You Too Can Be A Millionaire Part 2

It was a lovely existence. He forgot about Penelope's slip for thirty-five thousand. He could almost pay it off anyway. Then came the day when he pulled his grand coup.

He spent a week planning it, with Penelope's shrewd advice. He remembered what she had said about the man on the ladder in the nineteen-forties. He sandpapered his back and painted an irregular spot with merthiolate and iodine, and practiced twisting his back until it looked out of shape. Then he went out and watched for an absent-minded, nervous, excitable-looking man to try his next effort on.

Penelope's biggest advice was, "Preparation is half the points," so it was three days before Mark found the right person. After he found him it was very simple. He signaled Penelope to follow, and then he walked behind the man until they came to a high curb.

Mark moved out to the left. The man started to step up on the curb. Mark darted across in front of the man just as the man raised his foot. Mark managed to stumble exactly in front of the man. His arms went out and one hand caught the little man's leg. The little man fell squarely on top of him, a.s.sisted by a slight push from Penelope.

Mark groaned heart-breakingly. In a moment there was a crowd. The little man was getting up, bewildered, and automatically trying to dust off his type K suit. Mark lay half on the curb, half off, squirming like a broken-back snake. "My back," he moaned piteously. "Oh, my back."

The little man seemed paralyzed at the enormity of the thing he had done. He stared at Mark and Mark squirmed harder and moaned louder. Then Penelope hobbled up and pulled Mark's shirttail out of his trousers. The iodine spot on his back looked yellow and purple, and there were gasps from the crowd.

"He did it!" Mark said, glaring accusingly at the little man. "He tripped me. He tripped me and broke my back!"

Penelope was putting on a good act too, crying and wringing her hands and moaning. "My poor boy!" she said, over and over. A woman in the crowd came up and made a very expressive raspberry in the little man's face. The little man was not only bewildered; he was frightened. Mark adjudged the time had come.

"Points for my broken back!" he cried. Penelope held out a slip to the little man. He signed it dazedly, then he slipped out of the crowd, while three men picked up Mark and laid him tenderly in Penelope's reclining wheel-chair.

Mark could hardly contain himself. As soon as they were safely out of sight he said excitedly, "Let me see the slip."

Penelope looked around. She kept pushing him but she handed over the slip.

"Fifty thousand points!" Mark read under his breath. "Isn't that wonderful!" He couldn't remember ever having felt so elated in his life.

Penelope was shaking her head wonderingly. "That was a good act," she said. "I'd never have had the nerve to try that myself."

"Oh, that's nothing." Mark was enthusiastic. "As soon as I get fitted up with a magnelite brace so it'll look good, I'm going to knock a piece out of that curbing, and then if I can find out who's the registered owner of it I'll hit him for twenty-five thousand."

Mark got the twenty-five thousand. The owner of the sidewalk was finally convinced that Mark's broken back was worth a lot. From then on there was no holding Mark. Pretending to act for the little man who had originally knocked him down, he located the woman who had made a raspberry in the little man's face and collected another two thousand; the woman didn't recognize Mark, because Mark's features were changed a little.

Then Mark spotted two others who had made threatening noises and collected five hundred from each, and from another who expressed doubt that he was really hurt, Mark got a thousand points. There was nothing to it, really. Most people had regular beats, and all Mark had to do was sit at one side in Penelope's wheel-chair and wait for them to come by.

He would have collected more if he could have remembered more faces. He saw Conley go by once a day but now he wasn't afraid. He thought Conley looked at him disappointedly.

A couple of weeks later he got his card back from the Machine at Central and looked at it with great satisfaction. He had a hundred and thirteen thousand points to his credit. He met Penelope and they went to her apartment for dinner. Jubilantly Mark got all the fancy food--even some synthetic meat--that he could get on his card, and they prepared for a feast.

"The only thing is," Penelope said as she punched the dishes on the table, "I'm scared. I have a feeling you shouldn't have gone over a hundred thousand."

"Is that why you never cashed my slip for thirty-five thousand?"

She nodded. "That's mostly the reason. My balance is over eighty thousand and I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"I don't know. Just afraid."

"Well," said Mark, "I'm not. I don't see what Central can do to a person for getting points. There's no rule against it."

"It's dangerous," Penelope insisted.

"Nevertheless, I have made a decision. A hundred thousand points--that's nothing." His head was high. "I'm going after a million points!"

Penelope gasped. "Mark, you mustn't do anything like that. You have no use for a million points."

"No," Mark said complacently, "but it's a lot of fun getting them. And it gives me something worth while to do. We'll sit up till three o'clock every morning and play bridge, and I'll stay in bed till noon, and dream up new stunts. I'll pull one a week. Life is going to be worth living."

The announcing light showed at the door. Penelope pressed the admittance b.u.t.ton. A tall, thin man came in a moment later. "Mark Renner?" he asked.

Mark jumped. "Conley!" Mark's stomach had a funny feeling in it.

"They told me I would find you here," Conley said.

Penelope had recovered enough to gasp. "What do you want?"

"I'm from Central Audit Bureau."

"That's just lovely," Penelope said, "but it doesn't mean anything to us but a place where we get our cards balanced."

"It should mean something to you," Conley said hollowly. "Central is the government."

Penelope stared at him. "Sit down, please. I thought Central was just a machine."

"It is something more than a machine. There is a small corps of persons who live inside the machine to service it and occasionally adjust it, and those persons really are the government--that is, all the government we have." He sat down stiffly, his back straight. "Now then, Mr. Renner, your card today showed a credit balance of a hundred and thirteen thousand points. Is that correct?"

Mark swallowed. "Yes." He looked at Penelope. She was pale. With difficulty Mark asked, "Is it your job to check up on people, to see if they are ent.i.tled to their points?"

"Oh, my, no. Central doesn't care about that. In fact, Central doesn't care how much anybody's debit is. We figure as long as a man is in debt he'll try to pay it off. They always do, at least. No, we never bother with debits, and I don't suppose we ever would."

Mark breathed a sigh of relief.

"But a credit of over a hundred thousand is something else," said Conley. "The machines won't handle six figures without trouble, you see, so there has to be a penalty." He looked very sad. "Now, then, I shall have to--"

"Wait!" cried Penelope. "His credit is a hundred and thirteen thousand--but I have his slip for thirty-five thousand. If I turn it in, that would fix it up for him, wouldn't it."

Mark felt a warm wave of grat.i.tude toward Penelope. She was a million per cent; no question about it.

"Well--yes, I suppose so. We don't like these last-minute adjustments, but I suppose--"

She came waving the slip and thrust it into Conley's face.

"There!" she said triumphantly. "Put that on my account."

Conley looked a little sad. "This is your slip?" he asked Mark.

Mark nodded gratefully.

"Let me have your credit card, Miss Penelope. Now, then, I'll transfer these points--hm." Conley's eyebrows raised. "Do you know what your balance is now, Miss Penelope?"