The Demolished Man Part 4

"Bam," he said.

"I'd like to kill the bem who invented that fad," Duffy said darkly. "All right, handsome. What's your problem?"

"Gambling," Reich said. "Ellery West, my Rec director, is complaining about the gambling in Monarch. Says there's too much. Personally I don't care."

"Keep a man in debt and he's afraid to ask for a raise."

"You're entirely too smart, young lady."

"So you want a no-gamble-type song?"

"Something like that. Catchy. Not too obvious. More a delayed action than a straight propaganda tune. I'd like the conditioning to be more or less unconscious."

Duffy nodded and made quick notes.

"And make it a tune worth hearing. I'll have to listen to G.o.d knows how many people singing and whistling and humming it."

"You louse. All my tunes are worth hearing."

"Once."

"That's a thousand extra on your tab."

Reich laughed. "Speaking of monotony..." he continued smoothly.

"Which we weren't."

"What's the most persistent tune you ever wrote?"

"Persistent?"

"You know what I mean. Like those advertising jingles you can't get out of your head."

"Oh. Pepsis, we call 'em."

"Why?"

"Dunno. They say because the first one was written centuries ago by a character named Pepsi. I don't buy that. I wrote one once..." Duffy winced in recollection. "Hate to think of it even now. Guaranteed to obsess you for a month. It haunted me for a year."

"You're rocketting."

"Scout's honor, Mr. Reich. It was 'Tenser, Said The Tensor.' I wrote it for that flop show about the crazy mathematician. They wanted nuisance value and they sure got it. People got so sore they had to withdraw it. Lost a fortune."

"Let's hear it."

"I couldn't do that to you."

"Come on, Duffy. I'm really curious."

"You'll regret it"

"I don't believe you."

"All right, pig," she said, and pulled the punch panel toward her. "This pays you back for that no-guts kiss."

Her fingers and palm slipped gracefully over the panel. A tune of utter monotony filled the room with agonizing, unforgettable ba.n.a.lity. It was the quintessence of every melodic cliche Reich had ever heard. No matter what melody you tried to remember, it invariably led down the path of familiarity to "Tenser, Said The Tensor." Then Duffy began to sing: Eight, sir; seven, sir; Six, sir; five, sir; Four, sir; three, sir; Two, sir; one!

Tenser, said the Tensor.

Tenser, said the Tensor.

Tension, apprehension, And dissension have begun.

"Oh my G.o.d!" Reich exclaimed.

"I've got some real gone tricks in that tune," Duffy said, still playing. "Notice the beat after 'one'? That's a semicadence. Then you get another beat after 'begun.' That turns the end of the song into a semicadence, too, so you can't ever end it. The beat keeps you running in circles, like: Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun. RIFF. Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun. RIFF. Tension, appre---"

"You little devil!" Reich started to his feet, pounding his palms on his ears. "I'm accursed. How long is this affliction going to last?"

"Not more than a month."

"Tension, apprehension, and diss---I'm ruined. Isn't there any way out?"

"Sure," Duffy said. "It's easy. Just ruin me." She pressed herself against him and planted an earnest young kiss. "Lout," she murmured. "Pig. b.o.o.b. Dolt. When are you going to drag me through the gutter? Clever-up, dog. Why aren't you as smart as I think you are?"

"I'm smarter," he said and left.

As Reich had planned, the song established itself firmly in his mind and echoed again and again all the way down to the street. Tenser, said the Tensor. Tenser, said the Tensor. Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun. RIFF. A perfect mind-block for a non-Esper. What peeper could get past that? Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun.

"Much smarter," murmured Reich, and flagged a Jumper to Jerry Church's p.a.w.nshop on the upper west side.

Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun.

Despite all rival claims, p.a.w.nbroking is still the oldest profession. The business of lending money on portable security is the most ancient of human occupations. It extends from the depths of the past to the uttermost reaches of the future, as unchanging as the p.a.w.nbroker's shop itself. You walked into Jerry Church's cellar store, crammed and littered with the debris of time, and you were in a museum of eternity. And even Church himself, wizened, peering, his face blackened and bruised by the internal blows of suffering, embodied the ageless money-lender.

Church shuffled out of the shadows and came face to face with Reich, standing starkly illuminated in a patch of sunlight slanting across the counter. He did not start. He did not acknowledge Reich's ident.i.ty. Brushing past the man who for ten years had been his mortal enemy, he placed himself behind the counter and said: "Yes, please?"

"h.e.l.lo, Jerry."

Without looking up. Church extended his hand across the counter. Reich attempted to clasp it. It was s.n.a.t.c.hed away.

"No," Church said with a snarl that was half hysterical laugh. "Not that, thank you. Just give me what you want to p.a.w.n."

It was the peeper's sour little trap, and he had tumbled into it. No matter.

"I haven't anything to p.a.w.n, Jerry."

"As poor as that? How the mighty have fallen. But we must expect it, eh? We all fall. We all fall."

Church glanced sidelong at him, trying to peep him. Let him try. Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun. Let him get through the crazy tune rattling in his head.

"All of us fall," Church said. "All of us."

"I expect so, Jerry. I haven't yet. I've been lucky."

"I wasn't lucky," the peeper leered. "I met you."

"Jerry," Reich said patiently. "I've never been your bad luck. It was your own luck that ruined you. Not---"

"You G.o.d d.a.m.ned b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Church said in a horribly soft voice. "You G.o.d d.a.m.ned eater of slok. May you rot before you die. Get out of here. I want nothing to do with you. Nothing! Understand?"

"Not even my money?" Reich withdrew ten gleaming sovereigns from his pocket and placed them on the counter. It was a subtle touch. Unlike the credit, the sovereign was the coin of the underworld. Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun...

"Least of all your money. I want your heart cut open. I want your blood spilling on the ground. I want the maggots eating the eyes out of your living head... But I don't want your money."

"Then what do you want, Jerry?"

"I told you!" the peeper screamed. "I told you! You G.o.d d.a.m.ned lousy---"

"What do you want, Jerry?" Reich repeated coldly, keeping his eyes on the wizened man. Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun. He could still control Church. It didn't matter that Church had been a 2nd. Control wasn't a question of peeping. It was a question of personality. Eight, sir; seven, sir; six, sir; five, sir... He always had... He always would control Church.

"What do you want?" Church asked sullenly.

Reich snorted. "You're the peeper. You tell me."

"I don't know," Church muttered after a pause. "I can't read it. There's crazy music mixing everything up..."

"Then I'll have to tell you. I want a gun."

"A what?"

"G-U-N. Gun. Ancient weapon. It propels projectiles by explosion."

"I haven't anything like that."

"Yes, you do, Jerry. Keno Quizzard mentioned it to me some time ago. He saw it. Steel and collapsible. Very interesting."

"What do you want it for?"

"Read me, Jerry, and find out. I haven't anything to hide. It's all quite innocent."

Church screwed up his face, then quit in disgust.

"Isn't worth the trouble," he mumbled and shuffled off into the shadows. There was a distant slamming of metal drawers. Church returned with a compact nodule of tarnished steel and placed it on the counter alongside the money. He pressed a stud and the lump of metal sprang open into steel knuckle-rings, revolver and stiletto. It was a XXth Century knife-pistol... the quintessence of murder.

"What do you want it for?" Church asked again.

"You're hoping it's something that can lead to black-mail, eh?" Reich smiled. "Sorry. It's a gift."

"A dangerous gift." The ostracized peeper gave him that sidelong glance of snarl and laugh. "Ruination for someone else, eh?"

"Not at all, Jerry. It's a gift for a friend of mine. Dr. Augustus Tate."

"Tate!" Church stared at him.

"Do you know him? He collects old things."

"I know him. I know him." Church began to chuckle asthmatically. "But I'm beginning to know him better. I'm beginning to feel sorry for him." He stopped laughing and shot a penetrating glance at Reich. "Of course. This will make a lovely gift for Gus. A perfect gift for Gus. Because it's loaded."

"Oh? Is it loaded?"

"Oh yes indeed. It's loaded. Five lovely cartridges." Church cackled again. "A gift for Gus." He touched a cam. A cylinder snapped out of the side of the gun displaying five chambers filled with bra.s.s cartridges. He looked from the cartridges to Reich. "Five serpent's teeth to give to Gus."

"I told you this was innocent," Reich said in a hard voice. "We'll have to pull those teeth."

Church stared at him in astonishment, then he trotted down the aisle and returned with two small tools. Quickly he wrenched each of the bullets from the cartridges. He slid the harmless cartridge cases back into the chambers, snapped the cylinder home and then placed the gun alongside the money.

"All safe," he said brightly. "Safe for dear little Gus." He looked at Reich expectantly. Reich extended both hands. With one he pushed the money toward Church. With the other he drew the gun toward himself. At that instant, Church changed again. The air of chirpy madness left him. He grasped Reich's wrists with iron claws and bent across the counter with blazing intensity.

"No, Ben," he said, using the name for the first time. "That isn't the price. You know it. Despite that crazy song in your head, I know you know it."

"All right, Jerry," Reich said steadily, never relaxing his hold on the gun. "What is the price? How much?"

"I want to be reinstated," the peeper said. "I want to get back into the Guild. I want to be alive again. That's the price."

"What can I do? I'm not a peeper. I don't belong to the Guild."

"You're not helpless, Ben. You've got ways and means. You could get to the Guild. You could have me reinstated."

"Impossible."

"You can bribe, blackmail, intimidate... bless, dazzle, fascinate. You can do it, Ben. You can do it for me. Help me, Ben. I helped you, once."

"I paid through the nose for that help."

"And I? What did I pay?" the peeper screamed. "I paid with my life!"

"You paid with your stupidity."

"For G.o.d's sake, Ben. Help me. Help me or kill me. I'm dead already. I just haven't the guts to commit suicide."

After a pause, Reich said brutally: "I think the best thing for you, Jerry, would be suicide."

The peeper flung himself back as though he had been branded. In his bruised face his eyes stared gla.s.sily at Reich.

"Now tell me the price," Reich said.

Quite deliberately, Church spat on the money, then levelled a glance of hurtling hatred at Reich. "There will be no charge," he said, and turned and disappeared into the shadows of the cellar.