
waited, peering up occasionally at the cheery yellow squares of light
that were the second story windows. His ear-crono whispered the time to
him: twenty-two hundred hours.
The tell-tale footsteps he had left in the snow were fast disappearing
as the flakes fell thicker. He slid his parabeam out through the
jumper's trick sleeve and felt the cold knife momentarily into his
bare arm. The feeling of warm security, so paradoxical under the
circumstances, left him. If he foiled Lantrel's gunmen, Overman would
learn of it. If he didn't foil them but tried--which seemed more
likely--Overman would also hear.
Just what was he doing here, anyway?
He flexed his stiff muscles and was on the point of standing up when he
saw three figures approaching down the street, vague as ghosts in the
snow. There was still time. He could intercept them and say he had come
to cover the story, something which was expected of him. He wondered
what sort of accident they had planned.
He jogged toward them through the snow, met them still half a block
from Spurgess' house. Two were young, possibly still in training. They
were tall and looked like soldiers in their slick jumpers. They stared
at him arrogantly. The third was shorter, heavier, of calculating eye.
The expression of the first two faces said: _we're gunmen--whatever
you are, we're better_. The third face said: _we'd as soon kill you as
spit, but we don't kill except for hire or when provoked in the line of
duty_.
"I'm from the paper," McLeod told them, whispering. "Here to cover the
story."
The three faces stared back at him through the snow, crystalizing what
he had felt all day but had not been able to explain. Those faces.
They had nothing against Mayor Spurgess. Perhaps they had never even
seen him. If they didn't like him and had a reason and wanted to kill
him, that wouldn't be so bad. That would be fine. But they were here to
kill him because McLeod had signed the application along with Lantrel.
They wanted to do the job and get back to warmer places and hot
buttered rum or whatever they liked.
"He come out yet?" the older gunman asked.
"I don't think he will, not in this weather. What other plans have you
got?"
"We'll just wait and see. We don't have to make the plans."
Had they been able to read McLeod's face as readily as he had read
theirs? "I don't understand," he said. "You'll have to think of
something else if he doesn't take his walk, won't you?"
"You say you were from the paper, guy?"
"Of course."
"Well, you're not making sense."
* * * * *
McLeod toyed with his parabeam, then watched as matching weapons leaped
into the hands of the two younger gunmen.
"What paper, guy?" the older one drawled.
McLeod felt his heart flutter wildly and checked a strong impulse to
laugh.
One of the young gunmen said, "I thought the big boy himself was
covering this. Wainwright. I know what he looks like."
"Come on, guy. What paper?"
McLeod knew the mistake could be fatal. Somehow the _World_ had learned
what the _Star-Times_ had planned for Mayor Spurgess. These men were
_World_ gunmen, come to thwart Lantrel's men. Perhaps they could, but
McLeod might die in the process.
"Listen," he said desperately. "The other day, Weaver Wainwright made
me a proposition."
"Who _are_ you?"
"Darius McLeod. Hold on, damn it! If you freeze me now, you'll be
making a mistake. Wainwright wanted me to work for the _World_. That's
why I'm here, don't you understand? I can tell you exactly what the
_Star-Times_ is going to do."
"We already know, McLeod. You're skating where the signs say not to,
guy. I guess you know that."
"Won't Wainwright be here? Ask him."
"Don't know if he will or not."
One of the younger gunmen had circled around behind McLeod. The other
one stood facing him, pointing the parabeam at his chest. The older man
seemed to be enjoying himself.
"I don't want Spurgess killed," McLeod said. "That's the truth. I came
here to prevent it myself."
"Can you tell me why?"
"No--yes. Because I want to accept Wainwright's proposition. The
_World_ said I was going to die. Wainwright offered me life."
"We know that you're going to die."
McLeod sucked in his breath. This same wholesome trio had probably
received the application for his own death, had probably studied his
habit file. "Not before next week," McLeod said.
"Now, I don't know. It's a gift horse, guy. They won't hold up our
checks for a couple of hours either way."
"No, but you'll spend the rest of your life as a gunman if you cross
Wainwright."
The voice behind McLeod's back seemed bodiless and as cold as the
falling snow. "What's wrong with that?"
"You wouldn't understand," McLeod said without turning. "He would."
He would win his life the moment he won over the shorter man. His two
companions did not matter. "Look. The Gunman Editor on the _World_ is
near retirement, isn't he? You look like you've been around, but you
won't be considered for the job if Wainwright bears a grudge."
"He's pretty smooth," the young gunman with the parabeam said.
"Why do you think I'm here at all?" McLeod insisted. "I didn't know you
were coming. I came to prevent this thing myself."
* * * * *
The man behind McLeod muttered a curse and said, "You came here for
the same reason you always go out on an assignment. To get the story."
But the older man said, "Have you any proof?"
"Only Wainwright. Ask him when he gets here."
"_If_ he decides to come," said the man with the parabeam.
"And if he doesn't?" McLeod demanded. "Are you going to take a chance
and--"
"It wouldn't be taking a chance at all," the older man told McLeod. "We
could freeze you and box you and ask Wainwright about it later."
"You fool! I haven't told Wainwright one way or the other yet."
"Then we could unfreeze you and let him decide. Go ahead, George."
McLeod could never hope to freeze all three of them before they
froze him. Their actions were cut from the same Kantian categorical
imperative he had expected of himself and all newspapermen--until
today. He felt sorry for himself because it no longer applied, but that
hardly helped.
"Someone's coming," the voice behind McLeod said. He started to turn
and got three quarters of the way around when the parabeam hit him.
After that, it was almost like watching a melodrama on television. He
could watch the action unfold. His sympathies might be directed first
one way, then another, but he had no part in the play. He was a statue,
standing upright as the snow drifted down and coated him with white.
His body-heat didn't escape the insulined jumper to melt it and in a
few moments he was an incredibly manlike snowman with a human face. The
last thing he wanted to do was stand there, frozen, and watch.
He stood and watched.
Half a dozen figures were clustered close by the white columns at the
front of Mayor Spurgess' house. Then, as if they were puppets and all
their strings had been pulled at once, they darted behind the columns.
The _World_ gunmen were caught in the open and knew it. Parabeams
hissed as they fell toward the ground and the snow's protection. Only
the shorter, heavier man tried to get up, waddling three or four yards
on his knees before a parabeam caught him too and froze him.
Two figures detached themselves from the white columns and ran across
the snow toward McLeod, parabeams ready.
"Hey, he looks familiar."
"That's Darius McLeod, stupid. Familiar, the man says. They probably
caught him and froze him."
A beam sucked the sleep from McLeod's limbs and he was soon massaging
his arms together. After two freezes in as many evenings, he'd really
have a parabeam hangover in the morning.
"What about those three people, Mr. McLeod?" the man who had unfroze
him asked.
"A natural," the other one said. "Here's our accident. Assault and
robbery and accidental death. We even have the assailants. Strip these
people of their _World_ identification. I'll be right back--with the
mayor."
* * * * *
Newshounds might trick and maim and kill one another, McLeod knew, but
never frame other newspapermen for civil crime. You had to keep the
public happy with all newspaper people. The police, of course, never
investigated very thoroughly these days, since that would be poaching
on newspaper territory. They handled traffic very well, though.
There was a commotion in front of the mayor's house, where only one
of the gunmen was visible. Presently the door opened. There was loud
talking, much pointing. The gunman's voice was pleading, the mayor's
was indignant. Finally, the mayor ducked inside and McLeod hoped he
would stay there. Soon he emerged, however, dressed in a jumper. He ran
along at the heels of the gunman and neared McLeod just as the other
man had finished removing identification cards from the three still
figures.
"McLeod, is that you? I knew I could depend on you. You have no idea
how much better I'm able to relax now. No, sir. If you said I don't
have to worry, I don't have to. What's going on out here? He said you
wanted to see me but couldn't move from the spot. Something I can do?
What's wrong with them?"
There were not three figures in the snow, but four. "Take a look," the
man with Mayor Spurgess said.
The mayor waited for McLeod to answer him, then shrugged and crouched.
It was exactly as if he were still under the parabeam, McLeod realized.
There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do.
The _Star-Times_ gunmen had sized up the situation too well. The three
men from the _World_ were as good as dead now, which would make it
close to impossible for McLeod to turn on the _Star-Times_ and expect
help from Wainwright, even if that were what he wanted. He had better
play along. It was still a show on television and he could only watch.
But now he knew the outcome.
The fourth still figure on the snow suddenly erupted into violent
motion. A leg snaked out, an arm--the mayor grunted and fell, staring
mutely at McLeod, surprised, offended and outrageously indignant the
moment before he died. A knife flashed quickly, expertly, gleaming for
a split second before it disappeared through the mayor's jumper.
The standing gunman twirled his parabeam to full intensity and sprayed
the _World_ men with what was now lethal radiation, halting involuntary
actions such as blinking--and breathing.
The gunman smiled at McLeod. "Well, you have your story now. We'd
better get out of here while you phone for the police."
McLeod had his story, all right. He felt sick. He would call the police
and then go write his story about how Mayor Spurgess had chased three
unidentified vandals from his house, only to be stabbed to death while
protecting his family. McLeod who was visiting the mayor on business,
had naturally joined in the chase, in time to overtake and kill the
unidentified vandals but not in time to save His Honor's life.
The police investigation, if any, would fail to uncover anything.
"Thanks a lot," McLeod said.
"Don't mention it." The two gunmen ran to join their companions and
soon disappeared through the snow.
In tomorrow's _Star-Times_, McLeod would be a hero.
CHAPTER VI
"Enough snow for you?" Overman asked jovially as McLeod removed his
jumper the next morning in his office at the _Star-Times_. "We're ready
to stop it now because the _World_ weather bureau finally owned up to
its red face. Thirty-two inches."
McLeod nodded. He'd had trouble reaching the slidewalk through the
drifts and more trouble struggling through the few yards of high-piled
snow to the _Star-Times_ building.
"Rewrite showed me the story you sent in last night, Darius. Wonderful.
Someone over at the _World_ must be biting his fingernails. They've got
to be ready for split second changes in the newspaper business, though.
If they don't, they're lost."
"What's that little bit of homely philosophy leading up to?" McLeod
wanted to know. Overman rarely made his point without prefacing it with
some mundane generalization. The more important the point, McLeod knew
from experience, the triter the generalization.
"We've done a little G-2'ing these last few weeks, Darius." Overman
seemed almost on the point of prancing nervously like an anxious
racehorse at the starting gate. "I couldn't tell you until it was
certain. Harry Crippens is a member of the Anti-Newspaper League."
Overman grinned like a yawning owl. "Close your mouth, Darius. Stop
gaping. It's the truth."
"But that doesn't make sense, chief." McLeod figured it made very good
sense if Overman said so, but he needed time to collect his thoughts.
"Dirty doings at the _Star-Times_," preached Overman. "It's
frightening, isn't it? If you can't trust your fellow reporters, just
who in the world can you trust? You see, it's not merely Crippens.
There's an Anti-News cell here.
"They usually work in pairs, Darius. One to get the information,
another to see that editorial policy is not carried out. Don't ask
me why they do it. Mis-guided anarchistic tendencies, I suppose. The
first member of the pair very often poses as a turncoat with some
other newspaper."
"I don't get you."
"It's simple. That way, he can play two papers against each other
and try to make them both wrong. In this case, _she_ can. You see,
Crippens' confederate is our number one co-respondent, Tracy Kent,"
Overman finished melodramatically.
"Tracy! That's incredible." _Don't think_, McLeod told himself. _Don't
think and let it show on your face. Just listen._
"At this moment, the _World_ believes Kent is on their payroll.
Kent keeps them informed of what's going on over here and draws two
salaries. Crippens is her executioner. Crippens, for example, sees to
it that Congressman Horner doesn't commit suicide."
* * * * *
Tracy had put two and two together with a blithe ease which had left
McLeod wondering. Tracy had seemed to be aware of the alternative
which Weaver Wainwright had offered him at the Fourth Estate. But
Tracy hadn't balked because she was a loyal member of the _Star-Times_
staff. She should have favored the plan, anyway, since it meant saving
Crippens' life. But she hadn't favored it at all.
Because she'd held out hope for McLeod?
"How did you find all that out?" McLeod demanded.
"We suspected someone. We didn't know who. We planted television
receivers and let them talk. Darius, I think you know my position.
I'm a newspaperman because I think the public is so muddle-headed and
mediocre it can't make its own decisions. Democratic governments try
to make those decisions and fail because the people play too large a
role and mess things up. Totalitarian governments fail because they're
too obvious, especially when the guy next door happens to live in a
democracy.
"The answer is the obvious evolution of the newspaper to policy-making
journalism. People don't associate us with policy-making any more than
they think short story writers or television script writers develop
schools of psychology. We're both before the fact and after the fact,
but they wouldn't believe that if we ran it in banner headlines.
"That's what the Anti-Newspaper League is after. They don't want us to
look forward. They don't want us to predict the future and then make it
happen. They make inane pronouncements about the essential dignity of
man and the necessity for him to work out his own destiny. They sneer
at Ortega y Gasset and deify Tom Paine. They shun authoritarianism in
any form and blandly forget that Mr. Average Citizen has always yearned
for his little niche in a totalitarian system because he actually wants
decisions rained down on him like manna.
"I hate them, Darius. It isn't logical, but I hate them. Between you
and me, I would like to strangle them with my bare hands, slowly,
forgetting I am a civilized man, forgetting even that we can still use
them. But the opportunity is a magnificent one. You could spend all
your life G-2'ing after Anti-News people and come up with nothing but
wrongos. From now on they'll be playing their little game where I can
watch it."
"What about my obituary?" McLeod demanded. "It's the first of the week.
I thought you said we were going to substitute Crippens for me."
"I did. I still do. Cripp we will have to sacrifice. But--I apologize
in advance, Darius, because I know you won't like this--our G-2'ing was
thorough. We received in your apartment, too."
"Don't tell me you can't trust me?"
"Calm down. That's just it, I can. The cell is spread thin at the
_Star-Times_, so thin that we'll have to watch our step until it's
uncovered. You see, Darius, you are going to take Crippens' place
in it. When Cripp dies Tracy will turn to someone for sympathy. If
it looks like you tried to save Cripp because you believed as he
did--well, I'm sure you see the possibilities."
* * * * *
McLeod nodded vaguely. Anti-News. He was playing the game, almost, the
way he felt. But he lacked the name. It was strange how you could amble
cheerfully through life accepting or ignoring certain things until
you woke up one morning and everything looked different. Whoever had
decided leopards don't change their spots was all wet.
"... sorry if this sounds cloak-and-daggerish," Overman was saying,
"but don't tell anyone. I can trust you. If the conspiracy is as big
as I think, the good people at the _World_, the sensible ones, can
probably trust a man like Weaver Wainwright. The rest must be suspect."
McLeod grinned. "Why trust me, chief?" he said easily, "I've never been
a bug for ideology either way."
"That's precisely why. Newspapering is a job with you, but a good one.
You're our highest-paid reporter. You have a reputation to maintain. A
man gets muddle-headed if he starts delving too deeply into ideologies.
He's afraid to see black-and-white because the other muddle-heads
insist there are such things as grays. You follow?"
"Yeah," said McLeod. He followed, all right. It was all right if you
thought for yourself, according to Overman, provided you didn't think
too hard. You could attend all the high-brow confabs you wanted, safe
in the security of your tailor-made answers. Never doubt. Never guess.
You know. You just know. This is so and this is not so and there's
never any in-between. The insistence on shadings of opinion between
truth and error was a stumbling-block in the path of knowledge. Gray
was for people who didn't know the truth about black-and-white.
"Yes, I can trust you. Thank God for that."
"I ought to get a raise," said McLeod, smiling and playing the role
Overman had selected for him.
"Very funny. You ought to get a move on. We still have to worry about
Wainwright and his men. There's no telling when they'll strike."
"So I have to strike first, at Crippens."
"Naturally. Have you filled out an application on him?"
"No," McLeod said easily, and raised a hand for silence when Overman
was about to start yelling. "It's too important. I want to do the job
myself. It's my life we're playing around with."
"I don't know if I approve. There's something to be said for
professional efficiency. The gunmen know their work."
"I don't care if you approve or not. It's my life."
"You see, Darius. That's what I like about you. You always know where
you stand."
"Thanks. I'll need some security, though."
"Now I don't follow you."
"Some bargaining power. In case I'm not as efficient as your gunmen.
The proof that Tracy Kent and Harry Crippens are Anti-Newspaper."
"It's safe."
"I've got to know more about it."
"On the contrary. Simply carry this weapon with you: if there's
trouble, have them contact me. Or contact me yourself. But that would
ruin everything, Darius. I suppose if you have to bargain for your
life, you wouldn't care."
"That's right. I wouldn't."
Overman chuckled. "You're a good man."
"And one who knows black from white, remember? Let's be honest with
each other, chief. You're lying to me. You really figure if I fail, I
fail. You wouldn't be willing to bargain in my behalf with what you
have, and you know it. If I can kill Crippens and give Wainwright his
substitute story and win Miss Kent's confidence, you'd love it. If I
can't, you'll try to find another way. Sure, you think I'm good. But
you know I'm expendable."
Overman thumped him soundly on the back. "Darius, we should have been
brothers. Is there anything else?"
"Yes. How long would you want me to play this Anti-News game?"
"Until we get all the facts."
"Too dangerous," said McLeod. "Unless you make it worth my while."
Overman hadn't stopped grinning. "Maybe you will get a raise, at that."
"Not maybe. Definitely. Twenty per cent."
"Twenty?"
"Twenty."
"All right, Darius. Twenty it is. You'd sell your mother, wouldn't you?"
"Don't have to worry about it. The Anti-Newspaper League hasn't that
kind of money. You're safe."
"I knew it," Overman said. "I couldn't have picked a better man."
"I'll keep you informed," said McLeod, and put on his jumper. He walked
out congratulating himself on the way he'd convinced Overman.
Only trouble was, he now knew there was more than black-and-white in
the world but wasn't sure he knew what to do about it.
CHAPTER VII
"I'm sorry," the recorder said when McLeod called Tracy's apartment.
"Miss Kent is not at home. Is there any message?"
"No," said McLeod, then lied: "This is Harry Crippens talking."
"Miss Kent left a message for you, Mr. Crippens," said the recorder.
"She will wait for you at the Fourth Estate. She says it is important."
"Thank you," said McLeod. "If Miss Kent should check in, will you tell
her Darius wants to save Cripp's life if he can? Will you tell her
Darius has come to his senses?"
"Darius wants to save Cripp's life if he can. Darius has come to his
senses. Yes, sir."
McLeod had left the _Star-Times_ after a hurried lunch in the newspaper
cafeteria. He'd placed the call to Tracy's apartment from his own
because the wires might or might not be tapped in his office.
Suddenly he began cursing silently.
Overman had rigged receivers in various apartments--including
Darius'--to uncover the Anti-News cell. If Overman had heard his
conversation with Tracy's recorder, Weaver Wainwright wouldn't be the
only one gunning for McLeod.
He found the receiver rigged to his TV set, unhooked it, but the damage
had been done. He doubted that Overman would constantly monitor the
set, yet Overman would see the damning evidence eventually. McLeod
could save Cripp's life by simply not killing him, but then what? He
smiled grimly. It posed a considerable problem for Overman too, for the
City Editor wanted to dump a fat wrongo in the _World's_ lap but
now would also want to see McLeod dead. One seemed to preclude the
other ... unless Overman decided to give McLeod a week of grace, then
kill him. McLeod was still smiling. Perhaps the situation confronting
the fictional lady-or-tiger man had been more aggravating, but it was
less deadly.
McLeod taped a second parabeam to his right arm and took the escalator
to the roof and his copter.
* * * * *
"Hi," the weaponcheck girl greeted him as he entered the Fourth Estate.
"How are you today, Mr. McLeod?"
"Never better." As she approached him, McLeod removed the first
parabeam from his trick sleeve and handed it to her. "I'm ticklish
today," he told her and saw that she was about to say something until
she noticed the folded bill wedged between trigger and trigger guard.
She nodded, patted his shoulders quickly without searching, and wagged
away. It happened all the time, McLeod knew. He wouldn't be the only
one.
"You hurry up inside," the weaponcheck girl called over her bare
shoulder. "They're doing a combo-tease."
As McLeod made his way through the darkened room, he saw a well-built
man and a delightfully built women performing the combo-tease on stage.
Sweat glistened on their sleek dark skins as red lights shifted and
flowed across the stage. It was more suggestive than French pictures,
combining features of an Apache dance and a conventional strip. It had
been outlawed everywhere but at the Fourth Estate and had everyone's
rapt attention.
Everyone except Cripp and Tracy. McLeod found them in a distant corner
of the great room, hunched toward each other across a small table and
talking in low tones.
"Mind?" McLeod asked.
"You have your nerve," Tracy hissed at him, but people to left and
right were muttering angrily at them as the combo-tease neared its
conclusion. "Well, I guess you're harmless enough in here."
"Sit down," Cripp said.
"Overman knows about you two," McLeod told them quickly. "The works."
"You mean that we're going to get married?" Tracy demanded. "It's no
secret."
"I mean that you belong to the Anti-Newspaper League. Tracy, you're
pretending to spy on us for the _World_, he knows that, Cripp, you
thwart bad news when you can. You both belong to the Anti-Newspaper
League. To Overman, you're both anarchistic. He'd like to see you dead."
The woman on stage had seemed spent but now rallied and held her own as
they danced a frenzied Apache battle from wing to wing. Tracy, who was
facing the stage, said, "That's positively lewd. We've all degenerated
so much, Cripp."
McLeod shrugged. "Overman would say that's part of your Anti-News
tendencies."
"And you?"
McLeod grinned. "I'm not much for spectator sports."
"No, I mean about the Anti-Newspaper League. I'm not admitting
anything, but I just wonder what you think."
"You wouldn't believe me."
"Why don't you try us, Darius?" Cripp suggested.
"You don't have to admit anything," McLeod informed them. "Overman
plugged a receiver into your TV sets and monitored them. Mine too, by
the way. I called you a while ago. Which put me in hot water too."
"You mean he'll monitor the call?" asked Cripp.
"Maybe he already has. You can check with your recorder if you want to,
Tracy."
"Tell me what you told the recorder?"
"That I was going to try and save Cripp's life. That I had finally come
to my senses, I guess."
"All you have to do to save Cripp's life is nothing. I was told by
someone on Lantrel's staff that you hadn't applied for Cripp's death."
"Another part of the cell," McLeod mused. "Just how extensive is it?"
"I wouldn't know," Tracy told him coolly. "Anyway, you said Overman
knows."
"He does. I don't."
* * * * *
The Apache strippers had leaped from the stage and now were cavorting
acrobatically about the dance floor. A single red spot followed them
as they pounced after each other, working their way toward the rows of
tables and then among them. McLeod heard quick, eager breathing in the
shadowy audience.
"I never knew they came off the stage," Tracy said.
McLeod winked at her. "Maybe one of these days they'll want audience
participation."
"Very funny. If you're telling us the truth, Darius, what are you going
to do?"
"You tell me. Overman wanted me to kill Cripp, win your confidence and
take Cripp's place in the cell. I had to make it look like it wasn't
me who did the job. But if Overman monitored my TV, he'll realize I'm
not his boy. He'll have to do without an informant. He knows I'm wise
to him but probably doesn't want to know. Which means he'll have to act
fast."
"But if he eliminates you, Wainwright and the _World_ get their
scoop," Cripp pointed out.
"I know, I can't figure it. Overman's got a man-sized problem, but so
have you. I don't think you have much time to leave the city. Get lost
somewhere. Change your names. Anything."
Tracy bristled. "We haven't admitted a thing."
"There's no time for that. Please, Tracy," Cripp pleaded. "I think
Darius is on our side. We're making a mistake if we reject him."
"Unless I'm wrong," McLeod said, "Overman hasn't told anyone but me. He
just doesn't know who to trust."
"So he settles for Mr. Judas Iscariot himself," Tracy said.
Cripp slammed his hand down on the table and drew angry oaths from the
tables around them. "Cut it out," he said. "Let's listen to Darius. Can
you think of anything else to do?"
"Well--"
"If I'm the only one he told," McLeod went on, "and then if he found
out about me and decided to come here in a hurry, we can hope he hasn't
told anyone else. Chances are, he hasn't. If he found out he can't even
trust me, he won't know which way to turn, not until he clears this
whole mess up."
"What are you driving at?" Tracy asked him.
"Reporter, City Editor. It's close enough. Maybe Wainwright can still
get his story."
"You mean Overman? You wouldn't dare."
"It isn't just Cripp's life, or even yours, if you still have your mind
made up about me. It's my life too. If we can make Wainwright settle
for Overman, all this doesn't have to go any further."
"What's your price?" Tracy demanded.
"For Heaven's sake!" Cripp cried.
"I can't blame her, Cripp. I was pretty nasty about it before, and I
tried to be pretty tricky as well. I'm still all mixed up. I think I
know where I stand now but I can't guarantee anything."
"You mean after all this is over you're liable to change your mind
again?" Tracy asked him, giving Cripp an I-told-you-so smile.
"No. Definitely not. At worst, I'll be neutral. At best--"
"At best," Cripp finished for him enthusiastically, "you'll probably
be made City Editor in Overman's place. You're the obvious man for the
job, and if you could see your way clear to joining us, there's no
telling what we might accomplish. Don't you see it, Tracy?"
"All I can see is the combo-tease. They'll be dancing on our table if
they come any closer."
* * * * *
The team struggled three tables away to a subtle, wild, barely
audible rhythm. The man had regained the offensive, but it had cost
him everything he wore except for a pair of tight trousers and one
billowing, ruffled sleeve which flapped ridiculously from shoulder to
wrist.
At the last moment, McLeod thought he saw a leather strap under the
sleeve. The couple had reached their table; the man forced the woman
back over it, still dancing. The red spotlight winked out like a
snuffed candle flame.
Tracy screamed.
The audience had interpreted the darkness and Tracy's scream as the
act's final, breath-taking garnish and now buzzed in isolated knots of
whispered excitement before the applause rolled deafeningly across the
room.
McLeod leaped to his feet, groping blindly in the darkness with his
hands. He heard Cripp shout Tracy's name and began to yell himself
for someone to turn on the lights. Something struck his head above
and behind the right ear and he felt himself falling to his knees. He
grabbed at air, then made contact with two bare legs. Still yelling,
he guessed it was the woman--then felt unseen hands tugging at his
hair, fingers raking his face. He got up and was grappling with a
supple-swift invisible opponent when the lights went on and blinded him.
There were shouts and restraining arms and when he could see again the
woman dancer, now almost naked, was pointing an accusing finger at him.
"He deliberately attacked me!" she wailed.
McLeod wiped blood from his face and said, "That's crazy." These were
more than combo-strippers, he knew. They might be in Wainwright's
pay or Overman's. Either way, he was in for it. "They're a couple of
gunmen," he said.
The male dancer was covering Tracy and Cripp with his parabeam, which
had been hidden under the flapping right sleeve. "See?" McLeod said to
the circle of people around them. "He's armed."
The crowd parted to admit the weaponcheck girl to its center. With a
quick, deft movement she found McLeod's second parabeam, withdrew it
and told him, "So are you."
More figures joined them, in police uniforms, the polished leather
harness for twin parabeams creaking on each pair of hips, the gaudy
blue and gold uniforms starched stiffly. "You're under arrest," one of
them told McLeod. "You'll have to come with us."
"You're no more police than I am. Since when do police do anything more
than direct traffic?"
"You'll have to come with us, sir."
"And then get killed trying to escape? Keep your hands off me."
At that moment, Weaver Wainwright made his way inside the wide circle
of onlookers, his long sad nose drooping over his upper lip as he
smiled at McLeod. "When our police reporter said it was you, I rushed
right over."
"Sure," McLeod said bitterly. "Police reporter. Why don't you admit
these people are a bunch of your killers? You've really tailor-made
your accident this time, Wainwright. I guess I'll be killed trying to
escape."
Wainwright regarded him with bland curiosity. "What I want to know is
why you attacked the girl."
"He didn't attack her," Tracy said. "I was right here."
"In pitch darkness," the weaponcheck girl reminded her. Apparently
McLeod's bribe had been topped.
* * * * *
McLeod let his eyes scan the crowd, seeking a friendly face. Here were
the minor luminaries of the fourth estate gazing upon their fallen
idol. For McLeod, like Weaver Wainwright, had been almost a legendary
figure. But Wainwright had engineered the fall and now, like those
South American fish which can strip the flesh from a man in seconds,
they clustered about McLeod's social corpse. They sensed his demise as
surely as if it had been something physical. They waited with avid eyes
at the bottom of the ladder for him to fall. Then each figure would
ascend one rung upward and so, each with his own capable hands and
thinkwriter, control human history a little more.
If only he could somehow contact Overman, McLeod thought. How much time
did he have? He wasn't sure but thought it could be measured in minutes.
"I'd like to call my City Editor," McLeod said.
Wainwright chuckled. "A good reporter to the last. But I see Crippens
and Miss Kent here."
"It's my right."
"The _Star-Times_ will get its story. Won't you see to that, Mr.
Crippens?"
McLeod stared mutely at Cripp, who finally said, "How do you know _I_
didn't attack the woman?"
The stripper pouted and pointed a manicured finger at McLeod. "It was
that man."
"You see?" Wainwright demanded.
"No," Cripp told him. "It was dark. She couldn't tell. If McLeod is
arrested, they'll have to take me, too."
A muscle twitched in Wainwright's face, tugging the long nose down
and to the left. "Very well. But Miss Kent still represents the
_Star-Times_."
Cripp shook his head. "A co-respondent?"
"She's capable."
"Too damned capable," McLeod said. "I have positive proof that Tracy
Kent is employed as a spy by the _World_." He turned on Wainwright with
what he hoped would pass for righteous indignation. "Is that the kind
of fair break you try to give the opposition?"
The encircling crowd stirred, trembling with whispers. McLeod pressed
his advantage by jabbing a finger at the captain of police. "I demand
the right to call my newspaper."
"Well, I don't know." The man looked to Wainwright for help.
"Never mind him," McLeod said. "You tell me. I'm within my rights as a
newspaperman, or wouldn't you know about that?"
Someone brought out a portable phone and thrust it at McLeod. The
captain of police looked at Wainwright, who shook his head quickly from
side to side. It was all right. Sure it was all right. McLeod could
make no accusations in public, the law said. If he started, he would
forfeit his right to complete the call. He could tell Overman that
Tracy and Cripp had him, instead, but he doubted if the City Editor
would act on that basis.
Wainwright grinned. "There's your phone, McLeod. We're waiting for you
to call."
"Thanks a lot," McLeod told him, and hurled the instrument at his face.
He heard a thud and a startled oath and didn't wait to see the results.
He whirled and struck out with the edge of his hand, slicing it
expertly at the police captain's Adam's Apple. McLeod vaulted over the
gagging man as he went down and plunged, head tucked against his chest
and knees kicking high, into the first rank of the crowd. He fought
elbows, fists, shoulders, legs, warm human breaths, reaching the front
of the room and sprinting past the weaponcheck arsenal and out into the
green, summery glade that surrounded the anachronism of stone and glass
that was the Fourth Estate.
* * * * *
Protected by a force field, the grounds around the Estate knew nothing
but summer. But elsewhere, McLeod thought as he plunged on toward the
copter field, man's control over the elements vied for headlines.
McLeod saw the figure of a man up ahead as he rounded the final turn
in the path, still sprinting. The man stood squarely in front of him,
blocking his way with a drawn parabeam.
"Did he come this way?" McLeod cried. "Talk, man! Did McLeod come this
way?"
"No, sir. He, wait a minute...."
But McLeod was upon him, using the same judo-cut that had floored the
captain of police. McLeod wrenched the parabeam from the man's fingers
as he fell, then found his copter and was airborne by the time the
vanguard of his pursuers appeared as tiny dots on the field below.
Less than an hour later, McLeod landed on the roof of the _Star-Times_
building, where a slowly circling plow was scooping up the snow,
digesting it and spitting out great jets of steam. McLeod doubled the
speed of the escalator with his own flying feet and was soon striding
across the City Room, nodding briefly to the sychophantic waves and
smiles which greeted him as the _Star-Times'_ ace reporter.
"Chief," he said, entering Overman's glass-walled office without
bothering to knock, "the wolves are after your fair-haired boy--but
good!"
"Wainwright?" Overman guessed, drumming nervous fingers on his desk.
"Wainwright. Something about attacking the female member of a combo
tease. If his police ever had a chance to take me, I'd have been killed
trying to get away."
"So, what happened?"
"What happened, the man says. They're probably on their way here right
now. In order for me to get away, Cripp had to claim he attacked the
girl too."
"That's wonderful. Doesn't that take care of Mr. Crippens for us?
Well, doesn't it? Incidentally, that was a stroke of genius on your
part, telling Tracy Kent you had a change of heart _before_ anything
happened. Paving the way, eh?"
"Something like that," McLeod mumbled. Then Overman had monitored his
call to Tracy's apartment, but had misinterpreted what he heard--
"Sit down, Darius. There. Are you armed?"
"Yes, but you don't think they'd try to take me right here, do you?
That would be an open declaration of war." McLeod took out the parabeam
and placed it on the edge of Overman's desk.
"It would be war--unless I surrendered you to them." Overman scooped
up the parabeam and thumbled it to high intensity. "At first I thought
that was a stroke of genius on your part, but I wasn't sure. So I
had you followed. Your conversation with Crippens and Tracy Kent was
ingenius, all right. But it puts us on opposite sides now, doesn't it?"
McLeod had never seen Overman so calm. His fingers no longer drummed
their incessant rhythm on the desk, his legs were still. He sat
motionless, like a tri-di picture of himself. McLeod said, "Not at all.
I only wanted to gain their confidence."
"The one thing that bothers me is this: it looks like I'm going to give
Weaver Wainwright his story after all, although there's a chance I
can save something for the _Star-Times_. I suspect he'll take you off
somewhere and have you killed, but the moment he leaves this office
with you, you'll be denounced in the _Star-Times_. Wainwright won't be
killing a top reporter. He'll be killing a member of the Anti-Newspaper
League."
"You're crazy," McLeod said. "It might have sounded bad, but it was
all part of the same thing. I wanted to gain their confidence and--"
"And offer me in your place to Wainwright's hatchetmen? That's
interesting."
"I was lying to them."
"No. You're lying to me. I'll tell you this, Darius. It comes as
a great disappointment. Suddenly, all at once, a man finds his
organization is riddled with subversives. That's bad enough, but at
least he has one man he can trust. He thinks. He thinks, Darius. But
he's wrong there, too. Now he can trust no one. Perhaps he'll have to
fire his entire staff and start from the beginning again. But it's the
one man, the Judas, who hurts most. Even if Wainwright gets you and
gets his story--and I get mine--I'll never be able to trust anyone
again. Don't you see the position you've put me in? I'm a lonely man,
Darius."
* * * * *
McLeod stood up and leaned across the desk. "We've both been playing
God all our lives. What do you think happens when a God loses his
worshippers?"
"I haven't lost them. Just the acolytes. There are others."
"There are the people," McLeod said. "Waiting for the medical cures
we promise them but never give. The farmers, praying to their own God
while we ruin their crops capriciously to scoop the _World_. The dead
citizens of a dozen bombed out cities in a dozen unnecessary wars. The
people who haven't read Ortega y Gasset and maybe never even heard
of him and can't be convinced they're too stupid to seek their own
destinies."
"Ortega was right. Mass man can't discriminate. He's incapable of
logical, creative thought. He blunders from catastrophe to catastrophe
and grovels at the feet of demagogues."
"He can't be herded and led to slaughter."
"He can't be the master of his own fate, you fool!"
"Perhaps not. But there are people who can create, who can lead. People
who pave the way and let the masses follow where they lead."
"What do you think we do? We pave the way. We make the future."
"There's a difference."
"I can't see it."
"You don't want to. The truly creative man merely does his work. The
masses will follow of their own free will. Maybe they'll follow the
wrong leader as often as not, but we've still come a long way in a few
thousand years. It's wrong if they're led, or pushed, or tricked or--"
"Sit down, Darius. Don't move. The trouble with you anti-news people
is you're too romantic. You think because God or Nature created man at
the top of the evolutionary ladder, man is good, man can do nothing but
move forward in the long run. You think it's a mistake for one man--or
a group of men, or an institution--to channel that movement.
"But of all the institutions in man's civilization, the newspaper is
the most logical one for the job. We inform, Darius. We are the essence
of life. Life perceives and, after perceiving transmits information. Or
builds machines to do the job. Sensation, perception, information--the
same thing. We're at the top. We belong here."
"Perception should be objective, un-colored. But there's no sense
talking to you."
"Perception is never objective, my dear Darius. An individual
perceives. Some men are tone-deaf, others color-blind. We all taste
the same foods, liking some and disliking others. I say the newspaper
belongs on the top like this. I say our creation of news is no
different from the hundred varied opinions of a hundred members of
the rabble. Unless it's better. We're a cohesive force, Darius. We
simplify. We unite."
"You hamper and destroy."
"We don't rule by force. Have they ever tried to overthrow us? Have
they? You see, they don't dislike us. They have faith in us. They can
grow roots and feel secure. They don't have a myriad of possibilities
confronting them. They have only two on any given subject, except in
purely local situations which we don't consider important. Either the
_Star-Times_ is right, or the _World_ is."
"Why are you telling me all this?"
"It's very important to me. I believed in you, Darius. I still think
you've made a mistake. While it's too late now--you see, we can't
really control _all_ events, can we?--I would like to hear you admit
your mistake. I can never trust anyone again."
"If I admit it?"
"I'll thank you...."
"And hand me over to Weaver Wainwright?"
"And hand you over to Weaver Wainwright."
* * * * *
There was a disturbance outside, the sound of running feet in the City
Room, of many voices. Overman cocked his head to one side, listening
to the tiny receiver in his ear then picking up his microphone hose
and saying, "In a moment. That's right, I said let them in. But give me
five minutes." He dropped the hose. "They're here for you, Darius."
"I gathered."
"Would you make a man who once was your friend happy before you go?
Just tell me you were wrong. Tell me if you had your way over again
you would remain loyal to me even if you were confronted with the same
faulty philosophical notions."
"At the point of a parabeam? What good would it do?"
"Forget the parabeam. I'm two people now. I'm guarding you and I'll
kill you if you come any closer to me, but I'm also pleading with you.
I'm asking you to give me my salvation."
"I wonder which one is stronger," McLeod said, standing again and
leaning across the desk. "Why does it mean so much to you, chief? Let
me tell you. Is it because you have doubts yourself and want me to
resolve them for you?"
"Keep back, I'm warning you. That isn't it at all. You've made me lose
my faith in people."
"I thought you didn't have any."
"In a few people. Please, Darius. Don't come any closer. A man has to
trust someone."
"You can't do anything about your doubts. You're hoping I can."
"I'm going to kill you if you come any closer." Overman was still
standing like a statue, the parabeam an extension of his right hand.
It was as if he would never move again unless McLeod freed him with a
word. It was as if the heart too had stopped its beating and only the
lips were alive, the pleading lips, begging for a reprieve.
McLeod leaped across the desk, his middle slamming down on the hard
surface, his diaphragm squeezing all the air from his lungs. His
fingers closed on Overman's wrist and forced it back as the parabeam
hissed from his cheek.
Now the lips were still. Now the muscles which had remained so inert
for many moments were writhing with activity, each individual cell
adding its strength to the whole, to the wiry arms, the thin legs,
the twisting, heaving torso. The only sound was the harsh rasping of
Overman's breath as they grappled, tumbling over and over, rolling
across the floor.
The parabeam was between them, separating their chests. Overman butted
with his head, bit, gouged, used his knees and elbows while he held
the weapon. The lungs filled with air--McLeod could feel the torso
lifting, the rib-cage expanding. The mouth opened to scream for help....
McLeod got a hand over it, felt teeth clamp on his fingers, very white,
very sharp. The mouth opened again as McLeod rolled suddenly clear to
avoid an up-thrusting knee.
Knee hit elbow and hand tightened convulsively. The parabeam hissed
against Overman's chest and up, bathing his chin and face and the lips
which, instead of screaming, formed the words "tell me" and then closed
slowly. Afterwards, McLeod always thought Overman's ears must have
retained their sentience longest as the man died, waiting for an answer
which would never come.
The door opened. People stood around, looking down at them. Wainwright.
The phony police. Tracy and Cripp. Some _Star-Times_ security agents.
McLeod stood up slowly, his own muscles twitching. He looked at
Wainwright, then pointed to Overman's body on the floor and said,
"There's your story. You were modest in your prediction. Not a
reporter, but the City Editor. Dead. And listen to me, Wainwright. It's
the only story you'll ever get. Try anything else and there'll be open
war between our papers. You understand?"
Wainwright considered, head down, arms folded in front of him, long
nose hiding lips from that angle. "They'll probably make you City
Editor," he mused. "I'll take the story. You're in the clear, McLeod."
"I want to be exonerated from that false charge."
But Wainwright shook his head. "Do it yourself. You have a newspaper,
too. Incidentally, how did Overman die?"
"Say he was looking for something, something important--so important
that when he couldn't find it he killed himself."
"That's no story."
"It's a story," said McLeod, "We can make it a story."
* * * * *
"There are hundreds of us," Tracy said later. "All over the country.
All over the world. We're badly organized. We need organization. You're
in a position to give it to us."
"Not overtly," Cripp warned. "But under cover at the beginning, until
we build up strength. We'll have to re-indoctrinate young reporters and
then forget about indoctrination when we can. We'll be fighting a war
all our lives."
"Men like Overman and Wainwright are the alternatives," McLeod said.
"I think even Overman knew, at the end, that he was wrong. But it went
against everything he ever thought or believed. I almost could have
been another Overman."
"You're not," Tracy said. "You just had to be goosed."
"It's going to be interesting," McLeod told them. "We'll still predict.
To stay in business, we'll have to predict, at least to start with.
But we'll give our scientists and social workers a free hand, and our
predictions will all be practical. Do you realize there hasn't been a
substantial scientific discovery put to use in the last fifty years?"
Cripp seemed worried. "Their approach is more sensational. They'll draw
the readers. But we have to--to stay in business."
"That was your trouble all along," McLeod said. "You were a bunch of
snipers. I think you're wrong. What's not sensational about a trip to
the moon or a cure for cancer or controlled weather that actually helps
the farmers or campaigning for the better man in an election because he
truly has something to offer? We're liable to put the _World_ right out
of business."
"We can try," said Tracy, smiling.
"Not you, young lady. No more co-respondents. How would you like to be
a bonafide social worker?"
But Tracy squeezed Cripp's hand and said, "No, thank you. I'd rather be
a housewife."
McLeod thought he'd have to settle for loving both of them like a
brother--then realized he'd be too busy to do anything of the sort.
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