“It’s winter and there is no yacht traffic for the marina and nothing is traveling on the Intracoastal Waterway.
“It’s winter and there’s nothing one can do with the amusement piers.
“It’s winter and there are no vacationers to fill the hotels.”
Heller shivered. “Is that all?”
“No,” said Izzy. He was unfolding a newspaper. “That spaghetti-eating schlemazel Piegare must have talked to the press right away last night, the schmuck. Have you seen this?” He was holding the front page of the New York Grimes before Heller’s eyes. It said:
WHIZ KID STEALS
ATLANTIC CITY
The resort metropolis is the first American city to be stolen since the Indians ripped off Roanoke from Sir Walter Raleigh in 1590 AD.
In a raging midnight gun battle which local police and the Army did not stop, Jerome Terrance Wister, known as the “Whiz Kid,”. . .
“Oh, my Gods,” said Heller, reading no further.
“It’s in every paper, local and national, that I spotted on the stands in New York,” said Izzy. “Headlines!”
I really laughed. Izzy thought Piegare had talked to the press. But whether he had or not made no difference. Madison! Good old J. Walter Madison, priceless Madison, had Rockecenter’s Underworld Crime Computer Bank right at his fingertips and he had jumped onto the job within minutes. What a genius!
Heller groaned, “Isn’t there any good news at all?”
Izzy said, “I think you should come down to the auditorium. The employees are meeting there and they comprise about a quarter of the population of Atlantic City. I can’t face that many people.”
Heller opened his tattered beachwear denim jacket and buckled on his gun. He drew it and checked the load.
Izzy cried, “Oh, dear! This can’t be solved by persuading more people to shoot at you! I only want you there when they start coming over the tops of the seats to tear me to pieces.”
Heller threw his black leather trench coat over his shoulders, locked and hid his grip and then followed Izzy out into the dark passageway.
They had to walk down many flights of steps, as the elevators were not running. They came at last into the back of a vast auditorium. It was lit only with kerosene camping lights.
It was jammed with people, thousands of them. Waiters, cooks, maids, croupiers, doormen, marina sailors, clerks, janitors, drivers, pilots, carnival barkers, topless dancers and every other kind of riffraff it takes to run casino-hotels, amusement piers, clubs, marinas and honky-tonks. Even security guards were there but they sure weren’t on duty to keep things orderly. What a tough collection! They weren’t the Mafia: they were the employees of all the enterprises the Mafia had taken over and now dumped.
A low growl began to rise. Fingers began to point. Teeth began to show. And they were all directed at Heller as he walked down the aisle toward the auditorium stage. From those expressions, he was about as popular as a skunk with rabies. What an enjoyable moment for me!
Izzy cringed close to Heller. He whispered, “Don’t fire them all at once. They’ll riot and we’ll have hospital bills. We have made no arrangements with them.”
Heller whispered back, a little savagely, “Haven’t you done anything?”
Izzy whispered, “It’s an almost impossible business situation. I did file a name change for the corporation. Scalpello is too notorious. But that won’t alter its debts.”
They were walking up the steps to the stage. It was totally empty except for a set of trap drums. Izzy whispered, “I couldn’t get any of my relatives to take over any director or officer posts. You own the shares, but I can’t let you get involved any deeper. So I had to do the best I could.”
Heller was about to turn and face the sullen audience but Izzy steered him further, pushing him off to the side of stage right. There was a little room there, probably a dressing room for performers. Izzy stopped Heller before they could enter. Heller peeked in.
The Countess Krak was sitting there with Mamie Boomp and Tom-Tom. The room was feebly lit by a single burning candle.
Heller whispered to Izzy, “What’s that drummer doing there? He helped with the sacks last night but he can’t count above four.”
Izzy whispered, “I know. That’s why I appointed him treasurer and secretary. He won’t die of fright looking at the horrible corporation balance sheets.”
I turned on Krak’s viewer. By it, I could see Heller peering in, clothes looking ragged under his loose trench coat. My, his depressed expression was wonderful to see! It really exhilarated me. Oh, how the mighty had fallen!
Mamie Boomp said, “Hello, sailor. Would you mind loaning me that raggedy workman’s jacket you’ve got on under your trench coat? It’s freezing.”
Heller looked at her. She was wearing a sequined blouse and a wide skirt. Gentleman that he was, he shrugged off the trench coat that lay loosely on his shoulders, took off the raggedy workman’s jacket and held it for her to put on. She got into it and buttoned it up to her throat. My, but she looked weird. Like a plumber or something! Fat lot she really knew about clothes.
Izzy said, “Now, Mr. Jet, as you are the principal and only stockholder, we can waive the formalities of a shareholder meeting. Please sign these papers.” He laid them on a small side table.
Heller bent over the papers poising a pen. He read the top lines. Mamie Boomp had been appointed president and general manager!
He looked up wide-eyed. Krak was looking at him very sternly. She made a small signing motion with her hand.
Heller signed.
At once, Mamie Boomp, Tom-Tom and the Countess Krak rose and started out onto the stage.
Heller also started to go with them. Mamie Boomp, with the flat of her hand, pushed him solidly backwards, making him sit down in a chair. She said, “You stay here, sailor, and act as Marines if they land on us. But don’t come out otherwise until I give you your cue.”
They walked out on the stage and Tom-Tom absent-mindedly closed the dressing-room door behind them.
Heller turned to Izzy, “Why are we doing anything at all? The Grabbe-Manhattan Bank will padlock the doors.”
Izzy said, “Oh, the bank. Well, when I called the Gambling Commission of New Jersey to tell them their order to Piegare to sell the corporation had been executed, they dropped the case and extended the corporation’s license.”
Heller said, “I’m talking about the Grabbe-Manhattan Bank!”
“Well, so am I,” said Izzy. “You see, I could tell Grabbe-Manhattan that the corporation would continue to hold its gambling license. They thought they were at risk because the license was going to be revoked.”
“Is that all?” said Heller.
“Not quite,” said Izzy. “As the criminal charges they could have brought against Piegare no longer applied to the corporation—since it had been sold—I told them that if they didn’t extend the loans, I would file bankruptcy and they’d lose everything. That’s why I couldn’t get here sooner. They have to have a bank directors’ meeting on all matters that involve a billion dollars’ worth of loans or more, and it took them until 10:00 AM trying to locate Rockecenter. But he and Bury are in China arranging peace and new oil monopolies and they had to go on without him. I’m sure he’ll raise the roof when he gets back and finds out, but we got an extension on all corporation mortgages.”
The Countess Krak opened the door and beckoned.
Izzy pushed Heller forward and cowered back. “You go,” he said. “I’m too scared to face that howling mob!”
Heller walked out on the stage. Mamie Boomp was standing very tall and commanding. I suddenly understood her wearing a tattered workman’s jacket. Sly psychology: it made her one of them. She had the audience dead silent. (Bleep) her performer’s control of the house: not a single jeer greeted Heller, only silent, grim faces. It spoiled the moment for me. No tomatoes!
Mamie Boomp, in a resonant voice, shouted, “May I introduce to you the principal stockholder o
f this corporation: This sterling, this remarkable naval officer, brought to you at great expense, who has come sailing up in his shore boat just to talk to you today. I give you, now, the star of stars, the friend of presidents, the one, the only, the real JEROME TERRANCE WISTER!”
Tom-Tom, sitting at the traps, had begun a drum roll. It was crescendoing up.
Mamie, voice covered by the roll, said in Heller’s ear, “Just say ‘Yes. I approve.’ And bow. That’s all. Nothing else!”
With a mighty cymbal crash, the drum roll ended.
Heller, probably shattered by the cymbal crash and stunned unthinking by the vast and silent crowd, in a loud voice said, “Yes! I approve!”
He bowed.
The hall exploded!
PANDEMONIUM!
Hats and caps went sailing into the air.
Yells burst from the thousands of throats!
Then, like a pack of hurtling animals, they came over the backs of chairs and up and onto the stage in a screaming mob.
They seized Heller. They lifted him high on their shoulders. They walked him all around the stage and then down the steps and all around the convention hall.
And all the time they were screaming, “Hail the Chief!”
Abruptly the auditorium lights came on!
What must have been a stage electrician sprang up to a balcony platform and got a spotlight going. He threw it onto Heller and turned it blue and red and yellow and white. Then he must have heard a signal from Mamie for he swiveled it over onto her on the stage. She was holding her hands up to command attention. They lifted Heller up over the footlights and turned their faces to Mamie.
In a voice that would have made a Greek orator roll in his grave with envy, Mamie roared out, “Now, ladeeees and gentlemen, you proud employees of the newly named Lucky Bonanza Casino Corporation! Get the paddles chunking, the yachts flying! Get the Boardwalk swept and the dice and wheels rolling in the dough. Tote that barge and lift that roll! In short, as your president and general manager, I advise you to get back to work! What do you say?”
The crowd cheered! It rushed out of the auditorium, on its way.
Heller looked around at the deserted hall. He looked at Mamie and Tom-Tom and the Countess. He asked them, wonderingly, “What did I approve?”
The others had their minds on different things. Nobody answered.
Heller asked, “How did the lights come on?”
Tom-Tom stopped tightening a drumhead and looked at Heller timidly. He said, “I couldn’t go to the utility company offices myself. I know as treasurer I should handle them, but I wouldn’t know if I was paying the right bank notes out, so I sent the bandleader. The lights, phone, water and furnaces should all be on shortly, as he keeps good time.”
Heller looked around. “But they can’t start gambling in the casinos or even make change in the stores. There isn’t any cash.”
The Countess Krak was at his elbow. “I didn’t tell you, dear, as you seemed so busy. But I put three sacks of that money in a ventilator shaft. It’s about a million and a half, they guess. I gave it to Mamie so she could get your corporation going.”
Mamie said, “And it is really appreciated, honey. It’s enough to pay utilities, get money in the cashier’s cages and fill up the slot machines so we can start pulling in some dough.”
Heller asked them, “What did I approve?”
But he was being pushed out of the auditorium by Mamie. They got to the lobby.
It was jammed with newly arriving people! MOBS! There were four long lines at the desk where clerks were swiftly checking them in.
Heller looked out a side window. The parking lot was jammed with newly arrived cars. And more were strung out down the road, honking their way forward inch by inch. He said to Mamie, “Why are all those people coming in?”
She said, as she pushed him up some steps, “I guess it’s to see the scene of the battle. It’s all over national TV. Burning tanks, exploding landing craft, shot-down planes. The wrecks are all out there, real and authentic, too! The PR people did a great job on press-agenting your taking Atlantic City by storm. They even used some film clips of the Normandy D-day landing in World War II. It’s been on every network since midmorning. But Atlantic City press agents have always been tops.”
I snorted. Atlantic City press agents be (bleeped). That was Madison!
The Countess Krak said, “Was there a battle, dear? I was in the laundry room and corridors. I did hear shooting. But I didn’t know you’d been down on the beach.”
They had reached the former office of Capo Gobbo Piegare. Mamie inspected the place; she picked a beautifully sculpted black hand off the desk and dropped it in the wastebasket and dusted off her fingers. She then removed Heller’s coat and sat down in the elegant yellow desk chair. From it she had a view of the Boardwalk, which was getting noisier.
She tossed the jacket to Heller. “You sure are clever, sailor. Having a stand-in doing autographs for you. It can be pretty tiring, as stars like me know only too well. But listen, sailor: when you choose a double, pick one that looks more like you. I can’t abide buckteeth.”
“Double?” said Heller. “Where is the double?”
Oh, my Gods. I certainly smelled Madison here in his relentless search for front page.
“Why,” said Mamie, “he’s out there now on the Boardwalk, autographing like mad. Clever idea. Wears one out posing for TV crews. But the double is handling it well.”
The Countess said, “So you don’t have to go out, dear.”
Heller peeked through the window down at the Boardwalk. It was SWARMING with public and vendors and reporters and cameramen. The double, Madison’s phony “Whiz Kid”—glasses, big jaw, buckteeth and all—was standing on a wrecked army-surplus tank while some effects man rekindled the flames within it.
“I sure won’t,” said Heller, flinching. He turned back into the room. “Will somebody please, please tell me what I approved?”
Mamie sat up in the sumptuous desk chair. “Well, you see, none of the staff has been paid for ages. And they know the corporation can’t pay them and it’s winter and there are no jobs open.” She looked at him questioningly as if to say, did he really want to know?
“Please tell me,” begged Heller.
“Well, in short, sailor, I told them that if you approved it, they could have 100 percent of the profits of the whole corporation and all its holdings, after expenses, until all their back wages, withholding tax and pension fund was caught up. After that, you said they could only have 60 percent. However, that won’t be for a long, long time.”
Heller sat down suddenly in a chair. And well he might! For, to all intents and purposes, so far as income for an owner was concerned, Atlantic City again had just changed hands!
THE WHOLE ENTERPRISE HAD BEEN TAKEN OVER BY THE STAFF!
Mamie went on. “But I need an opinion from you on something very important.”
Breathlessly, he said, “What?”
Mamie said, persuasively, “Don’t you think I should order my name put up in lights on each casino-hotel? Real big: ‘Mamie Boomp, President and General Manager.’ How do you think that would go over?”
Very faintly, Heller said, “Wonderful.” Then after a little he turned to Countess Krak, “Dear, I think it’s time we went back to New York.”
Oh, did I guffaw! Heller’s venture to get Izzy out of debt had made exactly no progress at all! It had only brought more trouble. Moreover, he was now discouraged and of very low morale.
I decided then and there to stop worrying about him and let him sink. There was no slightest sign that he would do anything productive or active, and when the word came from Lombar, he and the Countess Krak would still be in the US floundering around. They didn’t have a prayer of completing before I could get the word and kill them both!
My euphoria revved right up to top peak. It was I who was winning. Me, me, me!
PART THIRTY-NINE
Chapter 2
The next mo
rning my beauty sleep was shattered by a shrieking sizzle at my bedside. It interrupted a beautiful dream: Heller and Krak were in a bread line in New York and a Manco Devil was standing there with a soup ladle, not only refusing them food but also banging them expertly over the head with the sharp edge.
The shrieking sizzle was the intercom. It was quite unusual for it to buzz, for Faht Bey never wanted any help from me if he could possibly escape it. So it must be an emergency.
I pushed the button.
It was!
Faht Bey said, “Come to the hangar quick! They’re killing Dr. Crobe!”
I would have said, so what, why are you calling me? But he had closed the line.
It occurred to me that I should not be careless. Life is full of chances. I had learned from Bury to always have an alternate solution in case something went wrong. I might need Crobe in the event that Heller and Krak muddled through.
I got into some clothes. I armed myself very heavily. I went down the tunnel to the hangar to give Faht a piece of my mind. Things had changed and he had better find out about it.
He was waiting for me at the hangar end.
“Since when,” I asked him acidly, “am I responsible for everyone on this base?”
“You sent for him!” said Faht Bey. “You had him brought from Voltar. And now look!”
Crobe was halfway up the hangar wall, hanging by his fingernails.
On the hangar floor, fifty feet below him, were the four assassin pilots and the five Antimancos. And they were furious!
They were yelling curse words up at Dr. Crobe, the like of which I had never heard before. Unprintable! An awful din!
“I won’t let them shoot at him. He’s only two feet away from an earthquake stability box,” said Faht. “They might hit it and cave the whole place in.”
True enough: the small box which kept an invisible bar beam going to brace two walls apart was right by his head.
I didn’t want to go near the assassin pilots: they are pretty dangerous people to be around even when they’re calm. And right then they were definitely not calm. They were howling and jumping up and down.