Chapter 24 Reason’s Poor Aim
Chief Sordid was still very sick as he staggered to one of the wardrobes from which sounds had been emanating. The key was in the lock, so he soon was helping Anger and Fear out and to the floor, Fear with his middle still encircled by an alarming conglomeration of bombs and wires. Both men were in a useless, stupefied state, so he called for an ambulance, hid the bombs, and left his agents on the carpet.
Once out in the hallway, he entered the downstairs restroom and cleaned himself up as best he could. Then he searched till he found Bits Bitterly in the props room, now only twice his normal size and far less scaly but wounded by the bullet from Fear’s pistol. After the Chief had promised him repeatedly that help was on the way, Bits lapsed into moaning about his artistic worth and genius.
Sordid found Smudge and instructed her to clean things up and to guide the ambulance crew, when they would come, to the three wounded men. Then, still feeling very sick, he retrieved his phone from the floor and sat down shakily to use it. His first call was to Axe to find out whether Power had been reached by the HIMF agents and had canceled Old Coronary’s morning visit to Leasing House. After the bulldozer driver had left his bed to come to the phone, his answer was yes, Power had called off the demolition. Shaking and swearing, Sordid rubbed mud away from the corner of his mouth where it was still dribbling out. His next call was to Indifference, but she did not pick up. Smudge was able to tell him that the super agent had never made it into the club.
As a last resort, he called the Mayor. It was not wise to disturb Therion at any time unless it was very good news, less wise yet at such an hour, but Sordid was desperate. In as even and pleasant a voice as he could muster, yet still gurgling, he explained that Mr. Power had made an uninformed decision, an understandable mistake, regarding Leasing House. Perhaps this mistake had been influenced by his having ignorantly hired a new secretary now unmasked as HIA agent Patience Orchard. (Here Sordid added a lie that he expected to arrest Patience shortly.) At any rate, the City would benefit if the Mayor would overturn Power’s decision on Leasing House.
Though incensed because a Heavenite agent had infiltrated Power’s office, Therion would not even hear Sordid’s rather weak reasons for severity for Leasing House. He referred him back to Power, saying that such a matter was beneath the notice of the Mayor’s office. This was only what Sordid had expected, but it was bitterly disappointing, for he knew of no other steps to take, and his time had all but run out. His head was still clearing. Only now did it occur to him that, since the Heavenites had clearly told Power everything about the lost memo, a promise from the Mayor to intervene would only last until Power would have a chance to talk to him. It did not seem to him that Power had been talking to Therion yet, but a conversation terrible in its results could not be long delayed. Everything had fallen to pieces.
Only then did the Mayor reveal that he was not at home. He had been out late with his old friend Edgar, he said, and asked whether the Chief still wanted Edgar dropped off at Leasing House to work a night shift. Sordid remembered that he had called Indifference and Grudge away from Leasing House and so said that he did want Edgar brought there. He did not tell the Mayor that, for now, Edgar appeared to be his only remaining agent.
He called Grudge and got an answer. The master poisoner was hurt, he said, his back wrenched, and was on his way to the hospital to be examined. Prevarica Leasing, who was apparently a quadruple agent, had ejected him from a City limo. Also, he had seen Indifference led away from Numb’s Place by some big guy who appeared to be a friend of Prolong’s. When they had hung up, Sordid closed his weary eyes and groaned. One agent was shot, two had serious head injuries, one was going to the emergency room, one turned traitor, and one abducted. He was about to lose his job and possibly his freedom. Presently, he would be replaced as head of CRISP, or what was left of it, by someone else, probably Fear. What had galvanized the contemptible Heavenites into a team that could accomplish such things? He answered himself with one detestable name: Patience.
When his driver had parked the car in front of Leasing House, Mayor Therion got out to chat with two elderly members of his new Volunteer Citizen’s Guard. Both men got up hastily from lawn chairs they had set up in front of the barrier’s gate and with sleepy eyes and nervous smiles spoke deferentially to him. He found that he could easily read their name badges on their uniform shirts in the combined light of a streetlight and some small spotlights that had been rigged up to illuminate the wooden barrier. These were volunteers Wag and Moper.
Therion explained to them that, after a convivial night out, his friend Edgar, now in the back seat beside Therion’s bodyguards, needed a little help getting to his post at Leasing House. In fact, he said confidentially, the special agent was dead to the world. He hoped they would get him seated at his post by the front door. He handed Wag a package wrapped in brown paper and holding something long and curved, adding that this was an heirloom he was passing on to Edgar, something he had been given by the agent’s father and that he wanted to return to the family.
As the two old men were agreeing to carry Edgar, a very small and distressingly ugly woman came hurriedly from across the street and planted herself directly in front of Therion.
“What’s my brother doing here?” she asked.
Therion saw that, because he had left a door open when he had gotten out, the car’s overhead light was on, illuminating Edgar’s skeleton face. This did not trouble him, however, for he felt he was in the presence of a friend.
“If Edgar is your brother,” he said, “then you must be Doubt. You remember when I used to visit your family many years ago? Ah, I see you do remember!” He shook her little hand warmly. “So what do you hear from your mom and dad? How are Sin and Satan?”
“Haven’t heard from them for years,” she said.
“No? I’m sorry to hear that.”
“We had a family dustup,” she explained. “My name’s Honesty now.”
“So sorry. I hope you and Edgar aren’t estranged because of it?”
“We are, and I make no bones about it. Do you realize you’ve been driving around with his remains in your car?”
Therion ignored this faux pas and tried to continue the chat, saying something sympathetic about Edgar’s chronic poor health and hopes for recovery. While he spoke, a boy and girl arrived, young teens, walking down the sidewalk together.
The girl spoke to him, “Your Honor! I’m so glad to see you here. I know you won’t let anything bad happen to my house. I’m Prevarica Leasing, Guiles’ daughter.”
“So you’re Prevarica,” he answered warmly. “Well, let me set your fears at rest.”
“Actually,” Honesty said to him, paying no attention to Prevarica, “you don’t look well yourself, guy. Maybe it’s the cool City air. Aren’t you used to a warmer climate? As in much warmer?”
Therion looked at her sharply. Was this unfriendly? Was it mockery?
“And that turban,” she added with a spiteful grin, “it looks so uncomfortable. Why don’t you let me take it off?”
She was actually reaching for it until he batted her little hands away.
“Stop it!” He turned coldly from her to Prevarica. “Little lady, City Intelligence asked me to bring agent Edgar here to guard your house. As for the demolition, don’t worry, it’s off. I did get a call not long ago from Chief Sordid with a request to reinstate the order, but I gave no such permission. Then on the way here, I called up Mr. Power and, after talking with him, I recognize that your father still has a great deal to offer the City. I hope you’ll extend my earnest apologies to Guiles that demolition was ever so much as contemplated.”
He was interrupted by his bodyguards, who had left the car and now wanted a word with him. While they went aside and spoke, Wisdom looked at Prevarica and wondered what would be the Mayor’s reaction if she were to take off the absurd looking sunglasses she was wearing and look
at him with NO EYES. But the Mayor seemed unaccountably comfortable with having a skeleton for a friend, so maybe he would not mind another macabre companion.
Why did Prevarica look so calm? Wisdom knew it must be clear to her now, after listening to the Mayor, that Sordid had lied to her, that even if the spy chief had survived being shot, her double dealing had been worthless. Therion’s words, ‘has a great deal to offer the City,’ must be a result of Reason’s talk with Power. Would she, in her unbalanced mind, admit that she owed this stay of execution to the Heavenites?
While the Mayor still whispered with his bodyguards, Mr. Wag opened the barrier gate for the girl and she went in to her home. Wag and Moper soon followed her in, carrying Edgar, and quickly returned looking relieved to have that over with. Further whispering now took place as Therion spoke to the old men. Momentarily, Wag laid hands on Wisdom.
“Sorry, boy,” he said, holding Wisdom by the shoulders from behind. “You’ve been positively identified as some kind of criminal. You’re wanted by the police.”
“Yes, the police are on their way,” Therion said stridently to Wisdom. “My man here took a call in the car that included your description. You’re a Heavenite spy, it’s no use denying it, and you’ve been making trouble tonight. This is going to be a harsh lesson. You Heavenites need a few wake up calls.”
Honesty responded merrily. “Or maybe wake up horns, Mr. Mayor? Get it? Horns?”
A small car had been moving slowly along Sandhill and now pulled over to the curb. Patience, Dignity, and Reason stepped out quickly and joined the little group by the barrier gate.
Patience began talking at once, while putting on eyeglasses. “I hope you aren’t arresting this boy,” he said airily to Mayor Therion. “I have just had word from Mr. Power that he's not to be touched. He said we have to be careful not to incite Heavenite military reprisals.”
“Arrest him too and both the others,” Therion said to his bodyguards. At once, the burly men pulled out pistols and trained them on the three newcomers. “You, Patience! Yes, I know your name is Patience,” continued the Mayor. “Power already told me about you. All three of you are HIA spies, and let me clue you in, our hands-off policy toward Heavenites does not extend to spies. You’re all going to experience the hospitality of Sordid’s finest dungeons. Wag, Moper, let’s get them all inside this barrier wall where the neighborhood won’t be staring at us. Come on, move it.”
The old men hesitated. “These are my neighbors, Mayor,” Wag said, letting go of Wisdom. “I don’t want to push them around.”
Passing this by, Therion drew open the gate himself. “Check them for weapons,” he said to the bodyguards.
During this alarming talk, Reason had slipped a sweating hand into her purse and had curled her finger around the trigger of the Moore pistol. She had no desire to use it and prayed she would not have to, but she had a feeling that wild boy Patience would try to shoot his way out of this. If so, she would have to jerk out the pistol and add her unreliable support, while half hoping to hit the bodyguards and half hoping to be shot, die, and finally get some relief from all this. Dignity was unarmed and could be of no help. Yet another nightmare! Now, she felt, she would probably die, die with makeup on to her eternal shame. So much for helping the pestilential Leasings!
Suddenly she saw that Patience was drawing his weapon and heard two zips of a silenced pistol almost simultaneously with the crack of an unsilenced one, loud, startling, and close by; and she found herself pulling the trigger inside her purse. Swinging the purse this way and that, she tried to plug the bodyguards, firing again and again until her pistol inexplicably stopped working.
Then, although it had seemed to her in her panic that half the people present had been shooting and that bullets were flying everywhere, she found that no one had fallen. Everyone was quiet, everyone was standing. Finally, Therion moved, backing against the barrier and slumping there, looking frightened in the full glow of one of the little spotlights.
The two bodyguards stood with their arms at their sides, staring straight ahead with bewildered expressions. One dropped his pistol and it landed with a thump. She took a few steps toward the two, noticing in the glaring light a small hole in the chest of one and another in the shirt collar of the other.
“Please, just go away and leave us alone!” she blurted out.
The goons turned and walked away like automatons, lumbering past their car as if they did not see it.
Beside her Patience suddenly sat down on the sidewalk. Nightmare after nightmare! Had he been hit in the gunplay? She crouched beside him and, with Dignity’s help, tried to get him to talk, but he only looked at them with questioning eyes and would not respond. In the meantime, drawn by the sound of the single unsilenced shot, neighbors were leaving their houses. Soon they were crowding onto sidewalk and tree row.
What they found was neighbor Patience, seated and in a strange, subdued state, and not far beyond him, the Mayor of the City lying down by the barrier, a bullet hole in his stomach. Aghast, they began to say in whispers that someone from the neighborhood had gunned down the Mayor.
But momentarily the Mayor stirred and began to get up. This was greeted with applause and cheers for a matter of a few seconds, until he rose enough to become clearly visible in a spotlight. His fine clothes were rent, for he was swollen to fatness; his handsome face had become a bristly cross between that of a pig and a wolf; and his turban had come off, revealing sharp, curving blue horns protruding from his head. What stood up was a smelly, slavering beast, and unfortunately one still able to talk.
“Why do you stare?” he croaked. “I know! Because you worship me! Ha ha. Welcome, citizens, welcome! You are privileged to live in one of the finest communities around, and I am privileged indeed to serve you as Mayor. Let me boast to you about the past, let me tell you about the future glories of the City. Let us join in a wonderful tomorrow. Believe my words and bow down!”
Zip! He was shot again, high in the forehead. Reason turned to see Wisdom with his feet planted, having used both hands to aim his Moore pistol. A sound came from the crowd, half of dismay and half of relief. Screaming, Therion turned and loped away with agility and speed. Moments later his driver pulled away from the curb and sped off in the opposite direction.
Dawn had not come yet. Reason, dressed now in pajamas and robe, and with the horrid makeup washed off, was seated close by her husband Truth on a sofa in Grace’s rooms. She was cradling a cup of coffee in both hands and casting around frightened glances like someone still expecting to be shot. Old Grace stood by the hearth. On other chairs nearby, and still in their street clothes, were Dignity, Wisdom, and Honesty.
“Patience is asleep now,” Grace told them, “and will be more like himself in the morning. Let me assure you that the effects of a Moore pistol shot wear off, I mean for the most part. At any rate, though I can’t say the same for our enemies, I’ve never heard of any Heavenite being permanently impaired.”
“Yeah, but I’m guessing there’s not much data on that,” Honesty put in dryly. “We don’t shoot each other all that often.”
At this Dignity could not completely muffle a laugh.
This was perplexing to Reason. “You don’t mean that Wisdom shot him?” she asked. “Or do you mean he accidentally shot himself?”
Grace compressed his lips for a few seconds before speaking. “Before Truth and I put him to bed, we questioned him, and though he spoke in a wandering manner, after some time we were able to piece together just what happened when the shooting started outside Leasing House. He said that, when you were all about to be arrested, he quick-drew his pistol and rapidly shot both bodyguards before either could fire. Quite a Clint Eastwood performance, and I only wish I’d seen it. One of them managed to fire once after being hit, but fortunately hit no one. That was the shot that drew out the neighborhood. The effect of the Moore pistol wounds on the two men
was to make them even more mindless and obedient than usual: ready—when you pleaded with them, Reason—to leave the neighborhood without argument.”
“So that was it! she said. “But is Patience sure he didn’t shoot himself? It was all confusion, you know, and he might have lost his head.”
“He was quite sure, and then of course, he would scarcely have been able to shoot himself in the back.”
“In the back! Then who shot him?”
“My dear, other than the bodyguard’s conventional slug that missed everyone and Wisdom’s single shot somewhat later, only one other person was shooting.”
“No, don’t say it! How could I live with that? Couldn’t it have been one of the civilian volunteer guards?”
“They were unarmed and certainly would not have been carrying Moore pistols if they had been. I’m sorry to report it, but we examined the bottom of your purse and found nine holes in it.”
“Nine! Oh, come now. Wisdom, stop grinning at me. Look, I know I may have panicked a bit, but I was trying to shoot the bodyguards.”
“Yes, and emptied your pistol. That’s quite understandable.”
“But I…it was just a few seconds…nine?”
Truth put his arm around her. “Baby, look at the bright side. That means that at least some of your shots missed everyone.”
“Stop it,” she said to him. “I can see you’re all laughing at me.”
“Not me, baby.”
“Unfortunately, one of those shots did land in Patience’s back,” Grace said, “making him dreamy and unresponsive. It must have been another that was the first to wound Therion.”
Reason looked at Grace imploringly. “Sir, they’re trying to make some sort of joke out of this. Surely you aren’t laughing at me too?”
“Heavens, no. What could be funny about shooting three people through your purse while aiming at two others?”
“But I—I—did you say three, sir?”
“Yes, to complete the tally, even Mr. Wag has been found to be wounded in the left thigh.”
“Is he all right?” she said alarmed.
“Never happier,” said Honesty. “Chattering and gossiping wildly when I spoke to him.”
“Reason, you have done very well,” Grace said gently. “Because you got our message through to Power, Leasing House will not be demolished this morning. I’m proud of you. The threat to the Leasings is far from over, but for now let’s all go to bed. Oh, and by the way, don’t expect to see anything in the news media about what happened down the block this evening. At most you’ll hear that the mayor has canceled all public appearances until further notice. Once again, our Sandhill Street neighbors will be the only ones in town aware of what has happened.”
Part IV The Fop Dignity and the Prig Reason