Supermind
Vnootrenikh Dyehl_?”
“_Gesundheit_,” Malone said kindly.
“The MVD,” Boyd said. “I’ve been studying for days to pull it on you
when you got back.”
Malone nodded. “Very well, then,” he said in a stately, orotund tone.
“Say it again.”
“Damn it,” Boyd said, “I _can’t_ say it again.”
“Cheer up,” Malone said. “Maybe some day you’ll learn. Meantime,
Thomas, did you get the stuff we talked about?”
Boyd nodded. “I think I got enough of it,” he said. “Anyhow, there is
a definite trend developing. Come on into the private office, and I’ll
show you.”
There, on Boyd’s massive desk, were several neat piles of paper.
“It looks like enough,” Malone said. “As a matter of fact, it looks
like too much. Haven’t we been through all this before?”
“Not like this, we haven’t,” Boyd said. “Information from all over,
out of the everywhere, into the here.” He picked up a stack of papers
and handed them to Malone.
“What’s this?” Malone said.
“That,” Boyd said, “is a report on the Pacific Merchant Sailors’
Brotherhood.”
“Goody,” Malone said doubtfully.
Boyd came over, pulling at his beard thoughtfully, and took the top
few sheets out of Malone’s hands. “The report,” he said, looking down
at the sheets, “includes the checks we made on the office of the
president of the Brotherhood, as well as the Los Angeles local and the
San Francisco local.”
“Only two?” Malone said. “That seems as if you’ve been lying down on
the job.”
“They’re the top two in membership,” Boyd said. “But listen to this:
the president and three of his underlings resigned day before
yesterday, and not quite in time. The law—by which I mean us, and a
good many other people—is hot on their tails. It seems somebody
accidentally mixed up a couple of envelopes.”
“Sounds like a case for the Post Office,” Malone said brightly.
“Not these envelopes,” Boyd said. “There was a letter that was
supposed to go to the head of the San Francisco local, dealing with a
second set of books—not the ones used for tax purposes, but the real
McCoy. The letter didn’t get to the San Francisco man. Instead, it
went to the attorney general of the state of California.”
“Lovely,” Malone said. “Meanwhile, what was San Francisco doing?”
Boyd smiled. “San Francisco was getting confused,” he said. “Like
everybody else. The San Francisco man got a copy of an affidavit
dealing with merchant-ship tonnage. That was supposed to go to the
attorney general.”
“Good work,” Malone said. “So when the Frisco boys woke up to what was
happening—”
“They called the head man, and he put two and two together, resigned
and went into hiding. Right now, he’s probably living an undercover
life as a shoe salesman in Paris, Kentucky.”
“And, after all,” Malone added, “why not? It’s a peaceful life.”
“The attorney general, of course, impounded the second set of books,”
Boyd went on. “A grand jury is hearing charges now.”
“You know,” Malone said reflectively, “I almost feel sorry for the
man. Almost, but not quite.”
“I see what you mean,” Boyd said. “It is a hell of a thing to happen.”
“On the other hand—” Malone leafed through the papers in a hurry,
then put them back on Boyd’s desk with a sigh of relief. “I’ve got the
main details now,” he said. “I can go through the thing more
thoroughly later. Anything else?”
“Oh, lots,” Boyd said. “And all in the same pattern. The FPM, for
instance, literally dropped one in our laps.”
“Literally?” Malone said. “What was the Federation of Professional
Musicians doing in your lap?”
“Not mine,” Boyd said hastily. “Not mine. But it seems that some
secretary put a bunch of file folders on the windowsill of their
second-floor offices, and they fell off. At the same time, an agent
was passing underneath, slipped on a banana peel and sat down on the
sidewalk. Bingo, folders in lap.”
“Wonderful,” Malone said. “The hand of God.”
“The hand of something, for sure,” Boyd said. “Those folders contain
all the ammunition we’ve ever needed to get after the FPM. Kickbacks,
illegal arrangements with night-clubs, the whole works. We’re putting
it together now, but it looks like a long, long term ahead for our
friends from the FPM.”
And Boyd went to his desk, picked up a particularly large stack of
papers. “This,” he said, “is really hot stuff.”
“What do you call the others?” Malone said. “Crime on ice?”
“The new show at the Winter Garden,” Boyd said blithely. “Don’t miss
it if you can.”
“Sure,” Malone said. “So what’s so hot?”
Boyd smiled. “The police departments of seven major cities,” he said.
“They’re all under attack either by the local prosecuting attorney or
the state’s attorney general. It seems there’s a little graft and
corruption going on.”
“This,” Malone said, “is not news.”
“It is to the people concerned,” Boyd said. “Four police chiefs have
resigned, along with great handfuls of inspectors, captains and
lieutenants. It’s making a lovely wingding all over the country, Ken.”
“I’ll bet,” Malone said.
“And I checked back on every one,” Boyd went on. “Your hunch was
absolutely right, Ken. The prosecuting attorneys and the attorneys
general are all new men—all the ones involved in this stuff. Each one
replaced a previous incumbent in a recent election. In two cases, the
governor was new, too—elected last year.”
“That figures,” Malone said. “What about the rest?”
Boyd’s grandiose wave of a hand took in all the papers on the desk.
“It’s all the same,” he said. “They all follow a pattern, Ken, _the_
pattern. The one you were looking for.”
Malone blinked. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I’ll be doubly damned.”
“And how about the Russians?” Boyd said.
“You mean the _Meeneestyerstvoh Vnootrenikh Dyehl_?” Malone said.
“Now,” Boyd said, “I’ll be damned. And after I practiced for days.”
“Ah,” Malone said. “But I was _there_. The Russians are about as mixed
up as a group of Transylvanian villagers with two vampires to track
down and not enough flambeaux for all. Here, for instance, is just one
example: the conflicting sets of orders that were given about me and
Her Majesty and L—Miss Garbitsch.”
Briefly, he outlined what had happened.
“Sounds like fun,” Boyd said.
“They were so busy arguing with each other,” Malone finished, “that I
have a feeling we hardly needed the teleportation to escape. It would
just have taken longer, that’s all.” He paused. “By the way, Tom,
about the stakeout—”
“Luba Garbitsch is being protected as if she were Fort Knox,” Boyd
said. “If any Soviet agent tries to approach her with a threat of any
kind, we’ll have him nabbed before he can say Ivan Robinovitch.”
“Or,” Malone suggested, “_Meeneestyerstvoh_—”
“If we waited for that one,” Boyd said, “we might have to wait all
day.” He paused. “But who’s doing it?” he went on. “That’s still the
question. Martians? Venerians? Or is that last one Venusians?”
“Aphrodisiacs,” Malone suggested diplomatically.
“Thank you, no,” Boyd said politely. “I never indulge while on duty.”
“Thomas,” Malone said, “you are a Rover Boy First-Class.”
“Good,” Boyd said. “But, meanwhile, who is doing all this? Would you
prefer Evil Beings from the Planet Ploor?”
“I would not,” Malone said firmly.
“But I have a strange feeling,” Boyd said, “that, in spite of all the
evidence to the contrary, you do not hold with the Interplanetary
Alien Theory.”
“Frankly,” Malone said, “I’m not sure of anything. Not really. But I
do want to know why, if it’s interplanetary aliens doing this stuff,
they’re picking such a strange way of going about it.”
“Strange?” Boyd said. “What’s strange about it? You wouldn’t expect
Things from Ploor to come right out and _tell_ us what they want,
would you? It’s against custom. It may even be against the law.”
“Well, maybe,” Malone said. “But it is pretty strange. The difference
between what’s happening in Russia and what’s happening here—”
“What difference?” Boyd said. “Everybody’s confused. Here, and over
there. It all looks the same to me.”
“Well, it isn’t,” Malone said. “Take a look at the paper, for
instance.” He tossed the _Post_ at Boyd, who caught it with a
spasmodic clutching motion and reassembled it slowly.
“Why throw things?” Boyd said. “You sore or something?”
“I guess I am,” Malone said. “But not at you. It’s—somebody or
something. Person or persons unknown.”
“Or Ploorians,” Boyd said.
“Whatever,” Malone said. “But take a look at the paper and see if you
see what I see.” He paused. “Does that mean anything?” he said.
“Probably,” Boyd said. “We’ll figure it out later.” He leafed through
the newspaper slowly, pulling thoughtfully at his beard from time to
time. Malone watched him in breathless silence.
“See it?” he said at last.
Boyd looked up and, very slowly, nodded. “You’re right, Ken,” he said
in a quiet voice. “You’re absolutely right. It’s as plain as the nose
on your face.”
“And that,” Malone said, “sounds like an insult. It’s much plainer
than that. Suppose you tell me.”
Boyd considered. “Over here,” he said at last, “there are a lot of
confused jerks and idiots. Right?”
“Correct,” Malone said.
“And in Russia,” Boyd went on, “there’s a lot of confusion. Right?”
“Sure,” Boyd said. “It’s perfectly clear. I wonder why I didn’t see it
before.”
“That’s it!” Malone cried. “That’s the difference!”
“Sure,” Boyd said. “It’s perfectly clear. I wonder why I didn’t see it
before.”
“Because you weren’t looking for it,” Malone said. “Because nobody
was. But there’s one more check I want to make. There’s one area I’m
not sure of, simply because I don’t have enough to go on.”
“What area is that?” Boyd said. “It seems to me we did a pretty good
job—”
“The Mafia,” Malone said. “We know they’re having trouble, but—”
“But we don’t know what kind of trouble,” Boyd finished. “Right you
are.”
Malone nodded. “I want to talk to Manelli,” he said. “Can we set it
up?”
“I don’t see why not,” Boyd said. “The A-in-C can give us the latest
on him. You want me with you?”
“No,” Malone said after some thought. “No. You go and see Mike Sand,
heading up the International Truckers’ Union. We know he’s tied up
with the Syndicate, and maybe you can get some information from him.
You know what to dig for?”
“I do now,” Boyd said. He reached for the intercom phone.
* * * * *
Cesare Antonio Manelli was a second-generation Prohibition mobster,
whose history can most easily be described by reference to the various
affairs of State which coincided with his development. Thus:
When Cesare was a small toddler of uncertain gait and chubby visage,
the Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
canceled out not only the Eighteenth Amendment, but the thriving
enterprises conducted by Manelli, Sr., and many of his friends.
When Cesare was a young schoolboy, poring over the multiplication
tables, his father and his father’s friends were busy dividing. They
were dividing, to put it more fully, husbands from families as a means
of requesting ransom, and money from banks as a means of getting the
same cash without use of the middleman, or victim. This was the period
of the Great Readjustment, and the frenzied search among gangland’s
higher echelons for a substitute for bootlegging.
And when Cesare was an innocent high-schooler, sporting a Paleolithic
switchblade knife and black leather jacket, his father and his
father’s friends had reached a new plateau. They consolidated into a
Syndicate, and began to concentrate on gambling and the whole,
complex, profitable network of unions.
And then World War II had come along, and it was time for Cesare to do
his part. Bidding a fond farewell to his father and such of his
father’s friends as had survived the disagreements of Prohibition, the
painful legal processes of the early Thirties and the even more