Mission: Earth "Voyage of Vengeance" (5 page)

What little sanity I could rally mustered to my aid.

I watched the viewer.

The Countess Krak was searching the apartment, opening cabinets-looking for letters? Papers? Oh, was I glad to have never had anything to do with these women directly! She had apparently found nothing to tell her what she wanted to know.

Then I noticed something absolutely horrible. The
gloves!
She had drawn on a pair of Zanco SURGICAL GLOVES! She was giving the cuffs a tentative tug as she approached the mass of entwined bodies. Was she going to cut them to pieces? Oh, the poor, helpless victims, lying there unconscious in the pitiless stare of this archfiend! I hushed my breathing. She was speaking.

"My goodness," she muttered, "these primitives certainly can get tangled up on the subject of sex."

She didn't seem to know how to go about straightening them up. Finally she plowed in. She grabbed a Hispanic's ankles and dragged him out and propped him against the wall. Then she got a black by the wrists and dragged him over to the row she was making. She kept at it in an orderly way.

She got the head of Dolores out from between the legs of Toots Switch and propped the two of them in the line.

"Ugh," she said, looking down at the last body left on the rug, Maizie Spread. "You primitives don't even bathe!" She dragged Maizie over and added her to the line. She stared at the three women she had now propped up at the end. "Oh, dear, how I wronged Jettero! He'd never even touch such carrion!"

She reached out to get a chair. There was something on it and she started to toss it aside. Then she looked at it again.

It was a peculiarly shaped pillow with straps on it. She whipped her gaze over to Maizie Spread slumped against the wall.

"Why, you crooked slut!" she said. "You weren't even pregnant!"

And sure enough, the stomach of Maizie Spread was flat as a table top!

"Well, we'll soon find out," said the Countess Krak, "who put you up to this!"

She reached into the case she carried. She was pulling something out.

THE HYPNOHELMET!

Oh, Gods, I was done for, for sure.

What did these girls know?

Oh, if only I had suspected this, I could have placed myself within two miles and, due to the relay breaker switch in my skull, that hypnohelmet would not have worked! But it was too late now to try to go rushing the miles and miles from where I was to the Bronx. On the other hand, I was quite sure that it would have taken far more nerve than I could muster to come any closer to the dangerous Countess Krak!

She switched it on. She went to the first young man in the line and plopped it indifferently upon his lolling head. I was amazed. I had not realized a hypnohelmet would work through the unconsciousness of blueflash. Apparently it made no difference. She plugged in the microphone.

"You will recall nothing of having seen or heard a policewoman this evening. You will forget everything connected to my visit. You will not awake until I snap my fingers three times."

She lifted it off him and banged it onto the head of the black. She said exactly the same thing. She kept this up until she had completed all five of the young men.

She had gotten to Dolores now and she sat down on a chair before the lolling Mexican girl. Something was dribbling from the poor thing's mouth. "Ugh," said the Countess and, taking a Zanco surgical pad, wiped the girl's face. Krak tossed the folded material contemptuously against the girl's bare stomach. "Too stupid to even get it in the right place. But we'll see if you're more informed about other things."

She put the helmet securely upon the black-haired head.

"Sleep, sleep, pretty sleep," the Countess said into her microphone. "You will now tell me the truth, the

whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help your Gods.

"When did you first hear the name Wister?"

Muffled words came in a dull monotone. "In the press. On TV when he was racing."

"Have you ever met Wister?"

"No."

"Who put you up to this lawsuit business and these lies?"

"I was hired by Dingaling, Chase and Ambo. They came to my town and said they were soliciting business and could forge papers and I would be rich if I did what they told me to do."

"What were you?"

"I was just a local whore."

"Who pays you?"

"Dingaling, Chase and Ambo."

"Do you know anyone else connected with this forgery and swindle who is paying you or giving orders?"

"No."

"You will now do exactly as I tell you. You will go, first thing tomorrow morning, to Dingaling, Chase and Ambo and tell them they must let you confess to the court that this is a swindle, that you swore falsely and that they must dismiss the suits and charges they put on Wister. And you will threaten to expose them to the Bar Association if they do not, and if they do not you will in fact move Heavens and Hells to expose them. Is this understood?"

"Yes."

"You will forget I have been here and will not be able to recall that these are my suggestions. You will believe they are your ideas.

"You will not awaken until you hear me snap my fingers three times."

Rapidly, she went to Toots Switch and then to Maizie Spread and got the same answers and said the same things. The only difference was to the last one, Maizie Spread. To her she added, "You will take that blasted pillow and hold it up and say you were not pregnant and that you lied."

Out of the corner of her eye, as she finished talking to Maizie, she saw the security guard was stirring. He was fumbling around for his gun.

The Countess plopped the helmet on his head. "Sleep, sleep, pretty sleep. When you awake you will decide to do something about this orgy. You will tell your partners downstairs, if they ask you, that a policewoman came and talked to one of the boys about a pot bill, but you did not notice which one. You will have no recollection of what I looked like. You will not recall answering the phone. You will not awaken until I snap my fingers three times."

She turned the hypnohelmet off and put it away.

She looked around. She picked up the wad she had dropped on Dolores.

She went to the outer door, opened it and looked out. Then she removed and dropped the surgical gloves in an ashtray, added the wad and touched a match to it. They went up in smoke.

She snapped her fingers three times loudly.

The Countess flinched with disgust as the cries of the three girls soared eagerly into the passionate snarls of the five young men. Bodies began to thud. The record started up.

The security man stood, looked at the gathering pile of bodies on the rug.

"Move over!" he ordered the Hispanic youth. "I got to do something about this!" And he began to unbuckle his pants.

"I'll never understand these primitives," said the Countess Krak. "You tell them the simplest things and they still manage to get them wrong!"

She stepped out of the apartment and closed the door behind her.

She made her way down to the front entrance. "Any sign of the flower seller with the brass heels?" she said.

"We're lucky so far," said the guard. "Did it all go all right?"

"Just fine," said the Countess Krak. "I was able to put paid on it."

She walked down the broken sidewalk and along the badly lit street. She came to a dark blot of shadow. (Bleep), I couldn't make the vehicle out!

The sound of a door sliding. No light. The door slid shut.

The rustle of clothes. She must be undressing. The rustle of more clothes. Was she dressing? It was all happening very fast.

A click. On went the light.

The cop was untied!

She was lying there on the narrow bunk.

Not a sign of rope or restraint.

The policewoman had a beatific smile on her face, looking up, not even noticing the Countess Krak.

The car started up. It got into motion.

The cop reached out for her clothing and began to dress.

By the time the policewoman was fully clothed, the car had stopped again.

The woman reached out for the handle and slid the side door back and open. The lighted front of the building of the Bronx Division Metropolitan Police Vice Squad was in view across the street.

The woman was humming a little song to herself as she got out and walked toward her office.

Krak closed the door. The vehicle began to roll.

The Countess looked down. The Eyes and Ears of Voltar envelope was lying on the floor. The item that was Unit B was in it.

"Bang-Bang," the Countess called. "Didn't you take the black patch?"

"Well, no, I didn't," was Bang-Bang's reply from up front. "I don't entirely trust gadgets from the toy store."

"And that woman from the Vice Squad followed you?"

"Yes."

"But what could you have said to her?"

Bang-Bang's reply was muffled. "Nothing much."

"Bang-Bang, have you been up to something?"

"Me, Miss Joy?"

Whenever the treacherously optimistic thought occurs to you that things can't get any worse, watch out!

The next morning I slept late, recovering from the excessive drain of adrenaline precipitated by the shock of actually being spoken to by the Countess Krak.

I was counting on being able to review the viewer by means of recorded strips. But when I rose around 1:00 P. M., I made a dreadful discovery: I was entirely out of recording strips. Unless I kept my face continually glued to the viewer, I would miss data vitally necessary to trapping this criminal in the midst of her blood-spattered deeds.

But if this had been the only event which that afternoon and evening held for me, it would have been of little moment. However, this was not the case, as the events of that ghastly day were to prove.

The Countess Krak had spent the night in some upper class hotel. I had no way of finding the name, as it was not marked on anything she looked at.

She was finishing lunch in her room. The silver dishes on the white linen and their luscious contents were getting scant attention. Beside her she had open an enormous book of law and was reading two pages per forkful.

There was a knock on her door and at her call Bang-Bang came in, hat in hand. "I've got the wheels at the back entrance," he said. "We better get along or we'll be late, Miss Joy."

There was a flurry of wraps and, carrying the book and a briefcase, the Countess Krak left.

Here was my chance!

She exited through a back stairway into an alley. Broadside to her was a WHITE VAN!

Bang-Bang had the side door slid open. She stepped inside. The van drove away.

Aha! A white van! A commercial-type vehicle with no side windows, converted to recreation use!

If I could get it spotted, I could advise Dingaling, Chase and Ambo and they could serve that injunction and commitment order and the Countess Krak would be in Bellevue-zip, zip-and that would be the end of her!

For I knew a firm like Dingaling would not give up! To Hells with the clients, the case was everything!

I called the motor vehicle department. I told them I was a Fed and wanted full particulars on a white van.

"Make?" he said.

I did not know.

"License number?"

I did not know.

"Well, (bleep), Mister Fed, there are tens of thousands of white vans in New York. Get me more particulars next time." He hung up.

I wasn't daunted. I would keep watch. But meanwhile I had better talk with Dingaling, Chase and Ambo. I phoned.

"They're in court," a girl in their office said.

"You've got to contact them!" I said.

"I'm sorry, Mac. I don't work here. I'm just a client that's suing a millionaire for not properly buttoning up my dress when he spotted me swimming bare-(bleep) two miles away at Coney Island three years ago. It's a juicy case. You want to drop over and be a witness? I may have a couple hours' wait. We can knock off a couple of (bleeps) and discuss the details."

I hung up.

Court!

That would be the Superior Court, Judge Hammer Twist!

I quickly got information and got the number. Then I got on to a switchboard which called another switchboard in the courthouse and that operator called another switchboard, and it went on and on and around and around. Very tangled. After half an hour of trying, some clerk in another department said he thought Judge Twist was in court.

Gods, couldn't you get anywhere at all in this legal system? Not even on a phone?

Aha! I had not run out of chances. I looked up and phoned Eagle Eye Security.

"You guys got conned last night," I told the chief.

"How so?" a cigar-husky voice came back.

"The foul fiend went right in and had her will with the poor girls you had in your charge. The Dingaling clients."

"Oh, those," he said. "My men there said they had a particularly satisfactory evening at the apartment."

"I'll bet they did," I said. "But that is neither here nor there. The woman is still on the loose."

"That's right," he said. "And furthermore, we get ten big ones if we nail her. Any information leading to her apprehension and commitment to Bellevue will find us very generous with you."

"I'll keep in touch," I said.

I turned back to the viewer.

I went into shock!

I had a view of the courtroom! She was amongst the spectators! Exactly where I could not tell, for all I saw was heads and the judge on his bench. Judge Hammer Twist!

I grabbed the phone back. "She's right in the courtroom of Judge Twist! This very minute! NAIL HER!"

He banged down the phone.

Aha! They were on to it! Ten thousand dollars bounty money was talking!