Supermind
painful consolidations of the years immediately before the war, young
Cesare went off to foreign lands, where he distinguished himself by
creating and running the largest single black-market ring in all of
Southern Europe.
Cesare had followed in his father’s footsteps. And, before his sudden
death during a disagreement in Miami, Giacomo “Jack the Ripper”
Manelli was proud of his son.
“Geez,” he often said. “Whattakid, huh? Whattakid!”
At the war’s end, young Cesare, having proven himself a man, took unto
himself a nickname and a shotgun. He did not have to use the shotgun
very much, after the first few lessons; soon he was on his way to the
top.
There was nowhere for Cesare “Big Cheese” Antonio Manelli to go,
except up.
Straight up.
Now, in 1973, he occupied a modestly opulent office on Madison Avenue,
where he did his modest best to pretend to the world at large that he
was only a small cog—indeed, an almost invisible cog—in a large
advertising machine. His best was, for all practical purposes, good
enough.
Though it was common knowledge among the spoil-sport law enforcement
officers who cared to look into the matter that Manelli was the real
owner of the agency, there was no way to prove this. He didn’t even
have a phone under his own name. The only way to reach him was by
going through his front man in the agency, a blank-faced, truculent
Arab named Atif Abdullah Aoud.
According to the agent-in-charge of the New York office, Malone had
his choice of two separate methods of getting to Manelli. One, more
direct, was to walk in, announce that he was an agent of the FBI, and
insist on seeing Manelli. If he had a search warrant, the A-in-C told
him, he might even get in. But, even if he did, he would probably not
get anything out of Manelli.
The second and more diplomatic way was to call up Atif Abdullah Aoud
and arrange for an appointment.
Malone made his decision in a flash. He flipped on the phone and
punched for a PLaza exchange.
The face that appeared on the screen was that of a fairly pretty, if
somewhat vapid, brunette. “Rodger, Willcoe, O’Vurr and Aoud, good
afternoon,” she said.
Malone blinked.
“Who is calling, please?” the girl said. She snapped gum at the screen
and Malone winced and drew away.
“This is Kenneth J. Malone,” he said from what he considered a safe
distance. “I want to talk to Mr. Aoud.”
“Mr. Aoud?” she said in a high, unhelpful whine.
“That’s right,” Malone said patiently. “You can tell him that there
may be some government business coming his way.”
“Oh,” she said. “But Mr. Aoud isn’t in.”
Mr. Aoud wasn’t in. Mr. Aoud was out. Malone turned that over in his
mind a few times, and decided to try and forget it just as quickly as
possible. “Then,” he said, “let me talk to one of the other partners.”
“Partners?” the girl said. She popped her gum again. Malone moved back
another inch.
“You know,” he said. “The other people he works with. Rodger, or
Willcoe, or O’Vurr.”
“Oh,” the girl said. “Them.”
“That’s right,” Malone said patiently.
“How about Mr. Willcoe?” the girl said after a second of deep and
earnest thought. “Would he do?”
“Why not let’s try him and see?” Malone said.
“Okay,” the girl said brightly. “Let’s.” She flashed Malone a dazzling
smile, only slightly impeded by the gum, and flipped off. Malone
stared at the blank screen for a few seconds, and then the girl’s
voice said, invisibly: “Mr. Willcoe will speak to you now, Mr. Melon.
Thank you for waiting.”
“I’m not—” Malone started to say, and then the face of Frederick
Willcoe appeared on the screen.
Willcoe was a thin, wrinkle-faced man with very pale skin. He seemed
to be in his sixties, and he looked as if he had just lost an
all-night bout with Count Dracula. Malone looked interestedly for
puncture marks, but failed to find any.
“Ah,” Willcoe said, in a voice that sounded like crinkled paper. “Mr.
Melon. Good afternoon.”
“I’m not Mr. Melon,” Malone said testily.
Willcoe looked gently surprised, like a man who has discovered that
his evening sherry contains cholesterol. “Really?” he said. “Then I
must be on the wrong line. I beg your pardon.”
“You’re not on the wrong line,” Malone said. “I am Mr. Melon in a
way.” That didn’t sound very clear when he got it out, so he added:
“Your secretary got my name wrong. She thinks I’m Mr. Melon—Kenneth
J. Melon.”
“But you’re not,” Willcoe said.
Malone resisted an impulse to announce that he was really Lamont
Cranston. “I’m Kenneth J. Malone,” he said.
“Ah,” Willcoe said. “Quite amusing. Imagine my mistaking you for a Mr.
Melon, when you’re really Mr. Malone.” He paused, and his face got
even more wrinkled. “But I don’t know you under either name,” he said.
“What do you want?”
“I want to talk to Mr. Manelli,” Malone said.
“But Mr. Aoud—”
“Mr. Aoud,” Malone said, wondering if it sounded as silly to Willcoe
as it did to him, “isn’t in. So I thought you might be able to arrange
an appointment for this afternoon.”
Willcoe bit his lip. “Mr. Manelli isn’t in just now,” he said.
“Yes,” Malone said. “I didn’t think he would be. That’s why I want to
arrange an appointment for later, when he _will_ be in.”
“Does Mr. Manelli know you?” Willcoe said suspiciously, the wrinkles
deepening again.
“He knows my boss,” Malone said carefully. “You just tell him that
this is something that ought to be worth time and money to him. His
time, and his money.”
“Hmm,” Willcoe said. “I see. Would you wait a moment, Mr. Mel—Mr.
Malone?”
The screen blanked out immediately. The wait this time was slightly
longer.
And the next face that appeared on the screen was that of Cesare “Big
Cheese” Antonio Manelli, the nearly invisible cog.
For a cog, the face was not a bad one. It was strong and well-muscled,
and it had dark, wavy hair running along the top. At the sides of the
face, the hair was greying slightly, and behind the grey two large
ears stuck out. Manelli’s nose was a long, faintly aquiline affair and
his eyes were very pleasant and candid. They were light grey.
“Aha,” Manelli said. “You are Mr. Malone, right?” His voice was
guttural, but it was obvious that he was trying for control. “I regret
announcing that I was out, Mr. Malone,” he said. “But a man in my
position—I like privacy, Mr. Malone, and I try to keep privacy for
myself. Let me request you to answer a question, Mr. Malone: do I know
you, Mr. Malone?”
“Not personally,” Malone said. “I—”
“But I’m supposed to know your boss,” Manelli said. “I don’t know him,
either, so far.”
Malone shrugged. “I’m sure you do,” he said, and dropped the name
almost casually: “Andrew J. Burris.”
Manelli raised his eyebrows. “So that’s who you are,” he said. “I
ought to have known, Mr. Malone. And you want to talk to me a little
bit, right?”
“That’s right,” Malone said.
“But this is no way to act, Mr. Malone,” Manelli said reproachfully.
“After all, we understand each other, you and me. What you should do,
you should come in through channels, in the correct way, so everything
it would be open and above the board.”
“Through channels?” Malone said.
Manelli regarded him with a pitying glance. “You must be new on your
job, Mr. Malone,” he said. “Because there is an entire system built
up, and you don’t know about it. The way things work, we sit around
and we don’t see people. And then somebody comes and presents his
credentials, you might say—search warrants, for instance, or
subpoenas. And then we know where we are.”
Malone shook his head. “This isn’t that kind of call,” he said. “It’s
more a friendly type of call.”
“Mr. Malone,” Manelli said. The reproach was stronger in his voice.
“You must be very new at your job.”
“Nevertheless,” Malone said.
Manelli hesitated only a second. “Because I like you,” he said, “and
to teach you how things operate around here, I could do you a favor.”
“Good,” Malone said patiently.
“In an hour,” Manelli said. “My place. Here.”
The screen blanked out before Malone could even say goodbye.
Malone got up, went out to the corridor, and decided that, since he
had time to kill, he might as well walk on down to Manelli’s office.
That, he told himself, would give him time to decide what he wanted to
say.
He toyed at first with the idea of a nice bourbon and soda in a
Madison Avenue bar, but he discarded that idea in a hurry. It was
always possible for him to get into a tight spot and have to teleport
his way out, and he didn’t want to be fuzzy around the edges in case
that happened. _Trotkin’s_ had showed him that, under enough stress,
he could manage the job with quite a lot of vodka in him. But there
was absolutely no sense, he told himself sadly, in taking chances.
He started off downtown along Fifth. Soon he was standing in front of
the blue-and-crystal tower of the Ravell Building.
That made up his mind for him. He checked his watch, mentally flipped
a coin and then cheated a little to make the answer come out right. He
went inside and stepped into an elevator.
“Six,” he said with decision.
Lou was sitting at the Psychical Research Society desk, talking to the
tweedy Sir Lewis Carter. Malone waved at Carter, decided that
conversation with Lou was out, and started to walk away. Then he
realized that he couldn’t have Carter thinking he was crazy. He had to
figure out something to tell the man—and in a hurry, too.
Carter smiled and gestured to him. “Ah, Mr. Malone,” he said. “I’m
glad you brought our Lou home safely. I’ve heard a little about your—
ah—escapade. Astounding, really.”
“Not for the FBI,” Malone said modestly. “We’ve been through too
much.”
“But—”
“No, really,” Malone said. “We never call anything astounding any
more.”
“I can well imagine,” Carter said. “Is there anything I can do for
you?”
Malone thought fast. He had to have something, and he didn’t have much
time. “Why—uh—” he said, and then it came to him. “Yes, as a matter
of fact you can,” he said.
“Glad to be of service,” Carter said. “I’m sure we can do anything you
request.”
“Have you got any more data on telepathic projection?” Malone said.
Sir Lewis Carter frowned. “Telepathic projection?” he said.
“The stuff—the phenomenon Cartier Taylor mentioned,” Malone said, “in
_Minds and Morons_. I think it was page eighty-four.”
“Oh,” Carter said. “Oh, yes. Of course. Well, Mr. Malone, we’ll see
what we can do for you.”
Malone sighed. “Thanks,” he said mournfully. “I guess—I guess that’s
all, then.” He smiled at Lou, and turned the smile into a terrifying
scowl when his eye caught Carter’s. “Oh,” Malone said. “So long. So
long, everybody.”
“Ken—”
This was not, he told himself sadly, either the time or the place.
“Goodbye, Sir Lewis,” he said. “Goodbye, Lou.”
The elevator opened its doors and received him.
* * * * *
Exactly fifty-nine minutes after Cesare Manelli had hung up on him,
Malone showed up in the stately and sumptuous suite that belonged, for
a stiff fee every month, to the firm of Rodger, Willcoe, O’Vurr and
Aoud. The girl at the desk was his old Spearmint friend.
“Mr. Manelli,” Malone said. “I’ve got an appointment. My name is
Malone and his is Manelli. He works here.” That, he told himself, was
an understatement; but at least he had a chance of getting his point
across.
“Oh,” the girl said. Her gum popped. “Certainly. Right away, Mr.
Maloney.”
Malone opened his mouth, then shut it again. It just wasn’t worth the
trouble, he thought.
The girl did things with a switchboard, then turned to him again. “Mr.
Manelli’s office is right down there in back,” she said, pointing
vaguely. “Think you can find it, Mr. Maloney?”
“I’ll try,” Malone promised. He went down the long corridor and
stopped at an unmarked door. It was at least an even chance, he told