An Alien Affair

  He handed Bang-Bang the bulletproof suit. "Go in that booth over there and put this on."

  Bang-Bang, grumbling, did as he was told.

  Then Heller handed him the black dress.

  "Oh no!" said Bang-Bang.

  "Oh yes," said Heller. "It's the latest style."

  Bang-Bang furiously wrestled into the dress, muttering, "What I go through!"

  Heller now put the hat on him and dropped the veil over his face.

  "Oh my God!" said Bang-Bang, looking at himself in a mirror. "If they ever hear of this at Sardine's, I'll never live it down!"

  Heller gave the proprietor another fifty dollars. "We'll bring the costume back."

  The man said, "Nein, nein, keep it! We got plenty like dot. Them we furnish for the funerals, yet."

  "I hope not mine!" said Bang-Bang.

  "Let's go and see," said Heller.

  Chapter 4

  In the cab, Bang-Bang said, "That cat is having an awful effect on you! Janitors don't ride in cabs and old ladies sure as hell don't drive them!"

  "This is G-2 homework," said Heller, in obvious reference to his military class. "We're spies in disguise."

  "Oh," said Bang-Bang.

  Heller was examining the baggage check. It said:

  Midtown Air Terminal

  Overnight Baggage Check

  He told Bang-Bang where to go exactly. The town was quiet. They reached the entrance Heller had specified and pulled into the covered area where cabs usually stood. There weren't any there. The place was deserted.

  Heller put his cap down on the back seat and put the cat on top of it. Heller handed Bang-Bang the baggage check.

  "Now, Bang-Bang, we're going to go in separately. When you hear me drop this bucket, you walk up to the overnight baggage counter, present this check, pick up whatever they give you and walk out through the underground passage back to this cab. If I yell 'Pizza,' you duck. Got it?"

  "Did you say 'Drop the bucket'? or 'Kick the bucket'?"

  "If there's any shooting, let's hope it's somebody else that kicks the bucket."

  "I haven't got a rod."

  "Neither have I and I didn't notice any in these bags. But I know this place. I am sure you'll be as safe as if you were in your own bed."

  "You don't know some of the skirts that get in my bed," said Bang-Bang.

  "They always shoot for the body," said Heller.

  "Let's hope they know that," said Bang-Bang.

  They got out. "Now, cat," said Heller, "you stay there. I don't want you hitting me up for overtime." He closed the door.

  Bang-Bang slung the empty purse over his shoulder and entered the long, dark tunnel.

  Heller, with his broom and bucket, skipped around to another entrance and shortly emerged on a mezzanine that overlooked the lobby. From it he could see the overnight baggage-check counter below and across the lower floor.

  The mezzanine had seats on it. In one of the seats sat a very beefy man in a black overcoat and a black slouch hat. He glanced up as Heller walked along and then resumed his watch on the lobby below.

  Heller looked the lobby all over. Only a couple of clerks. No traffic at this time of night.

  He dropped the bucket loudly and began to sweep away.

  Bang-Bang emerged from the tunnel and mincingly walked over to the overnight baggage counter below.

  The man in the black overcoat leaned forward.

  Bang-Bang pushed a buzzer on the counter and a sleepy clerk came out of the wire-enclosed interior, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

  Bang-Bang handed him the ticket.

  Heller swept away at the carpet, ignored by the man on the nearby seat.

  The clerk found the item. He got it down from the racks. It was a large, brown suitcase with big metal locks. It seemed heavy. He wanted two dollars and Bang-Bang, with the empty purse, had to hike up his dress, fumble in the pockets of the bulletproof suit for his wallet and get out two one-dollar bills. He made it not very elegantly, but from this vantage place on the mezzanine, the bullet-proof jumper didn't show. Bang-Bang needed a lot of lessons in being an old lady!

  The clerk relinquished the suitcase. Bang-Bang got it off the counter at the near cost of a sprained arm. He went tottering off toward the underground-entrance arch.

  Black Overcoat was up with a grunt the moment Bang-Bang vanished into the tunnel.

  With great speed the man went flying down the mezzanine stairs.

  Heller with bucket and broom was not five steps behind him.

  Why didn't the fellow look back? Then I realized Heller was running at the exact same cadence as the other. There was only one set of sounds of feet!

  Heller was almost breathing down the man's neck!

  They crossed the lobby.

  Black Overcoat darted into the tunnel.

  He had drawn a gun!

  Suddenly it came to me that somebody had not meant Gunsalmo Silva to really collect that suitcase! I was watching the standard hit-the-hitter routine in progress!

  Or was it? Maybe this was something else?

  The doors ahead of Bang-Bang burst open!

  Two men dressed like cab drivers rushed in. They were thirty feet in front of Bang-Bang.

  Black Overcoat had a big revolver extended toward Bang-Bang.

  Heller reached over the big man's shoulder and seized his gun hand. The bucket clattered to the floor.

  "Pizza!" shouted Heller.

  Bang-Bang dropped the suitcase and dived to the side! Heller's left hand was gripping a neck muscle of the big man. The gun stayed extended.

  The two coming in the door dived for the suitcase. One got it. The other was grabbing out a gun.

  Heller's hand closed on the big man's gun fist.

  The revolver roared!

  The one who had been drawing was flung back with a hammer blow!

  The big man's revolver fired again!

  The one with the suitcase flew forward, dropped it and collapsed.

  Heller turned the gun sideways until it pointed at the struggling assassin's head.

  BLOWIE!

  The hat went sailing with hair in it.

  Heller's left hand shifted to the overcoat. He snatched out a wallet from the breast pocket.

  He let the big man collapse and only then let go of the gun hand. Black Overcoat's fingers were still wrapped around the weapon. I realized Heller's own hand had never touched it!

  Heller scooped up his bucket and broom.

  Bang-Bang was picking himself off the floor.

  Heller raced ahead and grabbed Bang-Bang by the arm and then, in passing, grabbed the handle of the suitcase.

  They sped to the cab.

  Heller threw Bang-Bang behind the wheel and the bag, bucket and broom into the back.

  "Close that door!" cried Bang-Bang. "We don't want this blamed on the cat!" He slammed the cab into gear with a crash!

  There wasn't a soul in sight as Bang-Bang sped out of the terminal.

  Chapter 5

  In a parking lot and a darkened cab they got Bang-Bang into his regular clothes. Then, burdened with all the baggage and the cat riding in the purse, they struggled through the icy New York night and entered the Empire State Building at the 33rd Street entrance.

  A sleepy elevator girl deposited them incuriously at their floor and shortly Heller was knocking sharply at the door of Multinational.

  Izzy put an eye to the door. "What's up?"

  "We're making you an accessory after the cat," said Bang-Bang. "Come along."

  They went to Heller's office, put the baggage down and turned on the lights. The cat began to inspect the place.

  Heller laid the new bag over on its side and was reaching for something to pick the locks when Bang-Bang stopped him. "No, no! Jesus, don't you never remember nothing I taught you? Never pick a lock in New York—it might be wired for a bomb! Let me."

  Bang-Bang rummaged around in a case of tools and found some wire snips and thin screwdrivers and began to attack the
hinges of the new bag.

  Heller opened the two original suitcases wide and began to go through their contents.

  Izzy came in. He had on a shabby old overcoat and a nightcap and his feet were bare.

  Heller was picking up items and reading their tags:

  Hydrogen self-inflatable balloon

  for rapid escapes.

  Certified CIA Test Lab.

  Melting spoon.

  When used to stir cocktails,

  introduces deadly poison.

  Certified CIA Test Lab.

  Poison Lipstick.

  Shade: Charming Carmen.

  Apply to secretary's lips

  and when she kisses boss,

  imparts deadly poison that kills instantly.

  Certified CIA Test Lab.

  Suicide Kit: Take two before retiring.

  The Surgeon General has determined these

  to be hazardous to your health....

  "What are you doing?" said Izzy with alarm.

  "We're penetrating the most closely held secrets of the CIA," said Heller.

  "I can't get these God (bleeped) hinges loose," said Bang-Bang.

  Heller reached over to the front locks and gave them a flip. The bag cracked open! Bang-Bang dived for cover.

  Izzy didn't. He had already spotted something through the crack. He bent down and pulled the top wide. He said, "Oy!"

  MONEY! The bag was jammed tight with U.S. bills of assorted denominations, neatly strapped with bank bands.

  Heller picked up the corner of the big suitcase and emptied it on the floor.

  A small mountain of MONEY!

  Heller examined the bag for internal markings and false bottoms.

  But Izzy sat down on the floor. His bare feet started scrubbing against each other. His hands, like talons, began to lock upon packets of money.

  In a muttering blur of sound, as fast as the blur of his hands as he stacked it, the pile of packets, neatened, grew beside him. Then he was done.

  "Oy," said Izzy. "Give or take miscounts in the packages, this is a MILLION DOLLARS!" He rubbed at his eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses. He looked at Heller. "How do you do these things?"

  Heller fished up my poor, misdirected hundred thousand. He added to it rubles and an extra fistful of currency that had been in the purse. Then he tossed all this on the pile. He said, "I have secret admirers, Izzy. They are terrified I might go on welfare."

  "Did you draw this out of the bank? I mean are there any traces on it?"

  "Nary a one," said Heller. "A totally untraceable donation."

  Izzy was totalling again. "Oy, oy!" he said, "This means we only have $400,000 more to go to clean up IRS!"

  Heller reached over. He pulled some packets off the stack. "Make that $410,100, Izzy. Bang-Bang is low on skirts. He was complaining just tonight." He handed $10,000 to Bang-Bang.

  Izzy was doing plans and calculations. "I won't pay IRS. I will put it all on the arbitrage line, run it up and then pay those goyim robbers. The Japanese yen is dirt cheap in Singapore tonight and sky-high in Paris! I'll get right on——"

  "Wait a minute, wait a minute, Izzy." Heller looked around. The cat had gotten up on his desk and was sitting there eyeing Izzy very intently.

  Heller handed Izzy a $100 bill. "Go buy this cat a blanket and a new harness and a dish and things. He hasn't got a decent spacekit."

  Izzy took the $100 but he said, "You going to keep a cat here? There aren't any mice."

  Heller said, "This is a no-mice cat. He deals with rats, exclusively. He's a very tough hit cat, Izzy. And you'll be very glad to know that I saved his life so now you have somebody to share responsibility for me."

  "Oh, thank heavens," said Izzy. "I'll get him a space-kit at once, whatever it is."

  Izzy was stuffing money into big plastic bags from the bar. He looked around to see if there was any more and then rushed out.

  The cat, apparently having made certain that Izzy would obey, curled up under Heller's desk lamp and went to sleep.

  Heller was looking at the wallet he had snapped out of Black Overcoat's pocket. It had some names and I.D. in it. He showed it to Bang-Bang. "Inganno John Scroccone. You know the name, Bang-Bang?"

  "No."

  Heller looked at it again. "I'm certainly in the I.D. collection business. I've got to find out."

  Bang-Bang said, "What really happened up there on the roof tonight?"

  "Hush," said Heller. "I promised the cat faithfully I wouldn't turn state's evidence on him. His pawprints are all over the place. So both him and me have got to take the Fifth."

  "Oh," said Bang-Bang.

  The cat stretched and began to purr.

  Chapter 6

  The horrible sight of my hundred thousand dollars U.S. in Heller's hand did something even more horrible to my psyche. A psyche is, as all psychologists know, located just above the id and, when overreacted upon, bruises the ego. When these three things are already swollen from past abuses, there ensues what is called the "I'm-going-nuts syndrome." A case of multiple frustrations is likely to ensue, surcharging the blood vessels and precipitating an epileptic fit.

  All patients have their own particular remedies. With some, it is yelling at the wife. With others, it is kicking the dog. I thought rapidly: if I did not apply first aid at once, I might find myself in need of psychiatric help. Drunkards often obtain relief by imbibing the hair of a dog that bit them but I had no dog whose hair I might find palatable, much less one to kick. Thus, out of dire necessity, an inspiration was born. I had better look at some money. That, I was sure, would be the soothing balm which would interrupt the threatened epileptic fit.

  Accordingly, with shaking hands, I went to my mattress and reached within. Some days ago, when Silva had come, thirty thousand bucks had remained in this hiding place. If I just gazed upon them and caressed their crisp-ness, life might once more begin to flow through my higher nervous centers and make them less nervous.

  My hand didn't contact anything!

  I threshed it about.

  Still nothing.

  Alarmed now more than ever, I threw the mattress on the floor. I tore the bed apart. I took a knife to the box springs.

  NO MONEY!

  It was gone.

  I lay down in the wreckage and had my epileptic fit.

  It didn't help.

  I banged my head against the wall. That didn't help, either. But some time later, I woke up and found that it was a bright day.

  Coffee. Maybe several cups of coffee would steady my nerves. I managed to phone down and get the order placed. I took a shower and then found out I was standing in it with my clothes on.

  By the time I had remedied this and had my pants turning into ice on the terrace, breakfast had arrived.

  Unthinkingly, I opened the paper.

  Buckteeth!

  A two-column picture!

  Madison had once more made the front page!

  WHIZ KID SUES OCTOPUS

  TEN-BILLION-BUCK BANG

  The attorneys of the Whiz Kid—Boggle, Gouge and Hound—today filed suit against olympian Octopus Oil Company for a cool ten billion bucks, the largest malfeasance civil suit in history. Rockecenter attorneys, Swindle and Crouch, when reached, said, "No comment."

  The financial world today was rocked by the spectacle of Octopus actually being sued. Stocks fell. Dow-Jones dropped 230 points. The other six of the Seven Brothers hastily denied connection and complicity but informed sources implied they would soon be added due to their inextricable interlocks and total control by Octopus.

  The Whiz Kid stated, "Octopus cannot help but be included in my campaign to bring honesty and integrity into the way faculties discriminate against students. Octopus heavily endows M.I.W., which makes oil a party to conspiracy to conspire with multiple malice and breach of breaches. By cancelling my scholarship and depriving the college restaurant of my services, chaos has been caused, irreparable and condemnatory. If Octopus can callously deny students second
helpings of rice pudding, the whole American way of life is threatened. Fascism will flourish and all will tremble at the tyranny. ..."

  Oh, there was more! And the vendor, knowing my habits, had a five-foot stack of newspapers outside my door.

  The shouts and roars of student riots on the TV were so loud, I couldn't understand the news vendor who kept asking me for his money. I had to close the door on him.

  Madison had blown it!

  That was very plain indeed. He was obviously going to tailor the Whiz Kid into a deathless symbol of revolt against Big Oil.

  How Heller must be sniggering this morning!

  Although I loathed to do it, I approached my viewer. It was my duty and the way of the Apparatus officer (hard though it may be to always have duty as a goal). Besides, I was too shaken up to do more than collapse in front of the screen hoping that this did not reveal a diagnosis of masochism in me.

  Chapter 7

  Heller was riding in a public cab. By his reflection in the partition, I could see he was wearing a tan tweed suit, a puffed-out silk tie and, over it all, a cordovan-leather trench coat. Really elegant. I tried to make out where he was going by the passing winter scenery he seemed to be admiring so much. They were on some sort of a turnpike. He was catching glimpses of sunlit water to his left.

  The Statue of Liberty! Way over there. And beyond it, back and across the bay, Manhattan!

  Babe Corleone—he was on his way to see Babe Corleone!

  Sure enough, they soon exited from the turnpike and shortly were threading their way through the impressive high-rises of Bayonne.

  He told the cab to wait and shortly was greeting a somewhat uncertain Geovani.

  "She ain't very happy today, kid," said Geovani. "Maybe you ought to postpone seein' her."

  "Can't wait," said Heller.

  Geovani shrugged. He went to the living room door and knocked and then opened it.

  Babe was dressed in a light gray lounge suit. She was pacing back and forth, the width of the huge living room, pausing to look out the picture window at the wintry sunlight on the park. She did two turns before she said, "Show him in."