Part 2 (1/2)

Lawyers or no lawyers, that sort of thing was dangerous.

It took a week, and it took every member of the staff that could be pulled off other programs, as well as the ones a.s.signed to Witch.

The ”slum” had been located--three buildings in a short block just up from the Battery, surrounded by new buildings. It was a one-privy-to-a-floor, cold-water only setup, with a family living in every room. It existed on high-value land only because the land and buildings were tied up in an estate and couldn't be sold. But they could be remodeled and thrown into one, and contracts were signed, permissions granted, the paperwork alone filled nearly a complete file cabinet.

It would take double the fifty thousand dollars, of course--maybe more. But Randolph had authorized it, hadn't he? He always named half the figure--or less--than he meant to be used. Anyhow, international ratings and sales would more than make up the purse, because this thing would hit socko. Worry about the cash was the last thing that was bothering Oswald. He had a bear by the tail, and his contract price was tied to the gross....

The show was ballyhooed the whole week while the work went on.

”Clean, clean, Witch clean--what's the witches next big cleanup?

Witches of the world, unite--let's cleanup this old world and make it livable....”

The night the new cleanup job was to show, Randolph tuned in his TV as ignorant of the details as the next viewer. It worried him a little that Oswald insisted on keeping him in the dark on everything except the fact that it would be a slum cleanup, but he had the best p.r. men and the best lawyers in the country working on it, he told himself; and certainly the sales charts for the past two weeks had been spectacular.

”We can count on the biggest TV audience of the year tonight,” Oswald had told him gleefully at noon. ”The buildup's been a natural, and those 'Salem with a new twist and a singing commercial' plugs have been continued on this network--the cost of that was comparatively small--and I've even gotten them onto a few of the really big shows to boot.”

Bill Howard came on the screen, his big homely face leaning across the desk toward the TV audience.

”The biggest news in the country right now,” Bill said in a solemn tone, ”is the biggest single cleanup job in the country today.

”There's a slum,” Bill said, ”right here in New York that the Witches of the world will unite to cleanup--tonight.”

Then he put on the full power of the personality that made him the most listened-to newscaster on the air, TV and radio. The manner that made the news sound human, like it really happened to real people. He put it on full power, and went to work.

First he showed a big map of New York, and talked about how people thought of it as a big, impersonal place, but it wasn't. He made it everybody's home town.

Then he traced the map right down to the exact spot where the buildings were. Then he turned on a movie, and he showed the back-door, garbage strewn, and a room where a family slept, seven of them, and the privy they shared with five other families.

Then Bill turned off the movie, and he brought that family to the mike, each of them dirty and in clothes that never had amounted to much, and had seen a long life since--even the baby. One kid's shoes had a sole flapping off, another had the toes cut out so he could wear them, though he'd long outgrown them.

”We haven't added to what we found,” Bill said. ”This is the way the ...

I've introduced them as the Jones family, let's leave it at that. This is how the Joneses have had to dress. This is how they've had to live.

This is a very real part of America,” he said, and his voice was choking a little, and Randolph thought, if he's putting that on, he's the best actor I've seen yet.

Randolph found himself glad he was alone, and didn't have to speak himself. His own throat felt choked.

”And now,” said Bill to his audience, ”It's time for the witches....”

The camera s.h.i.+fted, and there was a papier-mache model of the buildings, built so you could look in the curtainless windows and see the squalor, lighted with a single bulb on a string. There was a gray pall over the whole thing, and newspapers and trash blowing against the front of the building. The gray pall, Randolph had figured from the sub-scene two weeks ago, was an effect of lights on a net curtain, but the effect was really good.

The thirteen witches, slender witches, danced in waving their products and crying their chant, their crimson-lined capes swirling out to glimpse the audience their long, slender legs.

They cried their chant as they pranced toward the dilapidated building. ”Witches of the world, unite to make it clean, clean, clean, Witch clean--NOW!” And each threw a spray of her product toward the building.

”Witch soap or detergent, Witch cleanser upsurgent, which Witch do you need? You should have them all....”

Then riding over the muted jingle the deep voice of the announcer saying ”Tonight the Witches of the world clean a slum of the world ...