chapter 5

 Abstract of Transcript, Monitor J-12, to U.S. Treasury Department Intelligence: "Miss Orison McCall's report from Potawattomi, Indiana, was delayed by one hour. Contact was established at 00:10 hours. Details follow herewith: "J-12: CQ, CQ, CQ, CQ. "Miss McCall: If you'd been a minute later, I'd have been sound asleep, dreaming bad dreams. "J-12: Is the job wearing you down? "Miss McCall: It's exciting and mysterious. Nothing like Washington. The boss of Taft Bank appears to be a man named Dink Gerding. He's six feet tall and slim, his hair is clipped short as a dachshund's, and he walks like an Olympic skier. The other men at the bank bow when they meet him, and some of them get all the way down onto the floor when he's angry. Do you suppose this means something? "J-12: Everything means something. "Miss McCall: He said that. Dink did. For everything in the universe, he said, there's an explanation. "J-12: Not so. I mean that everything that people do in banks is explainable. Not all the universe is logical—the tax-structure, for instance, or the ways of women. "Miss McCall: I'm not required to put up with male chauvinism from a pillow, Mister, no banns having been published between us. "J-12: Sorry, beautiful. Here are instructions from the Chief. He wants to know why some members of the Taft Bank staff wear earmuffs, and he wants details of what goes on upstairs. He wants you to get to know this Dink Gerding better. Over. "Miss McCall: Roger, Wilco, and Aye-Aye. Meanwhile, get philologists working on this. The sentence, Wanji e-Kal, Datto. Dink ger-Dink d'summa, means, more or less, 'This is Wanji. I'd like to speak to Dink Gerding.' This message was received by me at Taft Bank this morning, evidently by accident. Check also possible meaning of the phrase, 'Escudo green is pale.' "J-12: Will do. "Miss McCall: Good night, then; wherever you are. "J-12: Good night, beautiful. Out." Report of Treasury Intelligence on six words of presumed foreign-language message: "Datto may be Tagalog chief. Summa is Latin sum. Total message is nonsense in fifty languages. The clear message, Escudo green is pale probably a code. Escudo is Portuguese currency presently equal to U.S. $0.348. End of Report." Confidential report (on scratchboard) of Elder Compassion to H.R.H. Dink ger-Dink, Prince Porphyrogenite of Empire, Heir-Apparent to the Throne, Scion of the Triple Crown, Count of the Northern Marches, Admiralissimo of the Conquest Forces of Empire, Captain-Commander of the XLIIth Subversion-and-Conquest Task Force (Sol III): "She whispered to her pillow, local time 2 A.M., 'I love him.'" Orison hadn't gone to sleep easily. She'd suppressed information from J-12, saying nothing to him about the Microfabridae, surely the most striking objective discovery of her two days' spying within the Taft Bank. More central in her thoughts than her disloyalty to the Treasury Department, though, was Dink Gerding. He'd told her that she was half in love with him. He was half wrong, she thought. "I love him entirely," she whispered, not knowing that J-12—in carelessness, not subterfuge—had left the receiver-switch open to the pillow she'd made her confidante. The Wall Street Journal greeted her the next morning, curled up in her "In" basket. She'd just switched on her microphone and said "Good morning" to her invisible listener when Mr. Wanji stepped from the elevator. His ears, she saw, were bare today. But they were pink—a shocking, porcelain, opaque, Toby-mug shade of pink. She looked away from this latest manifestation of peculiarity in banker's ears. "Good morning, Mr. Wanji," she said. "Hi, doll," Wanji said. "The brain-guy says you don't have to read out loud any more. Just read quiet-like. Dig?" "Yes, sir," she said. "Shall I take notes on anything in particular?" "Naw," Wanji said. "The brain-guy, he remembers everything." "The brain-guy?" Orison asked. "Is that Dink Gerding?" "Naw. Dink's the boss. The brain-guy is the man who makes the wheels go round," Wanji said. He pressed the "Up" button of the elevator. As Wanji embarked, Orison observed that the elevator operator had the same shocking-pink ears. Had those earmuffs been designed to hide this pinkness, the symptom of some rare and disfiguring disease? Orison returned to her newspaper, reading silently as ordered, wondering what obscure Pinocchio of sense was curled up in the belly of this whale of illogic. The elevator, she noticed with the housekeeping bit of her mind, was running much more than usual today, up and down like a spastic yo-yo. Whatever the mysterious business of the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company might be, there was a lot of it being done. Her telephone buzzed. Orison switched off her microphone. "Miss McCall here," she said, feeling very efficient and British. "This is Mr. Kraft Gerding," she was told. "I need you at the National Guard Armory right away, Miss McCall. Will you come right over?" "Yes, sir," Orison said. She gathered up her purse and coat and pressed the elevator button. The operator ushered her into his car as though she were his queen, and the elevator the paramount plane of the royal flight. Standing behind him as he piloted them downward five floors, Orison studied the man's ears. They were that awful, artificial pink, as though enameled. Pancake makeup? Orison wondered. The ears, now the earmuffs were off, might be the clue to that fish-of-understanding she sought. Orison dampened a fingertip and applied it to the edge of the man's ear. He turned and stared. "A fly," Orison explained. "I brushed it off." "Oh. Thank you. Here's the street floor, Miss McCall." "Thank you." Orison stepped from the lobby to Broadway, refusing to examine her fingertip until she was well beyond the shadow of the Taft Bank Building. Now she looked at it. A sort of pink paint was showing there. And where she'd touched the elevator operator's ear to remove the makeup, the flesh beneath had shown a brilliant, eggplant purple. Orison was greeted at the National Guard Armory by Auga Vingt, mistress of malice. "How lovely of you to come right over, darling," she said. "Kraft is waiting for you in the office of Company C." "Thank you, darling," Orison purred. She clutched her purse as she walked up the indicated stairway, Miss Vingt behind her. Kraft Gerding was in full uniform behind a desk marked "Commanding Officer," but his was not the uniform of the U.S. Army. It was the sort that Mr. Wanji had worn as Dink's chauffeur, its splendor squared. "Good morning, Miss McCall," Kraft Gerding said, standing. "I'm so happy you could come. We need you here." "What am I to do, sir?" Orison asked. "Your presence is the full extent of your services required, my dear," he said. "You see, you're my hostage. My brother's interest in your welfare is so marked that I determined to seize you as collateral for his cooperation. We've begun a revolution, Miss McCall. You'll stay with us until victory. Colonel the Margravine Auga Vingt, Commander of the Royal Refreshment Corps, will act as your hostess. Colonel, please take Miss McCall to her quarters." "Now look here, bud!" Orison said. "The proper address to Mr. Gerding is 'Your Royal Highness,' darling," Miss Vingt said, accompanying her point of protocol with a jab at the small of Orison's back. "Come along, darling." "I'm not going anywhere until I've telephoned Dink," Orison said. "Terribly sorry," said Colonel Auga Vingt. "Our telephone has just gone out of order." Two bravos wearing U.S. Army fatigues—surely the largest such uniforms ever sewn together—stepped into the room. They were enormous men, menacing, purple of ear. "Will you walk along like a good girl, or shall I have my pets carry you?" the odious Auga asked. "I'll walk," Orison decided. "What's more, I'll sue." "All in good time, darling," Auga Vingt said. Orison's cell was large enough to be a ballroom, comprising as it did the entire basement of the armory. A cot had been unfolded in one corner, next to a parked half-track, and three olive-drab blankets were stacked upon it. "Home, darling," Colonel Vingt said. "I hope you realize that kidnapping is a Federal offense," Orison said. "So is seizing an armory," her warden explained. "Of course, the U.S. Army doesn't realize we've got it, yet. They drill here only on Mondays." She turned and spoke quickly to the two guards, using what was apparently the same language Wanji had employed over the telephone. The guards bowed, then each chose a vehicle for his guard-post. One seated himself behind the wheel of a weapons-carrier, the other posting himself, cross-legged, on the steel hatch of a Sherman tank. Auga Vingt turned to leave. "Hey," Orison said. "You're not going to abandon me here with these two gorillas." "But, darling, I am!" the obnoxious Auga replied. "If you're worried about your virtue, rest easy, lamb. I can assure you that my thugs are safe as kittens, providing only that you make no attempt to escape. They are required, you see, to confine their romantic aspirations to members of the Royal Refreshment Corps of appropriate rank. Since they speak no English, nor any other tongue you're likely to have heard of, they won't be much company. But they will be loyal in their attendance." "Let me out of here!" a man's voice shouted, the sound echoing among the ranks of tanks, half-tracks, weapons-carriers, and jeeps. "Who's that?" Orison demanded. "Your fellow-prisoner," Auga explained. "Until quite recently, he was Commanding Officer of C Company. Your keepers have strict orders not to let you two speak to one another. But I must get on with my duties, charming as I find your company. Good day, darling." "drop dead," Orison suggested. After the door had slammed behind Auga Vingt, and the key had chattered in its lock, she sat at the edge of her cot. The two guards watched her as casually as though she were just another item on the Motor Company's T.O.&E. This is what she got for playing it coy with Washington, Orison thought. If she'd clued J-12 in on the Microfabridae, she'd at least have been given some technical help. Then someone might have been there to blow the whistle when she disappeared from the Taft Bank Building. As things stood now, no one would know of her abduction until her pillow called tonight at eleven-fifteen and got no answer: A long time off, she thought. Perhaps she could get some help from the imprisoned commander of C Company, she thought. Orison stood and called out, "Hey, there! Can you hear...." A large palm suddenly closed over her mouth. The guard who'd been seated atop the tank had sprung down and appeared beside her as suddenly as a circus trick. Experimentally, he removed his hand from her mouth. "... me?" Orison completed her query, and was shut off again. "Five by five," the male voice answered. "Who are...." The other guard was gone now, and presumably stood beside the captain as his fellow stood beside Orison. There was silence for five minutes, Orison having trouble breathing, struggling until it became apparent that no action of hers would have the slightest effect on the mountainous bulk of her muffler. Then he removed his hand. Orison, out of breath, her lesson learned, stayed quiet. The guards resumed their seats aboard the rolling-stock.