Part 18 (2/2)

”Be careful, Bish,” Dad said. ”That gang would kill you sooner than look at you.”

”Who, me?” Bish staggered into a table and caught hold of it. ”Who'd wanna hurt me? I'm just good ol' Bish Ware. _Good_ ol' Bis.h.!.+ n.o.body hurt him; he'sh everybody's friend.” He let go of the table and staggered into a chair, upsetting it. Then he began to sing:

”_Come all ye hardy s.p.a.cemen, and harken while I tell Of fluorine-tainted Nifflheim, the Planetary h.e.l.l._”

Involuntarily, I began clapping my hands. It was a superb piece of acting--Bish Ware sober playing Bish Ware drunk, and that's not an easy role for anybody to play. Then he picked up the chair and sat down on it.

”Who do you have around Hunters' Hall, and how do I get past them?”

he asked. ”I don't want a clipful from somebody on my own side.”

Nip Spazoni got a pencil and a pad of paper and began drawing a plan.

”This is Second Level Down,” he said. ”We have a car here, with a couple of men in it. It's watching this approach here. And we have a s.h.i.+p's boat, over here, with three men in it, and a 7-mm machine gun.

And another car--no, a jeep, here. Now, up on the First Level Down, we have two s.h.i.+ps' boats, one here, and one here. The pa.s.sword is 'Exotic,' and the countersign is 'Organics.'” He grinned at Murell.

”Compliment to your company.”

”Good enough. I'll want a bottle of liquor. My breath needs a little touching up, and I may want to offer somebody a drink. If I could get inside that place, there's no telling what I might be able to do. If one man can get in and put a couple of guards to sleep, an army can get in after him.”

Brother, I thought, if he pulls this one off, he's in. n.o.body around Port Sandor will ever look down on Bish Ware again, not even Joe Kivelson. I began thinking about the detective agency idea again, and wondered if he'd want a junior partner. Ware & Boyd, Planetwide Detective Agency.

I went down to the floor below with him and got him my lighter gas-projector and a couple of spare fills for it, and found the bottle of Baldur honey-rum that Dad had been sure was around somewhere. I was kind of doubtful about that, and he noticed my hesitation in giving it to him and laughed.

”Don't worry, Walt,” he said. ”This is strictly for protective coloration--and odoration. I shall be quite sparing with it, I a.s.sure you.”

I shook hands with him, trying not to be too solemn about it, and he went down in the elevator and I went up the stairs to the floor above.

By this time, the Port Sandor Vigilance Committee had gotten itself sorted out. The rank-and-file Vigilantes were standing around yacking at one another, and a smaller group--Dad and Sigurd Ngozori and the Reverend Sugitsuma and Oscar and Joe and Corkscrew and Nip and the Mahatma--were in a huddle around Dad's editorial table, discussing strategy and tactics.

”Well, we'd better get back to the docks before it starts,” Corkscrew was saying. ”No hunter crew will follow anybody but their own s.h.i.+ps'

officers.”

”We'll have to have somebody the uptown people will follow,” Oscar said. ”These people won't take orders from a woolly-pants hunter captain. How about you, Sigurd?”

The banker shook his head. ”Ralph Boyd's the man for that,” he said.

”Ralph's needed right here; this is G.H.Q.,” Oscar said. ”This is a job that's going to have to be run from one central command. We've got to make sure the demonstration against Hallstock and the operation against Hunters' Hall are synchronized.”

”I have about a hundred and fifty workmen, and they all have or can get something to shoot with,” another man said. I looked around, and saw that it was Casmir Oughourlian, of Rodriguez & Oughourlian s.h.i.+pyards. ”They'll follow me, but I'm not too well known uptown.”

”Hey, Professor Hartzenbosch,” Mohandas Feinberg said. ”You're a respectable-looking duck; you ever have any experience leading a lynch mob?”

Everybody laughed. So, to his credit, did the professor.

”I've had a lot of experience with children,” the professor said.

”Children are all savages. So are lynch mobs. Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. Yes, I'd say so.”

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