Occasion for Disaster Part 27

Glumly, Malone made his farewells and then teleported himself from the Justice Department Building back to his own apartment. There, slowly and sadly, he began to pack. He hadn't yet decided just where he _was_ going, but that was a minor detail. The important thing was that he was going. If the Director of the FBI tells you that you need a rest cure, Malone thought, you do not argue with him. Argument may result in your vacation being extended indefinitely. And that is not a good thing.

Of course, such a "vacation" wouldn't be the end of the world. Not quite. He could even beat Burris to the gun, hand in his resignation and go into private practice as a lawyer. The name of Malone, he told himself proudly, had not been entirely forgotten in Chicago, by any means. But he didn't feel happy about the idea. He knew, perfectly well, that he didn't want to live by trading on his father's reputation. And besides, he _liked_ being an FBI agent. It had glamour. It had standing.

It had everything. It even had trouble.

Malone caught his whirling mind and forced it back to a landing.

Where, he asked himself, was he going?

He thought about that for a second. Perhaps, as Burris had apparently suspected, he was going nuts. When he considered it, it even sounded like a good possibility.

After all, what evidence _did_ he have for his psionic theory? Her Majesty had told him about those peculiar bursts of metal energy, true. But there wasn't anything else. And, come to think of it, wasn't it possible that Her Majesty had slipped just a little off the trolley of her one-track psychosis?

At that thought a quick wave of guilt swept through him. Her Majesty, after all, might be reading his mind from Yucca Flats, where she had returned the previous night, right at that moment. He felt as if he had committed high, middle and low treason all in one great big package, not to mention Jack and the Game, he added disconsolately.

"Nevertheless," he muttered, and stopped. He blinked and started over again. In spite of all that, he told himself, the Burris Theory certainly looked a lot sounder when you considered it objectively.

The big question was whether or not he _wanted_ to consider it objectively. But he put this aside for the future, and continued packing slowly and carefully. When at last he snapped shut the last suitcase, he still hadn't made up his mind as to the best spot for a vacation. Images tumbled through his brain: mountains, seacoasts, beaches, beautiful native girls and even a few insane asylums. But nothing definite appeared. He sat down in his favorite easychair, found a cigar and lit it, and luxuriated in the soothing fumes while his mind began to wander.

Her Majesty, he was quite certain, wouldn't lie purposely. Granted, she had misled him now and again, but even when she felt misleading necessary she hadn't lied; she had merely juggled the truth a little.

And Malone was sure she would continue to tell him the truth as she knew it.

Of course, that was the stopper: _as she knew it_. And she might have developed another delusion. In which case, he thought sadly, Burris was very probably right.

But she might also be telling the actual truth. And that meant, Malone thought, that little pops of energy were occasionally bursting in various minds. These little pops had an effect, or an apparent effect: they made people change their minds about doing one thing or another.

And that meant--Malone stopped, his cigar halfway to his mouth.

_Wasn't it possible that just such a burst of energy had made Burris call him off the case?_

It seemed like a long time before the cigar reached his mouth. Malone felt slightly appalled. The flashes that had been going on in his own mind had already been bothering him, and he'd decided that he'd have to check every decision he made to be sure that it was not capricious; now he made a resolve that he'd kept his mental faculties on a perpetual watch for that sort of interference. Of course, it was more than barely possible that he wouldn't notice it if anything happened.

But it would be pretty stupid to succ.u.mb to that sort of defeatism now, he told himself grimly.

Now that everything was narrowing down so nicely, anyhow, he thought.

There were only two real possibilities. Malone numbered them in his mind:

1. Her Majesty has developed a new delusion. In this case, he thought, Burris was perfectly right. I can enjoy a month of free vacation.

2. Her Majesty is no nuttier than before. If this is the case, he thought, then there's more to the case than has appeared, and Kenneth J. Malone, with or without the FBI, is going to get to the bottom of it.

Therefore, he summed up, everything now hinged on whether or not Her Majesty was unhinged.

That was confusing, but he managed to straighten it out after a second. He put his half-smoked cigar carefully in an ashtray and stood up. He went over to the phone and dialed the special unlisted number of the FBI.

The face that appeared was faintly sallow and looked sad. "Pelham here," it said in the tones of a discouraged horse.

"h.e.l.lo, Pelham," Malone said. "Kenneth Malone here."

"Trouble?" Pelham said. It was obvious that he expected trouble, and always had, and probably always would.

"Nope," Malone said. Pelham looked even sadder. "Just checking out for vacation. You can tell the Chief I'm going to take off for Las Vegas.

I'm taking his advice, tell him; I'm going to carouse and throw my money away and look at dancing girls and smoke and drink and stay out late. I'll let the local office know where I'm staying when I get there, just in case something comes up."

"O.K.," Pelham said unhappily. "I'll check you out." He tried a smile, but it looked more like the blank expression on the face of a local corpse. "Have fun," he said.

"Thanks," Malone said. "I'll try."

But his precognitive sense suddenly rose up on its hind legs as he broke the connection. The attempt to have fun, it told him in no uncertain terms, was going to be a morbid failure.

"Nevertheless," Malone muttered, heaved a great sigh, and started for the suitcase and the door.

VIII

The Great Universal was not the tops in every field. Not by a long shot. As Las Vegas resorts went, as a matter of fact, almost any of them could outdo the Great Universal in one respect or another. The Golden Palace, for instance, had much gaudier gaming rooms. The Moonbeam had a louder orchestra. The Barbary Coast and the Ringing Welkin both had more slot machines, and it was undeniable that the Flower of the West had fatter and pinker dancing girls. The Red Hot, the Last Fling and the Double Star all boasted more waiters and more famous guests per square foot of breathable air.

But the Great Universal, in sheer size, volume of business and elegance of surroundings, outdid any three of the others combined. It stood grandly alone at the edge of the Strip, the grandiloquent Las Vegas version of Broadway or Hollywood Boulevard. It had a central Tower that climbed thirty stories into the clean desert air, and the Tower was surrounded by a quarter of a square mile of single-level structures. At the base, the building spread out for five hundred feet in every direction, and beyond that were the cl.u.s.ters of individual cabins interlaced by walks, small parks, an occasional pool, and a few little groves of trees "for privacy and the feeling of oneness with Nature," the brochure said. But the brochure didn't even do justice to the place. Nothing could have except the popping eyes of the thousand of tourists who saw the Great Universal every month. And they were usually in no condition to sit down and talk calmly about it.

Around the entire collection of buildings rose a wall that fitted the architectural style of the place perfectly. A Hollywood writer out for a three-day bender had called it "Futuristic Mediaeval," since it seemed to be a set-designer's notion of Camelot combined with a Twenty-fifth Century city as imagined by Frank R. Paul. It had Egyptian designs on it, but no one knew exactly why. On the other hand, of course, there was no real reason why not.

That was not the only decoration. Emblazoned on the Tower, in huge letters of evershifting color, was a glowing sign larger than the eye could believe. The sign proclaimed through daylight and the darkest night: Great Universal Hotel. Malone had no doubts about it.

There was a running argument as to whether or not the Great Universal was actually on the Strip. Certainly the original extent of the Strip didn't include it. But the Strip itself had been spreading Westward at a slow but steady pace for two decades, and the only imaginable stopping-point was the California border.

Malone had taken a taxi from the airfield, and had supplied himself with silver dollars there. He gave the cabbie one of them and added another when the man's expression showed real pain. Still unhappy but looking a little less like a figure out of the Great Depression, the cabbie gunned his machine away, leaving Malone standing in the carport surrounded by suitcases and bags of all sizes and weights.

A robot redcap came gliding along. Inevitably, it was gilded, and looked absolutely brand new. Behind it, a chunky little man with bright eyes waved at Malone. "Reserved here?" he said.

"That's right," Malone said. "The name is Malone."

The redcap's escort shrugged. "I don't care if the name is Jack the Ripper," he said. "Just reservations, that's all I care."

Malone watched the luggage being stowed away, and followed after the redcap and its escort with mixed feelings. Las Vegas glittered like mad, but the two inhabitants he had met so far seemed a little dim.

However, he told himself, better things might turn up.

Better things did, almost immediately. In the great lobby of the Tower, guests were lounging about in little groups. Many of the guests were dressed in tuxedos, others in sport shirts and slacks. Quite a number were wearing dresses, skirt-and-blouse combinations or evening gowns, and Malone paid most of his attention to these.

New York, Washington and even Chicago had nothing to match them, he thought dazedly. They were magnificent, and almost frightening in their absolute beauty. Malone however, was not easily daunted. He followed a snappily-dressed bellman to the registration desk while his robot purred gently after him. First things first, he thought--but making friends with the other guests definitely came up number two. Or three, anyhow, he amended sadly.

He signed his own name to the register, but didn't add: "Federal Bureau of Investigation" after it. After all, he thought, he was there unofficially. And even though gambling was perfectly legal in Nevada, the thought of the FBI still made many of the club owners just the least little bit nervous. Instead, Malone gave a Chicago firm as his business address--one which the FBI used as a cover for just such purposes.

The clerk looked at him politely and blankly. "A room in the Tower, sir?" he said.

Malone shook his head. "Ground floor," he said. "But not too far from the Tower. I get airsick easily."

The clerk gave Malone a large laugh, which made him uncomfortable and a little angry. The joke hadn't been all that good, he thought. If he'd ordered a top-price room he could understand the hospitality, but the most expensive rooms were in the Tower, with the outside cabins running a close second. The other rooms dropped in price as they approached the periphery of the main building.

"A humorist, sir?" the clerk said.

"Not at all," Malone said pleasantly, wishing he'd signed with his full occupation and address. "I'm a gravedigger. Business has been very good this year."