* * * * *
We ascended. I could just about read the cabbie's mind. "These damn
Competitors! So busy and so loaded they have to spend money to kill
time." We wafted towards the lakefront. My own thoughts were swirling
chaotically. I felt as though someone had turned off the degravity
device just as I was stepping into the elevator shaft. The rug--no,
the entire floor itself--had been yanked out from under me. I knew now
that I was being pursued systematically. It was not yet noon, not yet
two hours since the event. Already the subtle, confident, overpowering
resources of the state had been brought to bear, narrowing the avenues
of escape, cutting off the criminal's life-line. Yet what had made me
an outlaw? Love of offspring?
"Do you want me to just keep circling?" said the cabbie.
I made a quick decision. "Board of Trade Building. I'll show you which
entrance when we get there."
My office was located there. Undoubtedly it would be under close
watch. Probably Charlie Spacker's was also. But I had to communicate
with Charlie. Had to get some money. Had to arrange to get out of the
country.
In my mind's eye I could visualize two plainclothesmen seated in the
anteroom of the firm of Sponsor & Spacker, trying to appear like
clients. I could see another detective or two, armed with photograph
and paralyzer, keeping vigilance on the roof landing. A few more
watching the ground level entrance.
It was hard for me to believe I was that important to the state, worth
a platoon of human blood-hounds. And yet, if the state was doing a
thorough job at all, one had to assume they were there, and at our
home in Mason City, Iowa, and at my club, and at all the space and air
terminals as well. But it did not seem likely to me that a detective
would actually be sitting in my private office, at my desk, waiting for
me to come in through the window. That was the chance I'd have to take.
We approached the massive Board of Trade Building, which resembled the
glued-together pipes of an antique pipe-organ, and I pointed and said
to the cabbie,
"See that balcony. Let me off there."
The driver stared back at me, wide-eyed. "We aren't allowed to do
that, mister."
"I realize that," I said, handing him a twenty credit note. "But I want
to play a joke on a friend."
"All right, buddy," he said, maneuvering his copter closer to the
building. "Remember, if you land on the pavement below, I don't offer
any guarantees."
He hovered stationary beside my balcony and I leaped across the air
space of two or three feet and slipped and clung, and finally scrambled
to safety.
I could see into my darkened office. It didn't look as if anyone was
there. Then a new problem presented itself. How to open the unbreakable
strontium-alloy window? There was no way at all to do it from the
outside.
Why hadn't I thought of that!
I looked down sixty-eight stories, and looked up forty-one stories, and
realized I was trapped.
Unless I could reach the balcony outside Charlie's office. Oh my God, I
thought--a human fly act! That was ten feet away, and I am six-foot-one
tall. Moreover, the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. And the
face of the building was perfectly smooth. Not a thing to use as a
hand-hold.
There was another possibility. I took off one of my shoes and hurled
it at Charlie's window. It missed, but fortunately remained on the
balcony. I took off the other one. It struck his window with a dull
clonk.
If Charlie was out of his office--. Well, I couldn't be any more in a
jam without shoes than with shoes.
A face appeared at the window. Our secretary Claire. She peered out
for an instant, but the angle was too extreme for her to see me
waving crazily. As she disappeared I let out an anguished shout. She
reappeared, pressed the window lever, and stuck her head outside.
"Mr. Sponsor!" she said in amazement.
"Is Spacker there?" I had no time to dwell on the situation.
"No, Mr. Sponsor, he's still in the pit." A frown crossed her forehead.
"But there are some gentlemen--waiting to see you."
"Yes, I know about them. Now, Claire. Come into my office through the
adjoining door and open this window. And first please reach out and get
my shoes."
She smiled, and I too had to see the humor.
Claire was a pretty-faced brunette with ultra-fair complexion and a
tendency towards overweight which kept her eating prescriptions instead
of meals. She couldn't compete with our robot steno, but customers like
to deal with a human being. And she was loyal.
She let me in and handed me my shoes.
I sat down, put them on. "Those men outside are not to know I'm here."
This was the real test of her loyalty.
Claire nodded tersely. She was not a dumb girl.
"I'm in serious trouble, Claire. The less you know about it the better,
but it's all tied up with the crisis on Venus. Were you able to book
passage for me?"
"Yes, you've a reservation on the midnight rocket."
"Good! When's your lunch hour?"
"I'm on it now, Mr. Sponsor."
"Will you do me a tremendous favor, Claire? I know it's an imposition,
but it's quite urgent. Would you go down to the Venus Spaceship Line
and pick up that ticket for me? And while you're at it, get two more
tickets on the same ship, but separated from me. Do you understand?
Have them bill us as usual."
"Under what name, Mr. Sponsor?" She was a canny girl.
"Leave all three open under our company name." This wasn't much better
than 'Mr. & Mrs. Bart Sponsor & Son', but it left us some leeway to
juggle identities. Perhaps trade tickets with three shlubs at the last
minute. "I hope you don't mind this imposition." I added.
"I'll be very glad to do this for you, Mr. Sponsor." She hesitated. "Do
you want me to bring the tickets back to the office? What should I do
with them if you've left in the meantime?"
These were knowledgeable questions. How much did she already know? Was
Claire really loyal, or was she planning already to tip off the police?
Have them trail me, trap Celia and Freddie as well? That was one of
those unavoidable risks.
"Mmm. Good question, Claire. Leave them in an envelope at the mail desk
of the Conrad-Palmer Hotel ... under my name."
Hell, I thought. If she's going to betray me, the name won't make any
difference. Otherwise, I'll need my own name for identification, in
order to pick up the envelope.
* * * * *
They had not gotten around to examining my personal files. The drawers
were still locked, and my slim, antique missile-gun was still filed
under "W" (for weapon). I slipped it into my pocket and began rifling
through my papers. I had never, to be truthful, expected to be in a
situation as bad as this. But Top Competitors have to be prepared for
some rough tactics.
Under "I" was a set of false identity papers. Under "S" was a sleep
bomb--strenuously outlawed in private hands. Under "B" were various
blackmail letters, including one I secretly held over Spacker. I looked
hopefully under "M" for money, but there my foresight had failed me. It
had never occurred to me that a man with a quarter of a million in the
bank, and three times as much in securities, would some day need money.
I did find something under "M" that made me pause. Mendelsohn. It was
a yellowed old folder, certainly the oldest in the entire file. My
thoughts suddenly swirled back to college days. This was a project we
had worked up together, when Solly was still hot on soil chemistry, and
I hadn't settled on anything definite except somehow making a fortune.
This was a technique for creating tillable topsoil out of solid rock in
ten short years. About a million times faster than nature could do it,
but who wanted to wait ten years?
Not I, at least. And when I, who was to do the selling, cooled off on
the idea, Solly lost interest too.
Intriguing, though. Maybe Solly would like it back. Maybe the poor
shlub could use it on Primus Gladus. I began stuffing things in my
briefcase.
Charlie Spacker returned. I could hear him enter the adjoining office.
I gave him time to settle down at his desk, then made my appearance.
"Bart!" He was genuinely startled. Charlie was a heavy-set, muscular
man with deep resonant voice, short-cut wiry hair, and ruggedly
sculptured Roman features. He was a good bargainer by instinct, a rough
competitor within established ground rules, but weak on the frontiers,
slow to assimilate new ideas, fearful of decisions.
"You've been a long time in returning, Charlie. I've waited here almost
an hour. The gentlemen outside are growing impatient."