CHAPTER 9
Bastion West Side, famous last bulwark in the Siege of New York, was dedicated as a war memorial. Its ten torn acres were to be maintained in perpetuity as a stinging denunciation of the insanity that produced the final war. But the final war, as usual, proved to be the next-to-the-final, and Bastion West Side"s shattered buildings and gutted alleys were patched into a crazy slum by squatters.
Number 99 was an eviscerated ceramics plant. During the war a succession of blazing explosions had burst among the stock of thousands of chemical glazes, fused them, and splashed them into a wild rainbow reproduction of a lunar crater. Great splotches of magneta, violet, bice green, burnt umber, and chrome yellow were burned into the stone walls. Long streams of orange, crimson, and imperial purple had erupted through windows and doors to streak the streets and surrounding ruins with slashing brush strokes. This became the Rainbow House of Chooka Frood.
The top floors had been patched and subdivided into a warren of cells so complicated and confused that only Chooka understood the pattern of the maze, and even Chooka herself was in doubt at times. A man could drift from cell to cell while the floors were being searched, and easily slip through the meshes of the finest dragnet. This unusual complexity netted Chooka large profits each year.
The lower floors were given over to Chooka"s famous Frab joint, where, for a sufficient sum, a consummate expert graciously MC"d the well-known vices for the hungry and upon occasion invented new vices for the satiated. But the celler of Chooka Frood"s house was the phenomenon that had inspired her most lucrative industry.
The war explosions that had turned the building into a rainbow crater had also fused the ceramic glazes, the metals, gla.s.ses, and plastics in the old plant; and a molten conglomerate had oozed down through the floors to settle on the floor of the lowest vault and harden into shimmering pavement, crystal in texture, phosph.o.r.escent in color, strangely vibrant and singing.
It was worth the hazardous trip to Bastion West Side. You threaded your way through twisting streets until you reached the streak of jagged orange that pointed to the door of Chooka"s Rainbow House. At the door you were met by a solemn person in XXth Century formal costume who asked: "Frab or Fortune, sir?" If you replied "Fortune" you were conducted to a sepulchral door where you paid a gigantic fee and were handed a phosphor candle. Holding the candle aloft, you walked down a steep stone staircase. At the very bottom it turned sharply and abruptly disclosed a broad, long, arched cellar filled with a lake of singing fire.
You stepped onto the surface of that lake. It was smooth and gla.s.sy. Under the surface glowed and flickered a constant play of pastel borealis. At every step the crystal hummed sweet chords, throbbing like the prolonged over-tones of bronze bells. If you sat motionless, the floor still sang, responding to vibrations from distant streets.
Around the rim of the cellar, on stone benches, sat the other fortune-seekers, each holding his phosphor candle. You looked at them, sitting silent and awed, and suddenly you realized that each of them looked saintly, glowing with the aura of the floor; and each of them sounded saintly, their bodies echoing the music of the floor. The candles looked like stars on a frosty night.
You joined the throbbing, burning silence and sat quietly, until at last there came the high chime of a silver bell repeated over and over. The entire floor took up the resonance, and the strange relationship of sight and sound made the colors flare up brilliantly. Then, clothed in a cascade of flaming music, Chooka Frood entered the cellar and paced to the center of the floor.
"And there, of course, the illusion ends," Lincoln Powell said to himself. He stared at Chooka"s blunt face; the thick nose, flat eyes, and corroded mouth. The borealis flickered around her features and tightly gowned figure, but it could not disguise the fact that although she had ambition, avarice, and ingenuity, she was utterly devoid of sensitivity and clairvoyance.
"Maybe she can act," Powell muttered hopefully.
Chooka stopped in the middle of the floor, looking much like a vulgar Medusa, then lifted her arms in what was intended for a sweeping mystic gesture.
"She can"t," Powell decided.
"I am come here to you," Chooka intoned in a hoa.r.s.e voice, "to help you look into the deeps of your hearts. Look down into your hearts, you which are looking for..." Chooka hesitated, then ran on: "You which are looking for revenge on a man named Zerlen from Mars... For the love of a red-eyed woman of Callisto... For every credit of that rich old uncle in Paris... For..."
"Why, d.a.m.n me! The woman"s a peeper!"
Chooka stiffened. Her mouth hung open.
"You"re receiving me, aren"t you, Chooka Frood?"
The telepathic answer came in frightened fragments. It was obvious that Chooka Frood"s natural ability had never been trained. "Wha... ? Who? Which is... you?"
As carefully as if he were communicating with an infant 3rd, Powell spelled it out: "Name: Lincoln Powell. Occupation: Police Prefect. Intent: To question a girl named Barbara D"Courtney. I have heard she"s partic.i.p.ating in your act." Powell transmitted a picture of the girl.
It was pathetic the way Chooka tried to block. "Get... out. Out. Out of here. Get. Get out. Out..."
"Why haven"t you come to the Guild? Why aren"t you in contact with your own people?"
"Get out. Out of here. Peeper! Get out."
"You"re a peeper, too. Why haven"t you let us train you? What kind of a life is this for you? Mumbo Jumbo... Picking sucker brains and turning it all into a Fortune Act. There"s real work waiting for you, Chooka."
"Real money?"
Powell repressed the wave of exasperation that rose up in him. It was not exasperation with Chooka. It was anger for the relentless force of evolution that insisted on endowing man with increased powers without removing the vestigial vices that prevented him from using them.
"We"ll talk about that later, Chooka. Where"s the girl?"
"No girl. There is no girl."
"Don"t be an a.s.s, Chooka. Peep the customers with me. That old goat obsessed with the red-eyed woman..." Powell explored him gently. "He"s been here before. He"s waiting for Barbara D"Courtney to come in. You dress her in sequins. You bring her on in half an hour. He likes her looks. She does some kind of trance routine to music. Her dress is slit open and he likes that. She---"
"He"s crazy. I never---"
"And the woman who was loused by a man named Zerlen? She"s seen the girl often. She believes in her. She"s waiting for her. Where"s the girl, Chooka?"
"No!"
"I see. Upstairs. Where, upstairs, Chooka? Don"t try to block, I"m deep peeping. You can"t misdirect a 1st---I see. Fourth room on the left of the angle turn. That"s a complicated labyrinth you"ve got up there, Chooka. Let"s have it again to make sure..."
Helpless and mortified, Chooka suddenly shrieked: "Get out of here, you G.o.ddam cop! Get the h.e.l.l out of here!"
"Excuse it, please," said Powell. "I"m on my way."
He rose and left the room.
That entire telepathic investigation took place within the second it took Reich to move from the eighteenth to the twentieth step on his way down to Chooka Frood"s rainbow cellar. Reich heard Chooka"s furious screech and Powell"s reply. He turned and shot up the stairs to the main floor.
As he jostled past the door attendant, he thrust a sovereign into the man"s hand and hissed: "I wasn"t here. Understand?"
"No one is ever here, Mr. Reich."
He made a quick circuit of the frab rooms. Tenser, said the Tensor. Tenser, said the Tensor. Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun. He brushed past the girls who variously solicited him, then locked himself into the phone booth and punched BD-12,232.
Church"s anxious face appeared on the screen.
"Well, Ben?"
"We"re in a jam. Powell"s here."
"Oh my G.o.d!"
"Where in h.e.l.l is Quizzard?"
"He isn"t there?"
"I can"t locate him."
"But I thought he"d be down in the cellar. He---"
"Powell was in the cellar, peeping Chooka. You can bet Quizzard wasn"t there. Where in h.e.l.l is he?"
"I don"t know, Ben. He went down with his wife, and---"
"Look, Jerry. Powell must have found the girl"s location. I"ve got maybe five minutes to beat him to her. Quizzard was supposed to do that for me. He isn"t in the cellar. He"s nowhere in the Frab Joint. He---"
"He must be upstairs in the coop."
"I was going to figure that for myself. Listen, is there a quick way to get up to the coop? A short-cut I can use to beat Powell to her?"
"If Powell peeped Chooka, he peeped the shortcut."
"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, I know that. But maybe he didn"t. Maybe he was concentrating on the girl. It"s a chance I"ll have to take."
"Behind the main stairs. There"s a marble bas-relief. Turn the woman"s head to the right. The bodies separate and there"s a door to a vertical pneumatique."
"Right."
Reich hung up, left the booth, and darted to the main stairs. He turned to the rear of the marble staircase, found the bas-relief, twisted the woman"s head savagely and watched the bodies swing apart. A steel door appeared. A panel of b.u.t.tons was set in the lintel. Reich punched TOP, yanked the door open and stepped into the open shaft. Instantly a metal plate jolted up against his soles and with a hiss of air pressure he was lofted eight stories to the top floor. A magnetic catch held the plate while he opened the shaft door and stepped out.
He found himself in a corridor that slanted up at an angle of thirty degrees and leaned to the left. It was floored with canvas. The ceiling glowed at intervals with small flickering globes of radon. The walls were lined with doors, none of them numbered.
"Quizzard!" Reich shouted.
There was no answer.
"Keno Quizzard!"
Still no answer.
Reich ran halfway up the corridor, and then at a venture tried a door. It opened to a narrow cubby entirely filled with an oval bed. Reich tripped over the edge of the bed and fell. He crawled across the foam mattress to a door on the opposite side, thrust it open, and fell through. He found himself on a landing. A flight of steps led down to a round anteroom rimmed with doors. Reich tumbled down the steps and stood, breathing heavily, staring at the circle of doors.
"Quizzard!" he shouted again. "Keno Quizzard!"
There was a m.u.f.fled reply. Reich spun on his heels, ran to a door and pulled it open. A woman with eyes dyed red by plastic surgery was standing just inside and Reich blundered against her. She burst into unaccountable laughter, raised both fists and beat his face. Blinded and bewildered, Reich backed away from the powerful red-eyed woman, reached for the door, apparently missed it and seized the k.n.o.b of another, for when he backed out of the room it was not into the circular foyer. His heels caught in three inches of plastic quilting. He tumbled over backwards, slamming the door as he fell, and struck his head a stunning blow against the edge of a porcelain stove.
When his vision cleared he found himself staring up into the angry face of Chooka Frood.
"What the h.e.l.l are you doing in my room?" Chooka screamed.
Reich shot to his feet. "Where is she?" he said.
"You get to h.e.l.l out of here, Ben Reich."
"I asked you where is she? Barbara D"Courtney. Where is she?"
Chooka turned her head and yelled: "Magda!"
The red-eyed woman came into the room. She held a neuron scrambler in her hand and she was still laughing; but the gun was trained on his skull and never wavered.
"Get out of here," Chooka repeated.
"I want the girl, Chooka. I want her before Powell gets her. Where is she?"
"Get him out of here, Magda!" Chooka screamed.
Reich clubbed the woman across the eyes with the back of his hand. She fell backward, dropping the gun, and twitched in a corner, still laughing. Reich ignored her. He picked up the scrambler and rammed it against Chooka"s temple.
"Where"s the girl?"
"You go to h.e.l.l, you---"
Reich pulled the trigger back into first notch. The radiation charged Chooka"s nervous system with a low induction current. She stiffened and began to tremble. Her skin glistened with sudden sweat, but she still shook her head. Reich yanked the trigger back to second notch. Chooka"s body was thrown into a break-bone ague. Her eyes started. Her throat emitted the brute groans of a tortured animal. Reich held her in it for five seconds, then cut the gun.
"Third notch is death notch," he growled. "The Big D. I don"t give a curse, Chooka. It"s Demolition for me one way or the other if I don"t get that girl. Where is she?"
Chooka was almost completely paralyzed. "Through... door," she croaked. "Fourth room... Left... After turn."
Reich dropped her. He ran across the bedroom, through the door, and came to a corkscrewed ramp. He mounted it, took a sharp turn, counted doors and stopped before the fourth on the left. He listened for an instant. No sound. He thrust open the door and entered. There was an empty bed, a single dresser, an empty closet, a single chair.
"Gulled, by G.o.d!" he cried. He stepped to the bed. It showed no sign of use. Neither did the closet. As he turned to leave the room, he yanked at the middle dresser drawer and tore it open. It contained a frost white silk gown and a stained steel object that looked like a malignant flower. It was the murder weapon; the knife-pistol.
"My G.o.d!" Reich breathed. "Oh my G.o.d."
He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the gun and inspected it. It"s chambers still contained the emasculated cartridges. The one that had blown the top of Craye D"Courtney"s head out was still in place under the hammer.
"It isn"t Demolition yet," Reich muttered. "Not by a d.a.m.ned sight. No, by Christ, not by a d.a.m.ned sight!" He folded up the knife-pistol and thrust it into his pocket. At that moment he heard the sound of distant laughter... a sour laugh. Quizzard"s laugh.
Reich stepped quickly to the twisted ramp and followed the sound of the laughter to a plush door hung open on bra.s.s hinges and deep set in the wall. Gripping the scrambler at the alert with the trigger set for Big D, Reich stepped through the door. There was a hiss of compressed air and it closed behind him.
He was in a small round room, walled and ceilinged in midnight velvet. The floor was transparent crystal, and gave a clear uninterrupted view of a boudoir on the floor below. It was Chooka"s Voyeur Chamber.
In the boudoir, Quizzard sat in a deep chair, his blind eyes glazing. The D"Courtney girl was perched on his lap wearing an astonishing slit gown of sequins. She sat quietly, her yellow hair smooth, her deep dark eyes staring placidly into s.p.a.ce, while Quizzard fondled her brutally.
"How does she look?" Quizzard"s sour voice came distinctly. "How does she feel?"
He was speaking to a small faded woman who stood across the boudoir from him with her back against the wall and an incredible expression of agony on her face. It was Quizzard"s wife.
"How does she look?" the blind man repeated.
"She doesn"t know what"s happening," the woman answered.
"She knows," Quizzard shouted. "She isn"t that far gone. Don"t tell me she don"t know what"s happening. Christ! If I only had my eyes!"
The woman said: "I"m your eyes, Keno."
"Then look for me. Tell me!"
Reich cursed and aimed the scrambler, at Quizzard"s head. It could kill through the crystal floor. It could kill through anything. It was going to kill now. Then Powell entered the boudoir.