Death Quest

  She shook her finger under the chief’s nose. “Oh, no, he’s not fooling you. You come right around here, if you don’t believe it!”

  The shaking finger turned into a pointing finger, right between the chief’s eyes. He suddenly started following her as she led him away.

  The rest of the group followed and Heller, still holding Lee, brought up the rear.

  The land yacht was sitting there. She darted into it and the viewer flared out. A moment later the viewer stabilized again and she was standing before them once more.

  She had a card. She flashed it under the nose of the chief and then the two cops. They stared at it. Then suddenly they turned and went down on their knees before Heller.

  The Countess Krak looked at the card and showed it to Biggs and I could see in Heller’s viewer that she had a ghoulish grin.

  It was the registration card of the land yacht. It said “Delbert John Rockecenter” on the owner line!

  Biggs towered over the kneeling chief. “You idiot! You’ve been shootin’ at th’ son of th’ man who rules th’ world!” Biggs turned to Heller. “Junior, what shall we do abaht this murderin’ (bleep) that killed po’ Doctah Graves?”

  “What’s customary heahabouts?” said Heller, lowering his gun and releasing Lee.

  “Sentence an’ lynchin’ ever’ time,” said Biggs. “As Justice of th’ Peace, ah have t’write up th’ sentence, all legal, an’ with yo’ he’p, Junior, we’ll use that tree ovah theah. But only if you approve, of co’se.”

  Chief Fawg wailed, “Please, dear God, NO! Please, Mr. Junior.”

  Joe and the other cop groveled on their knees. They raised their clasped and pleading hands to Heller. “Mercy!” pleaded one.

  “I have a wife and children,” begged Joe. “Don’t lynch me, Mr. Junior!”

  Heller said, “Stonewall, my dear friend, let us be merciful. Let’s let them contribute all their ill-gotten gains and part-time labor to the building of the new cohthouse.”

  “All right, Junior,” said Biggs. But he pointed to Harvey Lee. “What abaht him?”

  “Oh, Jesus God,” said Harvey Lee. “I just realized I tried to pull a cheap car deal on the son of the richest man in the world. Shoot me!”

  Biggs looked down at the kneeling cops. “Fawg,” he said, “git up offen yo’ knees an’ go home, but jus’ remembah, ah got blackmail on you fo’ th’ rest of yo’ days. Po’ Doctah Graves.”

  I realized suddenly that all that shooting must have held Torpedo’s hand. He was still around there. There was still a chance. If only now they’d leave the Countess Krak unguarded, Torpedo would still have his kill. This very night!

  PART FORTY-SIX

  Chapter 5

  Wheah you goin’ now?” said Stonewall Biggs to Heller. “’Cause ah got something else t’show you tonaht.”

  Heller moved an indicating hand toward the Countess Krak. “It do look lahk th’ ordahs is comin’ f’um th’ High Command. What do we do now, dear?”

  “We’re leaving for the county poor farm right this minute,” said the Countess Krak.

  Biggs said, “Miss Captain, if’n ah c’d intrude, tha’s now the County Agricultural Farm an’ you won’ find it on these back roads onless ah leads th’ way.”

  “Lead on, lead on, doughty Stonewall Biggs,” said Krak. “Just so long as we can find the other son.”

  Stonewall Biggs gave a gallant bow and trotted to his car. Bang-Bang raced up and down telling drivers to get underway.

  The Countess Krak pulled Heller toward the land yacht and their viewers flared out. I was quite resigned then to being blind and suddenly I was most amazed to see the reception come back on!

  It wasn’t very good and it was full of flutters and blurs but it was there. They must be at the extreme back end of the vehicle, a considerable distance away from that generator. As near as I could make out, it was a tiny surgery room.

  They had evidently done their kissing and greeting right after they had stepped inside for Krak was all business now.

  “Sit right there, dear,” she said to Heller, pointing at the tiny operating table against the land yacht’s outer skin. “Take off your right boot and sock.”

  The land yacht was speeding along. The Countess Krak, braced against the sways, was rummaging through the white-faced instrument drawers.

  Heller obliged but he was looking at her. “What are you up to now, dear?”

  She had what she wanted from the drawers and she was now opening the Zanco Cellological Equipment and Supply case she had stuffed full at the base. “I am putting a dollar mark on the sole of your right foot. If it’s not right, and doesn’t compare exactly to the other one, I can remove it.”

  “What do I want with a dollar mark, dear?” he said.

  She thrust the papers at him. “Read this and you’ll see.”

  She got to work on his foot, using cosmetics and other things. Heller, bracing himself against the swaying of the land yacht, read what Dr. Graves had written. Then he sat there, watching her, evidently thinking.

  She finished the job and, holding his foot up, admired it. She bent his leg and showed him. “Does that look old enough to you?”

  “Dear,” he said, “Bury is not an honorable man. He doesn’t keep his word. I don’t think he would have given me the Wister name and birth certificate. I think you must have gotten Graves to alter this some way.”

  “Me? Jettero!” she said.

  The land yacht was stopped. Bang-Bang’s voice, “Beachhead in sight! Hit the nets!”

  Their viewers flared out but shortly came on again. They were walking from the vehicles up a flight of steps to an institutional sort of building, its bricks a shabby red in the vehicle lights.

  Biggs was pounding on the door. “They go to bed wi’ th’ chickens heah. But ah c’n roust ’m aht.” He pounded some more.

  A sleepy man, still buckling his pants, came out. “Biggs? Wha’s the fuss? Anothah cohthouse fiah?”

  “Sweeney,” said Biggs, “min’ yo’ tongue. You hahborin’ a boy name Richard Roe heah?”

  “Young Dick?” said Sweeney. “You heah to drag him back to the State Agriculture College? I c’n tell you now, Biggs, he won’t go. He gets too lonesome fo’ his pigs!”

  “Wheah is he?” said Biggs.

  “Why, he be down to the pig sheds, of co’se.”

  “Show th’ way,” said Biggs.

  They went down a winding path to some concrete buildings. Sweeney turned on some floodlights and there were a lot of startled grunts and then complaints from the covered pens.

  Sweeney took them up a flight of outside stairs and opened a door. He turned on an inside light. “Dick,” he said, “they finally come to drag you back. Ah’m sorry, boy, but ah cain’t go up ag’inst the law. It’d be mah job.”

  Krak peeked in past Sweeney. It was a small room. The walls were plastered with cutout pictures of pigs, all colors and types. On a narrow mattress, fully clothed, except for shoes, a tall, blond boy had been asleep. He was trying to sit up now, defending his eyes against the light. He looked to be about an Earth eighteen. He looked amazingly like Delbert John.

  “Ah won’ go!” he said. “Ever’ tahm ah leave heah, Sweeney, if only fo’ one term, ah come back an’ fin’ mah pigs ahl in neglec’ an’ pinin’ away. You tell them fo’ks to jus’ go away.”

  “They got guns, Dick,” said Sweeney.

  “Guns!” cried the boy, leaping bolt upright. “Git away f’m heah with guns! You maht shoot a pig!”

  The Countess Krak moved smoothly in. “I’d better handle this,” she said. “Nobody is going to shoot your pigs.”

  “Whoosh!” said the boy, staring at her round-eyed. “Who be you? A angel or somethin’? Hey, who be this, Sweeney? Wow, she’s pretty enough to be a pig!”

  “I’m just a friend,” said the Countess Krak. She pointed a finger at the boy’s forehead. She said gently, “Just sit down on the mattress, please.”

  The boy sat suddenly, s
till staring.

  The Countess Krak reached down and pulled off his left sock. She upended the foot and looked at the sole.

  You couldn’t see anything. It was too soiled!

  “Bang-Bang,” called the Countess Krak. “A bucket of water and a rag, please.”

  There was a scurrying on the stairs and shortly, with a clatter and slosh, Bang-Bang appeared. The Countess took the bucket of water, set it down and dipped a rag in it. She washed off the sole of the foot. It took a while to cut through the layers. The water in the bucket got black from repeated dips of the rag. The boy watched her in fascination, studying every move.

  At length, she was satisfied and held the foot sole up to the light.

  A DOLLAR SIGN!

  Small and dim, it spread out on the heel.

  “Well, theah she is,” said Biggs in the door.

  The boy sensed they had seen something. He grabbed his foot away from her and, with some contortion, looked at the sole.

  “Well, golly be,” he said. “I ain’t never noticed that afore. It do look lahk a dollah ma’k. Is it some disease? Hoof-rot mebbe? What’s it mean? Tell me quick!”

  “It means,” said the Countess Krak, “that you are not a nameless orphan foundling. It means that you are the son of the richest man in the world, Delbert John Rockecenter, found at long last.”

  He looked at her round-eyed. He saw that she meant it. And then it hit him. He fainted dead away!

  PART FORTY-SIX

  Chapter 6

  The Countess beckoned to Heller. “Dear, take off your right boot.”

  Heller moved past Biggs and I saw where Sweeney had gotten the idea of guns: Heller had that decorated .45 glittering in his belt. I hoped that he would go away and leave an open field to Torpedo.

  Heller removed his boot and sock. The Countess took his foot and held it alongside that of the Earth boy. Actually, they weren’t a bad match: the real one on Rockecenter’s son and the counterfeit dollar mark on Heller’s. Residual dirt obscured any difference of the boy’s.

  Biggs saw them both. “Well, there she be twice. Unidentical twins reunited.” He produced a police identopolaroid he must have taken off the chief. He shot a picture of the feet together, then he shot one of Heller and then he shot one of the boy, not bothering with the fact that the youth still lay there unconscious.

  “Now that this heah event is full recorded,” said Biggs, “you fo’ks come along. Ah got somethin’ else to show yuh.” He went down the steps beckoning.

  The Countess followed to the last two steps and then she stopped. “You go along, dear. I’ll stay here. When he comes to, he’ll need somebody to hold his hand.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Heller. “I don’t like to leave you here.”

  “Oh, I’ll be all right. Now, listen, all of you, Mr. Biggs and Mr. Sweeney. You keep this find quiet, do you hear? That poor boy is going to need weeks and weeks of coaching and training to take his proper place in the world. So no publicity. The papers always get things wrong.”

  “Nobody ever believes me anyway,” said Sweeney.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Biggs.

  “Now, Bang-Bang,” said the Countess Krak, “you follow Jettero in the jeep just so he can get back to the circus wagon over there on the other side of the farm.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Bang-Bang. “I’ll handle it.”

  They left her at the foot of the stairs in all that glaring floodlight. She would be all alone in an isolated part of the farm. And if Torpedo had any sense, he’d kill the boy, too! A setup if there ever was one! Even quiet enough for the corpse rape!

  The men walked the considerable distance back to the main building. The drivers had pulled the motor homes over to the side of the drive. Sweeney went into the building to finish his sleep. Heller climbed into the Buick beside Biggs. They drove off and shortly lights showed up, following behind.

  Biggs drove over bumpy roads for quite a while. Then he turned at a rural mailbox and went much slower, his lights pointing through an orchard and, as the entrance road twisted, playing back and forth across some decrepit farm buildings. He stopped and before them lay an old-fashioned, two-story, brick farmhouse.

  “You probably don’ remembah this place, Junior. It’s passed to th’ Hodges now through death duties an’ taxes. But it’s th’ ol’ Styles farm, yo’ granpappy’s on yo’ mothah’s side. Early tonaht I got me a hunch, so le’s see if’n she bears fruit.”

  He got out of the car, walked up the porch steps and began to bang with an old brass knocker much corroded with age. It took quite a while but finally a woman in a nightcap and dressing gown turned on the porch light, peeked through a window and opened the door.

  “Whut you doin’ here at this ungodly hour, Stonewall Biggs?” she said. “Don’ you know it’s the middle of the naht?”

  “Miz Hodges,” said Biggs, “ah do apologize. But have you clean yo’ attic recently?”

  “Biggs, you know danged well theah ain’t no Yankee regoolation that anyone has to clean a attic. Don’ tell me theah be a county one. Nobody nevah cleans no attic! An’ if’n you come here this time of naht to tell me to clean mah attic . . .”

  “No, no,” said Biggs, with great charm. “Ah sho’ly wouldn’ insult th’ fines’ housekeeper fo’ miles aroun’ with that! But taxes can be reduced fo’ unused space. An’ ah jus’ wanted t’see if you was ovahtaxed!”

  “Oh, well, tha’s better.”

  “So could ah have a look in yo’ attic?”

  “He’p y’self so long as you let me go back to bed!”

  “Chahmed,” said Biggs.

  Biggs went in and Heller sat down on the porch and waited. At long length, the porch light went off, Biggs came out and closed the door of the house behind him. He was carrying what appeared to be a big hatbox.

  They got in the car and drove out. The jeep at the gate backed out of their way. They went down the road and Biggs stopped. He turned on the dome light.

  “People,” said Biggs, “nevah throw nothin’ away. This was stuck cleah back undah th’ eaves along with a bundle of election pohstahs fo’ Jeff Davis an’ a bundle of Confederate notes. They hid it but ah know mah people heah in Hamden. They hold on!” He dropped the hatbox into Heller’s lap. The dust geysered up. The strings had already been untied.

  Heller sneezed and opened the cover. Lying there were packets of letters, all tied, some loose envelopes and a photo album.

  Heller opened the album. The first picture, somewhat yellow, was that of a very beautiful blond girl in a dancing costume.

  “That yo’ mammy,” said Biggs. “She was jus’ abaht th’ mos’ beautiful girl in these pahts. A belle fo’ shuah! You take aftah her. Ah knowed it th’ firs’ moment ah laid eyes on you. Same hair, same eyes.”

  A yellowed clipping was wedged under the photo. Heller took it out.

  LOCAL GIRL

  JOINS

  ROXY CHORUS

  IN NEW YORK

  Mary Styles, the only child of Ben and Charlotte Styles of the Styles farm in Hamden, graduate of the Fair Oakes High School and winner of last year’s State Beauty Contest, has made good in Yankeeland.

  It went on but Heller slid it back in place. He opened more album pages. They were pictures of chorus lines and publicity photos.

  Slid loosely into the book were several enlarged nightclub and snapshot photos. The first was Delbert John Rockecenter, a better-looking man in his mid-twenties, sitting at a table with Mary Styles, surrounded by waiters and champagne. Another was the pair of them, arms around each other in a bar. Another was of them semidressed at a beach resort sipping from the same Coke with two straws.

  “The boy at the farm,” said Biggs, “take mo’ aftah his fathah, but that w’d be the case with unidenticals, ah guess.”

  Heller closed the book. He picked up a pack of letters and glanced through them. All were handwritten from “Delie” to “Mary Yum-Yum.” They concerned arranging secret rendezvous in resorts and hotels an
d were heavy with caution about being seen.

  Crumpled up over at the side of the box was a pair of half-torn sheets. Heller spread them out. It had an embossed letterhead. The date was over eighteen years ago. It said:

  AGNES P. MORELAY, P.h.D., M.D.

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Styles,

  It is my sad duty to inform you that your daughter Mary, after a hasty and ill-conceived marriage, could not stand the strain of sudden elevation in the world. She contracted a serious mental disease known as delirium altaphasis. While she appears sane at times, she can be very dangerous to herself and those around her.