"Something I wouldn't expect you to appreciate," Phil replied.
"However," he continued, taking a more cautious slug of the mind
swelling drink, "there should be enough in the way of ordinary
valuables lying about to compensate you for your effort. I understand
that Fun Incorporated is rather wealthy. For one thing, all
sales-robots work from there," he finished grandly. "Why not hit them
where they live?"
Otie stretched leanly from under Buck's chair and snapped at Phil's
hand. Phil, stiffened by the drink, didn't move it. The jaws clashed
hardly an inch away. "Why do you call him Otie?" Phil asked.
"'Cause he's a coyote," Buck explained, almost with condescension.
"S'posed to have been bred back for ancestral traits to the Oligocene
type."
Phil found himself wondering whether cats could be bred back to their
Egyptian ancestors and whether those ancestors might have been green.
In the pause, Mitzie's eyes grew bright. She looked at her companions.
"Why don't we take him up on it?" she said lightly but not casually. "I
mean, about Fun Incorporated. It sounds exciting.
"Why don't we?" Mitzie repeated after a moment.
Carstairs, Llewellyn and Buck sat there as coolly and as contemptuous
of any challenge as when Phil had first seen them. Yet there was a
difference.
"Of course, it's risky," Phil cut in. "Moe Brimstine's boys have
orthos."
"What do you know about orthos?" Carstairs demanded hungrily.
Phil shrugged. "They're blue and they sizzle," he said. "I got shot at
with one earlier tonight."
"Why don't we, I'm asking?" Mitzie pressed.
"I asked Juno and Jack Jones to help me," Phil put in. "You know, the
wrestlers. But they decided not to."
Still no one answered Mitzie's question. "Well, I guess that's it," she
said with a triumphant smile, turning away from the table. "Come on,
Phil."
They had taken three steps when Carstairs began to chuckle quietly.
Phil might have kept going, but Mitzie turned back with a carefully
repressed eagerness that Phil resented.
"Don't kill yourselves running," Carstairs said. "Llewellyn and Buck
and I are signing up for this little expedition, providing the clown
can give the right answers to a few questions when we get outside." He
smiled as he got up. "Just one thing, Mitz. This time there better be
no cops."
Mitzie laughed. Phil accepted the situation with a "Glad to have your
help, boys," and started to take Mitzie's arm, but she linked hers with
those of Carstairs and Llewellyn, not sparing Phil another look.
The sequined singer had shifted to a snappier rhythm.
Slap me silly, honey,
Beat me till I break.
Love is very funny,
Laugh until I ache....
To solace his injured feelings, Phil veered over to Phoebe Filmer's
booth, where the green-blonde was being rather pointedly annoyed by two
bearded young men while her escort looked on agitatedly.
Phil tapped the nearest ruffian on the shoulder. "Lay off, boys," he
commanded, with a meaningful nod toward his own party. Buck at least
looked his way and Otie growled. The bearded ruffians slunk off. Phil
made Phoebe a tiny bow.
"Thank you," she said weakly and astoundedly.
He gestured that it was a mere nothing and walked off.
"Say," she asked, hurrying after him and dragging her escort with her,
"did you ever find that green cat of yours?"