"No, but it's a 'shopworn, overused and wearisome truism,' so they
slipped it through."
"Golly, next thing you know, they'll be copyrighting a deep sigh or
the smacking sound of a kiss."
* * * * *
Monitor Platt laughed in appreciation. Then, as Jeb frowned and
attended to fitting his detector into the shell of the air pollution
meter, Monitor Platt regaled him with the violations that had poured
credits into his pockets.
"Got a cute dame, nice curves, getting a good hugging under the moon
near the lake. She says timidly to this sap, 'It's the first time
I've ever been kissed, honestly.' Bong! Fifty credits for the expense
account. And another one I picked up in a canoe parked on the bank.
This guy says soulfully, 'I'm not the marrying kind, but....' He never
gets a chance to finish. Bong! Thirty credits. I sure cleaned up today.
If I were you, I'd head straight for the snuggle spots. A whole raft
of corny love lines have been blanketed in, you know, and nobody's
alerted."
"Uh, well," muttered Jeb, who didn't want any enemies and so didn't
express his feelings about making a living from such a source, "I
already have my schedule figured out, but I'll keep it in mind."
"Where you headed for?"
Monitor Jeb was relieved when the big bell sounded, its brassy
reverberations warning Monitors to quit gabbing and get out into the
field to scoop up violations and revenue for the corporation. The
paunchy office manager, seated up on a small balcony overlooking
the giant hall, saw that the signal was, as usual, being ignored.
Indignantly he punched a button on the board facing him and a repulsive
odor filled the air which had the Monitors hastily seizing their
equipment and leaving the building.
Jeb gladly took off into the windy canyons between the skyscrapers.
Instead of ascending, he plummeted down forty stories and drifted
along, his nostrils twitching with the bad air at this height.
Fleetingly, he had the grumbling thought that, with present-day
technology, there was no excuse at all for polluted atmosphere.
_Oh, well_, he thought, _one of these days, somebody public-minded
will do something about it. Right now, I've got to make enough to stop
Laurie from certifying me._
He felt a sudden chill as he recalled his wife's threat. Quickly he
sought out the first location he'd mapped out for some easy revenue,
the personnel office of the Air Pollution Control Corp. Jeb switched
off anti-gravity and heavily walked through the corridor, stepped
inside the deep-rugged, gray and green office and joined the small
nervous group of inspectors waiting for interviews.
* * * * *
Jeb, in his air pollution uniform, was as acceptable as a long-used
piece of furniture. Unnoticed, he sat on one of the hard benches with
the others. They stared and listened to the interview being conducted
by the genial, balding man behind the open partition ten feet away. The
air pollution inspector facing him was tense, pale and overanxious.
"Yes, indeed, you _do_ have a good record," the personnel man was
saying approvingly. "No absences in five years, no latenesses. Very
good indeed."
"Then," said the air pollution inspector eagerly, "I'll be upgraded?
I'll get that promotion promised two years ago?"
The personnel man cleared his throat, but his smile remained radiant.
"Just as soon as business picks up, we'll give you a promotion and
raise in pay...."
Bong!
A roar of mirth arose from the waiting air pollution men as Monitor Jeb
nervously pulled his Monitex from its concealing pollution meter shell
and read the violation off to the enraged personnel man. A fifty credit
fee for use of the copyrighted verbal phrase _Just as soon as business
picks up, we'll give you a promotion and raise in pay._
As Jeb escaped the wrath of his victim, one of the men snickering
nearby muttered, "Hah! He'll have to rack his tiny brain for a new way
of stalling us from now on."
In the next three hours, Jeb drove himself hard. He picked up a twenty
credit fee when a doorman outside a Teletheatre had bonged the Monitex
with "Plenty of seats inside!" He scooped up another violation in a
bar when a bleary-eyed man with veins showing in his nose murmured to
the bartender, "Well, I'll have just _one_ more." He wandered to the
telephone booths and waited for one of the standby violations to fall
into his pocket; sure enough, a handsome, dark-eyed fellow murmured
into the mouthpiece, "I'll be working late tonight again, honey; sorry."
The time passed too swiftly and when Jeb paused to get a bite of food,
he saw, dismayed, that even though he was having a pretty good day, it
was far from the killing he'd promised Laurie. Ten and twenty credit
violations didn't make a man rich.
_What I need is one of the really big ones_, thought Jeb desperately.
With fumbling fingers, he pressed out a core number on the Monitex.
It glowed blue.