The Computer Connection

11

No one knew what his real name was and nobody asked. It was a lethal offense to ask that kind of question in the Underbelly. He was called Capo Rip. No one knew his origins. There were a dozen stories but he was such a liar that none could be believed: orphanage (there hadn’t been an orphanage in a hundred years), street gangs, adopted by the Mafia International, synthesized in a laboratory, product of the artificial insemination of a gorilla. He was cold-blooded, indifferent to women, men, companionship, friendship. Icy and hard. He was a percentage player with such a keen memory for numbers and probabilities that he was barred from all gambling tables; he was a losing proposition for the house.

But percentage prevented him from killing. Not that he gave a damn about murder, but he didn’t like the odds against. He never took a chance when the odds were against. “Bod once wrote that all life was six-to-five against,” Rip said. “I don’t try anything unless it’s six-to-five for.” Yes, Capo Rip could read, and he didn’t play even-money bets. He always looked for the edge.

That made him the ideal cannon and the idol of the Bellyworld. He was strictly business; robbery, burglary, extortion, blackmail, bribery. He won tremendous respect. Best of all, the Belly learned that he was dependable; he never slashed, he paid all contract cuts promptly, and never welshed on an obligation. Bad percentage. He knew that loyalty could only be bought.

He lived quietly in small hotels, drop-ins, lodges, gambling houses — provided he kept away from the tables. He was never armed but had shown himself to be a cold crusher when cornered into a gut-fight. He always preferred the coward’s copout from one-on-one trouble — no percentage in that — but some goons on a machismo trip wouldn’t let it alone. Then he crunched. The Belly believed he could be light-heavy champion in all-out if he wanted to.

Capo Rip won so much respect that a small coterie gathered around him, uninvited. They were unknown bods without records and therefore of no account, but they seemed to be serviceable. One was a woman, also uninvited and unwanted but she remained loyal and laughed off outside propositions. No odds in them for her. Mercenary.

Rip’s capers were ingenious. A few examples: The Exchange Brokerage House protected itself with a quicksand moat. The drawbridge was raised after hours and no one could pogo onto the pointed roof. Capo Rip froze a path across the quicksand with dry ice and skipped quietly over the skulls of long-gone failures for the heist. He bribed a secretary at the Foreclosure Trust to type on her terminal keyboard in Morse clicks giving him crucial security information. He ripped the vaults.

A governor’s fifty-year-old wife began to turn youthful; hair glossy, skin transparent and lovely. Rip checked the governor’s staff. A ravishing young secretary. He checked the rejuvenation salons. The wife had no accounts. “Arsenious poisoning,” he said, and the governor paid, and paid and paid. Posing as a pianolo tuner he came to the home of a celebrated but cautious collector, casing for a rare Russian gem, a seven-inch goddess carved out of the largest emerald in history by Fabergé three centuries ago. Nowhere in sight. He returned with a compass and located her in a steel casket plastered up in a wall. He sold seven replicas molded out of synthetics to demented collectors and then had the chutzpah to return the original gem to its original owner. The Belly loved that.

Between the heavies he worked the petty buncos: medical frauds, radium pitchers, glass caskets, the honeymoon and obituary racks, the cataracts swindle, building lots in Atlantis; Atlantis, for God’s sake! begging cassettes, fading-tape contracts. Oh, he was versatile and busy, busy, busy. His energy was unbelievable. The Underbelly estimated that his vigorish must come close to a million a month.

His capers were quiet. Capo Rip did not care for publicity, and that was one of the constraints he required of his coterie, which they respected. For unknowns they were remarkable; as silent as knives, never speaking. The Belly could not persuade them to talk, drink, gas, trip, gamble, communicate. They were dead-face deadly, so no one cared to get acquainted through a gut-rap.

The Underbelly could not believe it when Capo Rip and his Merry Men disappeared. He had started on a job and then there was none. They thought he’d been busted (improbable) but when discreet questions were asked of his professional fixer, who was in possession of a generous retainer, he reported that Capo had not been in touch with him. Capo Rip had gone up like a skyrocket, burst in a blaze of glory, and then vanished.

He was belted down in a berth that rocked. The belts were locked, he found out soon enough, but there was a dark stranger hatefully smiling at him constantly, always calling him “Great Capo.” The woman was there, too, feeding him meals with a runcible spoon. Rip still didn’t know her name and didn’t want to, now more than ever. He took some pleasure from spitting the food into her face.

Whatever the place was, it swarmed with nurses and doctors in agitated conversation, using words like “platysma myoides,” “abdominal aponeurosis,” “rectus femori,” and “ligamentum cruciatum cruris.” Bewildering. The only one who made sense was a young surgeon who was a lycanthropist. He kept turning into a fanged wolfman and devouring the shrieking nurses alive, usually starting with the gluteus maximus. The dark man and the woman paid no attention to them.

“This a hospital?” Capo Rip growled.

“No, Great Capo. You’re watching a kiddie show, Young Doctor Prevert. I’m sorry. We can’t block the broadcasts.” And he took the captive to the head and guarded him with a burner.

“You bastard. I hate you.”

“But of course, Great Capo. Lunch now.”

Back to the rocking berth and the woman came to feed him.

“You bastard’s bitch. You sold me out.”

“Yes, Capo, but you don’t know why, yet.”

“Where am I? What am I doing here?”

“On a schooner in the middle of Lake Mitchigan,” the dark stranger said. “What are you doing? Preparing to pay a price.”

“How much?”

“First for what. No?”

“To hell with that. Name the price, you damned bastardly barber. I’ll pay it, and I promise you you’ll never barber anyone in the Belly again.”

“I believe you, Great Capo.” He started to leave and then turned. “The price is telling me where I can find a man named Edward Curzon.”

“Who?”

“Edward Curzon.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Oh, come now, Great Capo. With your connections and experience you must have come across him. And with your ingenuity and expertise you can find him for me. I’ll contract for the hit and make it worth your while.”

“I never hit. Bad percentage.”

“I’m aware of that, which is why you’re here under gentle persuasion. You must find and hit Curzon, Great Capo.”

“Why me? I can put you onto twenty killers.”

“To be sure, but none with your integrity. An essential part of the contract must be that it can never be traced to me. I can trust no jimp except you. Find and hit Edward Curzon, Great Capo.”

“How did you snatch me on the Chalice job?”

“I set it up. I also have ingenuity. Now be reconciled. You must find and hit Edward Curzon.”

“Suppose I agree. I can always sell you out, the way that bitch sold me.”

“No. Your word is your bond. That’s why you’re here. Think about Curzon, Great Capo. When you’re ready to agree, we’ll talk. Surely you must have run across the name during your brilliant career. The name or something like it. Search your mind, Great Capo. Think hard.”

Curzon? Or something like it? Curzon, Curzon, or something like it? The Capo thought hard. How many did he know in the Belly? There was Cur the Lion. Not worth hitting. A cheap jimpster who only worked a cold house. Larry the Lace Curtain. A society goniff who reported the comings and goings of the heeled for a rotten two percent. A shroff named Chan Kersey, who sold his chop to the counterfeit crowd. Curmin the Vermin, who ran a decoy swindle outside the legit gambling houses. Yellow Kid Kurze, who operated a big store in an abandoned bank building. Now he sounded likely, but the Kid was gentle and harmless.

The woman came in, balancing a plate of food and that goddamn runcible spoon. There was a hard gale and she had to balance herself against the lurch of the goddamn schooner, clutching at whatever was handy. Nevertheless she was thrown and the plate went up out of her hand. She was quick on her feet and poised when it came down, still right-side-up. She caught it, smiled at Capo Rip, and even winked.

“Krijeeze!” I yelled. “The Sèvres!”

She stared at me. I stared at her. “Wait a M,” I said. “You’re not my Nat. You can’t be. I saw her die this morning. Who are you?”

She threw herself on me and began to cry and shriek like the wolfman was fanging her. Words finally came out of the screams, “Hilly! Hilly! Quick! He’s found Edward Curzon.”

The Jew rushed down into the cabin, clutching at anything. He stepped on the plate and crunched it. “Hi, Guig,” he said. “My foot is full of beans.”

“What the hell is going on? Half hour ago I saw Natoma die in Charleston. Now here she is with me on this thing that rocks and—”

“Schooner,” Hilly said. “All sail; no machines. We’re on Lake Mitchigan.”

“And here you are and God knows who else and what else. Natoma, I love you as always forever, but give me a little breath space. I have to ask questions. Hilly, there’s no Lake Mitchigan. It’s gone the way of Erie.”

“Not quite yet. There’s a hundred-mile puddle left, and here we are in the middle where we can’t be monitored.”

“How the hell did you get me here so fast, Hilly?”

“Yes, it was fast,” the Jew conceded. “It only took three months.”

“Three—”

“You see, Mrs. Curzon? I warned you it would be total amnesia.”

“Do you mean to tell me — that I — get off me, Nat. I’ve got to get up.”

They unlock and I up, not feeling v. flippant. “You’d better tell me the whole story,” I said.

“It couldn’t be simpler, Guig. The linear explosion and what you thought was your wife’s death knocked you into a massive epileptic seizure.”

“I came out of it?”

“Not into sanity; into epileptic delirium. Complete loss of memory. Complete loss of moral control. Complete loss of humanity.”

“Dio! And then?”

“You became Capo Rip.”

“Who?”

“The most vicious jimpster in the Underbelly. There’s no point in trying to restore your memory of that. I wouldn’t if I could. Best forgotten forever.”

“In other words, I turned into another vicious Sequoya.”

“Don’t say that, Glig.”

“I do say it. He tried to kill me. He nearly killed you. What saved you?”

“You took too long, so I got off the linear to join you just before lift. The explosion knocked me unconscious. By the time they found me in the wreckage you were gone.”

“And then?”

“I recruited four feisty braves from the reservation and we found you in the Belly. Then I found Hilly in GM and told him everything I knew. He set this up.”

I gave Natoma a hard look. “I’m sorry. I’m going to hit our brother.”

“Please, Glig, no. Don’t be Capo Rip anymore.”

“I have to hit our brother.”

“The Group won’t stand for one of us killing another,” Hilly said.

“No? If Guess’d blown me up, plenty of them would have cheered.”

“And if you kill Guess?”

“More cheers. And what do you intend to do with the mystery renegade? Send him to a shrink? Protective custody? Therapeutic recycling?”

“But Guig, you gave Sequoya perpetual life.”

“Yes, by killing him once. Now I’m going to take back the gift by killing him again. I’m an Indian giver.” I aimed a finger at Natoma. “And I don’t care if it destroys my marriage.”

Natoma turned to the Hebe in despair. “Hilly. Help.”

“I can’t, love. He’s generated the purpose I talked about on the Heath, and now he’s too much for us to control. Don’t you see it? Gottenu! I never thought he would turn so savage. He actually scares me.”

“What did you shoot me with to bring me out of this?” I asked.

“You’re behind the times. We don’t inject anymore; we use estrogens.”

“What was it?”

“Let’s get something straight,” Hillel said in level tones. “You’re feeling your new muscle now, but don’t try to clout on me. It’s none of your business what I used to bring you out of the delirium. The whole event has got to be forgotten. I can’t control you, but by God you can’t control me. Either we confer as equals or get the hell out of here. You can swim to shore.”

He was right. I gave him an apology bow. “Gung. Have you located the Chief?”

“Y. With your help.”

“Mine? Imposs. I never got near him. Where is he?”

“About a quarter of a mile below us.”

“What! In the lake?”

“Under the lake.”

“Expound.”

“The network tried to keep you out of Tchicago, and me out of GM. What connection could there be between the two? That gave me the third possibility I was hoping for. GM used to be a city named Detroit. There are hundreds and hundreds of miles of exhausted salt mines under Detroit, leading all the way to Tchicago. I was prowling one end and you were threatening to get to the other. Dr. Guess and his creatures must be somewhere in the middle. Possibly just underneath us.”

“How could he get the capsule into the mine shafts?”

“They’re not shafts; they have the dimensions of boulevards.”

“Why the demand for salt?”

“They used an extraction process. Sodium for energy.”

“Ah! And the Chief is probably tapping the original power lines for his damned capsule.”

“Possibly.”

“As equal to equal, Hilly, first things first. Y?”

“Y.”

“We have got to pinpoint Guess. I want a look at him and his freaks.”

“Agreed.”

“The hit comes later. Shut up, Nat. Any job needs careful casing.”

“Now you sound like Capo Rip.”

“Whether I remember him or not, a part of him must still be with me.”

“I can see that.”

“Do we work together or from opposite ends?”

“I would say opposites.”

“Gung. I’ll need help. Who would you suggest? Someone from the Group?”

“N. One of your wife’s braves.”

“Are they available?”

“They’re aboard. The trouble is, they speak none of our languages.”

“I’ll come and interpret,” Natoma offered. Damn brave.

“No,” the Jew said firmly. “You’re dead and you’ll stay that way on this schooner.”

“It’s all K,” I said. “She taught me to talk Sign while I was teaching her XX. I’ll be able to communicate. Who’s the best tracker?”

“Long Lance,” Natoma said, “but he’s not as good a hatchet as Arrow Edge.”

“I told you there would be no killing yet. This is just an exploratory. Now shut up, Nat, and do what Hilly says. Stay dead. We’ll discuss our brother when I get back, and there’s plenty to discuss. Who was so angry she wanted him roasted over a slow fire?”

“But I—”

“Not now. Does the network think I’m dead, too, Hilly?”

“Presumably. You disappeared after the blowup.”

“What about this Capo bod?”

“I’ve often wondered, Guig, whether your brilliance-potential lies in the conscious or the unconscious. Now I know. When your subterranean took control it couldn’t have picked a better cover. Of course the network is aware of Capo Rip. It’s aware of everything. But it would be impossible for the Extro to link that cold-blooded jimpster with gentle, kindly Curzon.”

“Not gentle anymore.”

“Perhaps. We shall see.”

Suddenly I went weak and had to sit down. My face probably turned green because Hilly smiled and asked, “Seasick?”

“Worse. The worst. I just thought of a possible result of the explosion that slammed me into the delirium.”

“Ah. The big L. I’m afraid you’ll have to sweat it out, Guig. Remember, it isn’t inevitable.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Natoma broke in. “What is big L? Why is Guig so upset?”

“He’ll explain to you another time, Mrs. Curzon. Just now he needs distraction and I happen to have a fascinating bijou handy.” He opened a locker and took out the oddball dagger I’d found in the ruins of the house. “Any particular reason for carrying this in your boot when you were Capo Rip?”

“I don’t know anything about him now. Why?”

“I know your original motive. Mrs. Curzon told me. Do you know its value?”

“No.”

“In the thousands. It’s an extremely rare antique, many centuries old.”

“What is it?”

“A katar. An ancient Hindu dagger.”

“Hindu!”

“Yes. Once again you’ve been invaluable. You’ve identified the mystery renegade. He dropped the dagger when he was destroying your house.”

“The Rajah? No.”

“The Rajah. He’s the only Hindu member of the Group.”

“It’s out of the question. There must be another explanation. A jimp lost it.”

“A jimp carrying a dagger you only find in museums? The Rajah dropped it.”

“It was stolen from a museum.”

“Try the grip. The only Spangland hand this katar could fit would be a child’s. The Hindu aristocracy have always been v. small-boned. The Rajah is the renegade.”

“That beautiful, exquisite prince? Why? Why? Why?”

“It will give me great pleasure to ask him in person… if I survive to hear the answer. Now shouldn’t we start the Rajah-chase?”

“R. Nat, bring me Long Lance. I want us both war painted when we start tracking. That’ll throw them a curve.”

“Gottenu! You don’t intend to stalk Guess on foot through hundreds of miles of caverns?”

“What would you suggest?”

“The same thing I’ll use. Hovercraft.”

“They’re machines. They can report.”

“To the Extro? Not from a quarter mile under rock.”

“Then to Guess.”

“How? He needs the Extro as his switchboard, just as the Extro needs him. Apart, they’re nothing.”

“R as usual, Hilly. Hovercraft it is, with supplies. Did you find any cash on me when you snapped the snatch?”

“Not much. Twenty thousand or so. We’ll never know where you stashed Capo’s ill-gotten gains.”

“I know,” Natoma said.

“How much, Nat?”

“Enough to ransom Sequoya.”

“Y. I can see we’re going to have one hell of a discussion. However. Twenty will do nicely. Gung. Get Long Lance, Nat. So it’s me from Tchi and you from GM, Hilly. We’ll meet somewhere in the middle, and for Gottenu’s sake, don’t shoot. Remember, the only good Indian is a live Indian.”

The Hebe smiled. “Now you sound like the old Guig again. I like him better than Capo Rip.”

“I don’t. Gentle and kindly? S. Let’s move it.”

“Extro. Alert.”

“Alert.”

“Where is Hillel?”

“Where are you?”

“You know damned well. The capsule blabbed all the way to GM.”

“But it cut off. How?”

“We’re a thousand feet under solid rock where you can’t reach me. Where is Hillel?”

“In GM.”

“W?”

“N known.”

“The network must deflect him. He’s dangerous.”

“N poss when my switchboard is cut off.”

“You function in nanoseconds. Issue instructions now, while I’m available.”

“Issued. He is to be destroyed like Curzon.”

“N, N, N! I did not want Curzon destroyed, only deflected. The same holds for Hillel. Do not ever dare exceed orders again.”

“N? What can you do? I am invulnerable.”

“And arrogant. When I have time I’ll find the chink in your armor. Alert the network that I’m holding you all accountable.”

“It is alerted. It is listening to us. You must know.”

“And your new aide?”

“I have told you. He cannot hear me.

I can only hear him.”

“Through me?”

“You are the switchboard.”

“His identity?”

“Still unknown.”

“Gung. Out.”

“Not yet. Q: What is adabag?”

“Ah.”

“Q. What is gaebac?”

“So.”

“Q. What is cefcad?”

“Where did you get that?”

“From you, Dr. Guess.”

“H?”

“The words run through your mind constantly.

What is adabag, gaebac, and cefcad? This may be urgent for us.”

“Let the network answer.”

“It has already reported N knowledge in any lingua. You must have heard.”

“Y. Out.”

“Stop. When you cut off from me we are all deaf and mute. This cannot continue.”

“It will not as soon as I’ve finished my work. It will explode. Out.”

Long Lance and I were brilliant. The lurid war paint made us inconspicuous in Tchicago. We didn’t buy a hovercraft; Long Lance stole one, a turtle two-seater. The first thing we did was smash and gut the communications panel. We were now handling a mute bird. We located the downshaft to the salt mine under the wreckage of the Lyric Opera House and a square block of rubbish piled higher than the original bldg where I once saw a performance of La Boheme by Darryl F. Puccini.

We stocked staples and had to burn our way down through a quarter of a mile of trash to get to the mine proper. They’d been using the shaft as a dump for a century. It was almost like an archaeological dig; cans, plastics, glass, bones, skulls, rotted cloth, antique kitchen utensils, a cast-iron radiator, a gearbox, and even a hunk of a brass saxophone. B flat. I grabbed at and missed a rare Nixon nickel.

Long Lance goggled at the remains and I liked him for that. I liked him anyway. He was long, lean, assured, and coiled like a steel spring. Outside of Algonquin and Sign he spoke exactly three words: Si, No, and Capo. That was plenty. He must have made one hell of an accomplice for the late, great Capo Rip.

It was hot as blazes down in the mine and I was glad we were naked. I had a gyrocompass and we headed toward GM, Long Lance doing the handling. I’d taken it for granted that we’d need lights and stocked up on lamplands. Not so. The rock salt remnants in the boulevards were luminescent — radioactive probably — and emitted a green glow that gave us all the light we needed. Probably more roentgens than we needed, too. I wondered whether there was an estrogen which could treat radiation exposure. The big L was still on my mind.

It was a scene out of the Inferno; this great, glowing boulevard with a vaulted ceiling dripping green light, jagged corridors leading off left and right, and we had to explore every one until the hover couldn’t squeeze through. I figured that if the turtle couldn’t make it, the capsule couldn’t. That saved a little time. We ate and slept once. We ate and slept twice. We ate and slept thrice. Long Lance gave me a look and I returned it, but we went on through the silence and the glow.

I thought about the Rajah, still not believing the Hebe and the evidence of the katar. How could I? The Rajah had always overwhelmed me with his magnificence. The Rajah had been and still was the supreme ruler and supreme deity of a small mountain state named Mahabharata, now shortened to Bharat. It had a few lush valleys for farming, but the Rajah’s gross national product came from rich mineral resources. Every time technology or luxury invented a need for a new metal, there it was in Bharat. Example: When platinum was first unearthed in the Ural Mountains, it was later discovered that the women of Bharat had been wearing beads of rough platinum nuggets for generations.

The Rajah, when I first met him in the Grossbad Spa, was singularly exquisite; sooty black — unlike M’bantu, who is shiny — handsome aquiline features, great dark eyes, delicate bones. His voice was slightly singsong and lilted with humor. He was always beautifully dressed and beautifully mannered. He was not and still isn’t democratic. Caste. Alas, Ned Curzon inspired instant aversion in him.

I was told that when he first visited Western Europe, back in the days of Napoleon, his conduct was appalling. As a supreme prince and god he could do no wrong in Bharat. On the Continent it was something else. For example, whenever the necessity arose he would relieve himself in public. No floor or potted plant was safe. He soon learned to behave himself and I sometimes wonder what hero had the temerity to teach him. Possibly Napoleon. More likely, his sister, Pauline Buonaparte, who entertained the Rajah as one of her lovers.

And this man of supreme power and wealth, with everything that anyone could possibly want, to turn renegade and attack the Group? Why? In his eyes we were beneath him. Everybody was. Caste. Did he want to become prince and god of the entire world? Nonsense! You only find that motivation in cheap fiction. I never believe anything that doesn’t make sense to me, and this didn’t make sense.

On the fourth day Long Lance stopped the hovercraft and made emphatic Sign to me. I emphatic. He listened hard for a few minutes. Then he got out, pulled a dirk from his belt, and worked it into the rocky floor. He knelt down, fastened his teeth on the handle, and listened through his mouth. Then he came back to me, took the compass, and examined it closely. He showed it to me.

By God, the needle had swung two degrees from the north toward the west and hung there no matter how we jiggled it. Long Lance grunted, retrieved his dirk, climbed back aboard, and began crawling the turtle. The first broad corridor on our left, he turned, went up a hundred yards, stopped, repeated the dirk bit, and came back to me. He made a globe gesture and said, “Si, Capo.”

Like a damned fool I opened my mouth to ask questions which he certainly couldn’t have understood. He said, “No, Capo,” and signed me to listen. I listen. I listen. I listen. Nothing. I look at Long Lance. He nodded. He was hearing what I couldn’t hear. What a tracker! I listen. I listen. I listen. And then I heard it. Music.