IX

SOMEONE singing, “Turn of the Century Blues” in a sultry, melancholy voice was all that Phil could hear as he walked down the dark ramp and into the hardly brighter Tan Jet. No live or robot doorman was on guard, at least no obvious one, and no hostess came hurrying up. Apparently customers were supposed to know their way around.

There were a lot of them. They sat in small parties with a truculent quietness that sneered at and challenged the frantic hustle of the times and the belief that the hustle was leading anywhere. There were no juke box theatres in the corners, no TV screens visible, and the booths didn’t seem to be equipped with handies. Four live musicians softly blew and strummed old jazz instruments, while a single amber spotlight shone on the coffee colored, deceivingly languid songstress, whose sequined dress went all the way to her wrists and chin.

I’m sad-crazy, sweetheart, tonight,

My heart is heavy in the sodium light…

A young man and woman coming from opposite shadowy walls sighted each other. “Lambie Pie!” he cried. She stood stock still as he walked up to her and gave her a slap that rocked her red-ringletted head. Then, “Loverman!” she cried and slapped him back. Phil could see his eyes roll ecstatically as the red flamed in his smacked cheek. They linked arms ritualistically and made off.

And it don’t help, sweetheart, to know

That the whole world went crazy -

Moon-mazy and space-hazy -

About a hundred years ago,

So -

At that moment Phil spotted the dark sheen of Mitzie Romadka’s hair and cloak at the far end of the room. He started toward her, suddenly feeling a trifle uneasy.

Put away my sky-high platform shoes

And don’t bring me any happy news, For -

I’ve got those turn of the century -

Turn of the millennium -

Blues!

As the listeners softly hissed their applause, Phil stopped a few feet away from Mitzie’s table. She was with three young men, but they sat away from her pointedly, as if she were ostracized.

The three young men, without lifting a finger, showed more of the mystic toughness that seemed to be the specialty of the joint than any other people in it. They had the quiet dignity of murderers. When Mitzie turned to see what they were looking at, she sprang up with the delighted cry of “Phil!” though there was alarm in her eyes. She wasn’t wearing her evening mask. She walked over to him and slapped him stingingly with her left hand.

He whipped up his hand to slap her back, hesitated, and barely managed a sketchy pat. She glared at him but turned back with a bright smile, saying gayly, “Fellows, Phil. Phil, meet Carstairs, Llewellyn, and Buck.”

Carstairs had a head that bulged at the top like a pear. He wore thin bangs, the effect of which was not effeminate. He remarked lazily to Mitzie, “So this is the clown you blabbed tonight’s plans to.”

Llewellyn looked very British and was very black. He said, “You also seem to have told him we’d come here later. Puzzles me why he didn’t bring the police.”

Buck was hawk faced and had a Kentucky accent that sounded as if it had been learned from tapes. “P’lice never tried to pick up anybody in the Tan Jit, yit,” he observed. “Not here, Otie!” This last remark was addressed to a gaunt, mangy dog which thrust its head from under his legs and snapped at Phil.

Phil leaned on the table, his hand next to a tall, slim pitcher. He said to Mitzie, “I’m surprised to find you at a tame place like this. I expected drugs, knife fights and naked women.”

Mitzie whirled his way. “As for drugs, what do you think we’re drinking?” she said furiously. “As for knife fights, wait. And as for naked women, you devotee of male-female wrestling, well, if Carstairs, Llewellyn, or Buck should happen to see a girl who took their fancy, I’d just walk up to her and rip off her clothes!

She was looking past Phil when she finished. He swiveled his head and saw Miss Phoebe Filmer with a rather scared looking young man. But Phoebe, in a half off the bosom chartreuse evening gown, looked even more frightened, her face almost as green as her green-blonde hair. Perhaps she had heard Mitzie’s last remark. Then she recognized Phil, and astonishment was added to her fright. Phil smiled at her with a somewhat forced reassuringness. At that moment Phoebe’s escort called her attention to an empty booth back toward the door, and the two of them hurried toward its haven with the eagerness of slummers who have overreached themselves.

Phil felt remarkably bucked up. He snared an empty chair from the next table and found himself an empty glass and filled it from the tall, slim pitcher. Llewellyn, who, like the others had a half-inch in the bottom of his glass, caught Buck’s attention and rolled his eyes significantly toward the ceiling. The white made eerie half-moons under the irises.

“Just rip ’em off,” Mitzie repeated with conviction.

Carstairs said, with a quietly scathing coldness, “Mitz, quit playing the solicitous little mother to Llewellyn, Buck and me.” He carefully smoothed his bangs, as an ancient judge might have adjusted his wig before pronouncing sentence. “It’s quite clear that you spilled our plans to this clown, and that he told the police so that they were waiting for us when we knocked over the first sales-robot.”

“Quite,” Llewellyn said, while Buck nodded.

“And if I hadn’t insisted on putting a new charge in the rocket assist,” Carstairs continued, “we’d have been nabbed.”

“It was just a coincidence,” Mitzie asserted sharply.

“First time we ever had a coincidence,” Carstairs observed. “Personally, I don’t believe there are such things.”

Phil took a deep drink. It seemed mild, sweet stuff, compared to the adulterated whiskey Juno had fed him. That is, it seemed so for the first two or three seconds. Then he felt the top of his head balloon outward, pear-wise, like Carstairs’. The dark songstress was singing some song the refrain of which was,

Darling, I’m queer for you.

I’m really strange, quite out of any ordinary range…

Carstairs continued quietly, “Mitz, we let you into the gang, we initiated you, although we knew you were a psychoanalyst’s daughter and doubtful material -”

Mitzie glared at him. “Initiated me?” she said. “I’ll say you did!”

“Be that as it may,” Carstairs asserted slowly, “you betrayed the gang tonight. At the best you acted irresponsibly.” His words came slower still. “Your irresponsibility lost us a wad of dough.” He paused for a long cruel moment. “You’re out, Mitz.”

“Out,” Carstairs repeated.

“Definitely,” Llewellyn agreed. “Yeah,” Buck said, rubbing Otie’s lean snoot.

Phil put his elbows on the table. “Gentlemen,” he said quietly, “you say you are out a wad of dough? I am in a position to remedy that.”

Carstairs looked at him with mild irritation and raised his open hand. Phil smiled and advanced his cheek. “I am seeking a jewel beyond price,” he continued. “In order to obtain it, I intend tonight to burgle the premises of Fun Incorporated. I am willing to let you help me.”

At the mention of Fun Incorporated, Buck turned his head at least half an inch, while Carstairs almost blinked.

“You have rather big ideas, don’t you?” Llewellyn remarked quietly.

“Yeah,” Buck agreed with a yawn, “he maybe could have picked an easier place.”

Carstairs asked Mitzie softly, “You did say he was one of your father’s nuts, didn’t you?”

Mitzie started to reply, but Phil interposed blandly, “I know a private way into Fun Incorporated, right through Billig’s office. It’ll be simple. You needn’t worry about the wasps.”

Buck drawled, “What is this jewel beyond price, anyhow?”

“Something I wouldn’t expect you to appreciate,” Phil replied. “However,” he continued, taking a more cautious slug of the mind swelling drink, “there should be enough in the way of ordinary valuables lying about to compensate you for your effort. I understand that Fun Incorporated is rather wealthy. For one thing, all sales-robots work from there,” he finished grandly. “Why not hit them where they live?”

Otie stretched leanly from under Buck’s chair and snapped at Phil’s hand. Phil, stiffened by the drink, didn’t move it. The jaws clashed hardly an inch away. “Why do you call him Otie?” Phil asked.

“’cause he’s a coyote,’ Buck explained, almost with condescension. “S’posed to have been bred back for ancestral traits to the Oligocene type.”

Phil found himself wondering whether cats could be bred back to their Egyptian ancestors and whether those ancestors might have been green.

In the pause, Mitzie’s eyes grew bright. She looked at her companions. “Why don’t we take him up on it?” she said lightly but not casually. “I mean, about Fun Incorporated. It sounds exciting.

“Why don’t we?” Mitzie repeated after a moment.

Carstairs, Llewellyn and Buck sat there as coolly and as contemptuous of any challenge as when Phil had first seen them. Yet there was a difference.

“Of course, it’s risky,” Phil cut in. “Moe Brimstine’s boys have orthos.”

“What do you know about orthos?” Carstairs demanded hungrily.

Phil shrugged. “They’re blue and they sizzle,” he said. “I got shot at with one earlier tonight.”

“Why don’t we, I’m asking?” Mitzie pressed.

“I asked Juno and Jack Jones to help me,” Phil put in. “You know, the wrestlers. But they decided not to.”

Still no one answered Mitzie’s question. “Well, I guess that’s it,” she said with a triumphant smile, turning away from the table. “Come on, Phil.”

They had taken three steps when Carstairs began to chuckle quietly. Phil might have kept going, but Mitzie turned back with a carefully repressed eagerness that Phil resented.

“Don’t kill yourselves running,” Carstairs said. “Llewellyn and Buck and I are signing up for this little expedition, providing the clown can give the right answers to a few questions when we get outside.” He smiled as he got up. “Just one thing, Mitz. This time there better be no cops.”

Mitzie laughed. Phil accepted the situation with a “Glad to have your help, boys,” and started to take Mitzie’s arm, but she linked hers with those of Carstairs and Llewellyn, not sparing Phil another look.

The sequined singer had shifted to a snappier rhythm.

Slap me silly, honey,

Beat me till I break.

Love is very funny,

Laugh until I ache…

To solace his injured feelings, Phil veered over to Phoebe Filmer’s booth, where the green-blonde was being rather pointedly annoyed by two bearded young men while her escort looked on agitatedly.

Phil tapped the nearest ruffian on the shoulder. “Lay off, boys,” he commanded, with a meaningful nod toward his own party. Buck at least looked his way and Otie growled. The bearded ruffians slunk off. Phil made Phoebe a tiny bow.

“Thank you,” she said weakly and astoundedly.

He gestured that it was a mere nothing and walked off.

“Say,” she asked, hurrying after him and dragging her escort with her, “did you ever find that green cat of yours?”

He smiled at her. “No,” he said, “but I’m going to.”