On the first cloudy day in November, Tom Blacker, the shining light of
Ostreich and Company, Public Relations Counsellors, placed a call to a
shirtsleeved man on the rooftop of the Cannon Building in New York City.
His message brought an immediate response from the waiting engineer, who
flicked switches and twirled dials with expert motions, and brought into
play the gigantic 50,000-watt projector installed on the peak.
In his own office, Tom paced the floor in front of the three-window
exposure, watching the heavens for the results.
They weren't long in coming.
The eyes came first. Eyes the size of Navy dirigibles, with pupils of
deep cerulean blue, floating against the backdrop of the gray cumulus.
The long lashes curled out almost a hundred feet from the lids. Then the
rest of Monica Mitchell's famous face appeared: the flowing yellow
locks, the sensuously curved lips, parted moistly from even white teeth.
From chin to hairline, the projected image above the city was close to a
thousand feet in diameter.
Then, as if the floating countenance wasn't alarming enough, the ruby
lips began to move. Monica's sweet-sultry voice, like the first
drippings from a jar of honey, overcame the city sounds, and began
crooning the syrupy strains of _Love Me Alone_. Which happened, by no
coincidence, to be the title and theme song of Monica's newest epic.
[Illustration: Monica's image--plastered across the heavens--stopped
traffic in all directions.]
It was a triumph. Tom knew it the moment he looked down at the crowded
thoroughfare eighteen stories beneath the window. Traffic had come to a
more than normal standstill. Drivers were leaving their autos, and hands
were being upraised towards the gargantuan face on the clouds above.
And of course, Tom's phone rang.
* * * * *
Ostreich's big scowling face was barely squeezed within the confines of
the visiphone screen. He said nothing intelligible for two minutes.
"Relax, Chief," Tom said brightly. "I've been saving this as a
surprise."
Ostreich's reply was censorable.
"Now look, D. O. You gave me _carte blanche_ with this Mitchell babe,
remember? I figured we really needed a shot in the arm for this new
picture of hers. The receipts on her last turkey couldn't pay her
masseurs."
Ostreich, who had built his firm by establishing golden public images
for various industrialists and their enterprises, had anticipated
trouble the moment he let the barrier down to admit such unworthy
clients as Monica Mitchell. But he had never anticipated that his ace
publicist would display such carnival tactics in their promotion. He
growled like a taunted leopard.
"This is a cheap trick, Tom! Do you hear me? Turn that thing off at
once!"
"Who, me?" Tom said innocently. "Gosh, D. O. I'm no engineer. I left
instructions with the operator to keep the projector going for three
hours, until sunset. Don't think I can do anything about it now."
"You'll damn well _have_ to do something about it! You're ruining us!"
"Look at it this way, Chief. What can we lose? If anybody takes offense,
we can blame it on that Hollywood gang."
"Turn that damn thing off! If that blankety face isn't out of the sky in
ten minutes, you can start emptying your desk!"
Tom was a redhead. He reached over and snapped the visiphone switch
before his boss could have the satisfaction. He stomped to the window,
still raging at Ostreich's lack of appreciation.
But he chuckled when he saw the activity in the street. The crowds were
thickening at the intersections, and a special battalion of city police
were trying to keep things moving. Behind him, the visiphone was beeping
frantically again.
He waited a full minute before answering, all set to snap at Ostreich
once more.
But it wasn't Ostreich. It was a square-faced man with beetling brows
and a chin like the biting end of a steam shovel. It took Tom a while to
recognize the face of Stinson, commissioner of police.
"Mr. Blacker?"
"Yes, sir?" Tom gulped.
"Mr. Ostreich referred me to you. You responsible for that--" the
commissioner's voice was choked. "--that menace?"
"Menace, sir?"
"You know what I'm talking about. We've got half a dozen CAA complaints
already. That thing's a menace to public safety, a hazard to air
travel--"
"Look, Mr. Stinson. It's only a harmless publicity stunt."
"Harmless? You got funny ideas, Mr. Blacker. Don't get the wrong idea
about our city ordinances. We got statutes that cover this kind of
thing. If you don't want to be a victim of one of them, turn that damned
monstrosity off!"
The commissioner's angry visage left a reverse shadow burned on the
visiphone screen. It remained glowing there long after the contact was
broken.
Tom Blacker walked the carpeted floor of his office, chewing on his
lower lip, and cursing the feeble imaginations of Ostreich and the rest
of them. When his temper had cooled, he got sober thoughts of
indictments, and law suits, and unemployment. With a sigh, he contacted
the engineer on the roof of the Cannon Building. Then he went to the
window, and watched Monica's thousand-foot face fade gradually out of
sight.
* * * * *
At four o'clock that afternoon, a long white envelope crossed Tom's
blotter. There was a check to the amount of a month's salary enclosed,
and a briefly-worded message from the office of the president.
When he left the office, Ostreich's rolling phrases buzzed in his head
like swarming gnats. "... a mockery of a great profession ... lowering
of dignity ... incompatible with the highest ideals of ..."
At ten o'clock that night, Tom was telling his troubles to a red-coated
man behind a chromium bar on Forty-ninth Street. The man listened with
all the gravity of a physician, and lined up the appropriate medicine in
front of his patient.
By midnight, Tom was singing Christmas carols, in advance of the season,
with a tableful of Texans.
At one o'clock, he swung a right cross at a mounted policeman, missed,
and fell beneath the horse's legs.
At one-fifteen, he fell asleep against the shoulder of a B-girl as they
rode through the streets of the city in a sleek police vehicle.
That was all Tom Blacker remembered, until he woke up in Livia Cord's
cozy two-room apartment. He moved his head and winced with the pain.
* * * * *
"Hi," the girl said.
She was smiling down at him, and for a moment, her floating face
reminded Tom of the episode which had just cost him twenty grand a year.
He groaned, and rolled the other way on the contour couch.
"Hair of the dog?" she said. There was a gleaming cannister in her hand.
"No, thanks." He sat up, rubbing the stiff red hair on the back of his
head. One eye seemed permanently screwed shut, but the other managed to
take in his surroundings. It explored the girl first, and
appreciatively.
She was wearing something black and satiny, cut in the newest
Dallas-approved style, with long, tantalizing diagonal slashes across
the breast and hips. Her hair was strikingly two-toned, black and
blonde. Her teeth were a blinding white, and had been filed to canine
sharpness.
"My name's Livia," the girl said pleasantly. "Livia Cord. I hope you
don't mind what I did."
"And what was that?" Tom's other eye popped open, almost audibly.
"Bailing you out of jail. Seems you got into a fracas with a mounted
cop. I think you tried to punch his horse."
"Nuts. I was trying to hit him."
"Well, you didn't." She chuckled, and poured herself a drink. "You've
had quite a day, Mr. Blacker."
"You said it." There was a taste in his mouth like cigar ashes. He tried
to stand up, but the weight on his head kept him where he was. "You
wouldn't have an oxygen pill around?"
"Sure." She left with a toss of her skirt and a revelation of silky
calves. When she returned with the tablet and water, he took it
gratefully. After a few minutes, he felt better enough to ask:
"Why?"
"What's that?"
"Why'd you bail me out? I don't know you. Or do I?"
She laughed. "No. Not yet you don't. But I know you, Mr. Blacker. By
reputation, at any rate. You see--" She sat next to him on the couch,
and Tom was feeling well enough to tingle at her nearness. "We're in the
same line of work, you and I."
"Unemployment?"
"No," she smiled. "Public relations. Only I'm on the client's side of
the fence. I work for an organization called Homelovers, Incorporated.
Ever hear of them?"
Tom shook his head.
"Maybe you should. It's a rather important company, and growing. And
they're always on the lookout for superior talent."
* * * * *