Mack Reynolds: Planetary Agent X

“Hey,” the other exclaimed. “You’re right. A young fella. He sat over there. Over in that corner. He was kind of rumpled up, like he maybe slept in his clothes. He went into the washroom and stayed there quite a time. Then when he went out he had this paper bundle under his arm.”

“How long ago?” Ronny snapped.

“Hell, maybe five minutes before you come in!”

“Lieutenant!” Ronny yelled. “It’s him! Get your men on the streets. Get on your communicator for more floaters. He left no more than five minutes ago!”

Lieutenant Rogozhsky was a competent officer, no matter what his opinion might be in regard to Bureau of Investigation bigwigs interfering with his department’s affairs. He got on the ball.

Ronny Bronston took a small communicator of his own from an inner pocket. It looked innocuously like a woman’s vanity case. He sat down at a table, propped it before him and clicked it on.

He snapped to whoever was at the other end. “It’s Antrim. We’re no more than five minutes behind him. He’s got himself a credit card somewhere. We’ll check back on that later. I suspected he’d be desperately hungry and that the first time he ate it would be a gargantuan meal, followed by something he could take along. I had the computors watching for such an order. It came through. The credit card he’s got is 25X-3342-K852-Division GW. Alert all computors to check every purchase on that card. Alert at least a thousand police floaters, all over the city. We’re in the Baltimore area, but he might already have taken a pneumatic somewhere else. They’re to be on instant alert for when he uses that card the next time.”

Billy Antrim had intuition as well as cunning. He ditched the credit card in the first waste chute he passed and left the department store by a back entry.

He strode, seemingly at ease, hands in pockets again, and slouching like a high school youngster. But nonchalant though his pace seemed, he made the best time he could without looking as though he was in a hurry. Several police floaters, dashing about in high state of efficient confusion, passed him by, going this way, going that.

With his left hand he loosened the weapon in his belt. It was getting warm. Much too warm. They were bringing in every fuzz-yoke in the city.

He stopped at a traffic regulator and spoke to the occupant of a floater who was impatiently waiting a go-ahead.

Billy stuck his head in the window, grinned ruefully and said, “Ay, citizen, you goin’ over toward the river?”

The citizen in question scowled at him. “What of it?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. You’ll probably just laugh but…”

The other grunted, darted a look at the regulator. He was still held up. It’d take more than some youngster’s minor tragedy, whatever it was, to make him laugh this time of day, especially since he hadn’t even had time for coffee.

Billy was saying plaintively, “… so the fellas though it’d be a big joke to swipe my junior I.D. credit card. And when the party was over, here I am, and I can’t even take a pneumatic.”

“Okay, okay, climb in. I’m not going to cancel my dial, though. I’ll take you as close as we get to wherever you’re going. Then you’ll have to manage however you can.”

“Gosh, thanks a million, Citizen.”

Billy climbed in, slouched down in the seat, teenage style, and watched city, traffic and pedestrians go by. The fuzz-yoke was getting thicker by the minute.

The floater swung up to a higher level for speed and Billy noted the passing of the town below with satisfaction. They’d have Baltimore behind them in moments.

His benefactor remained glumly silent, which was all right so far as Billy Antrim was concerned, until they reached the vicinity of the Potomac.

He said, then, “You said the river, boy. Where do you want me to drop you?”

Billy Antrim said softly, “You aren’t dropping me, Mac. I’m dropping you.”

The other blurted, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Billy brought the gun from his belt with an easy motion and held it on the other’s waist. “This is a romp, Mac. Put the floater on manual, and let’s get down.”

“Why, you damn…” The other reached for him, in fury.

With a fluid speed, Billy slapped him hard against the side of the head with the gun barrel. Then he slugged him again, more deliberately, but more effectively.

Billy sneered. Once a yoke, always a yoke. It was like Big Luigi had always said. You never got over it. You’re born a yoke and you die one.

He frowned at the thought. Who was he to be appreciating Luigi Agrigento? Luigi had treated him as though he was a yoke himself. Even as he was turning the floater controls to manual, Billy Antrim had the first twinge of doubt about the philosophy in which he had been raised. Maybe this citizen he had just slugged was only a yoke, but Billy wondered if he would have sent what amounted to a son to his sure death to gain only a minor advantage, a Maffeo revenge.

Fortunately, his victim was an even smaller man than was Billy Antrim. By considerable effort he was able to boost him over the front seat into the back and down on the floor of the vehicle. Billy then gave him another tap on the temple—with the butt of the gun this time.

He brought the vehicle to a near-stop and considered his situation. He was without a credit card again. He had one possibility that came to him immediately. He could lift this yoke’s card, kill him rather than just leaving him unconscious, get out of the floater after dialing it to, say, Mexico City, and then have the use of the card for possibly as much as twenty-four hours before the floater and its body were discovered. The auto drive would take it clear through to Mexico, and tucked down on the floor like this, the yoke would probably never be spotted.

He didn’t know why he decided against the step. Perhaps, for one thing, he wasn’t sure he’d have the use of the card for that length of time. He couldn’t figure out how the fuzz-yoke had got onto him so quickly with that last credit card he’d stolen. There must be some angle he wasn’t aware of.

He sneered self-deprecation and dialed the floater toward the Norfolk section of the city. It was about as far as he could get from where they’d flushed him in the Baltimore area, and besides, it was one of the oldest and least respectable sections of town—where the interplanetary spacemen hung out, and those that were this millennium’s nearest equivalent to the slum elements of an earlier age. His clothes would attract less attention here.

When he put down, in as quiet a vicinity as he could find, he took up his bundle of food, slipped his newly acquired credit card into his pocket, slugged his benefactor once more for luck, and dialed the floater’s controls to Richmond. After it had disappeared with its unconscious passenger, Billy faded into the neighborhood.

Ronny Bronston was looking on the harassed side, and Sid Jakes’ grin of derision didn’t make him feel any the happier.

Ronny said, “He’s got a new credit card. One that he got from an electrical engineer whose apartment is in the Baltimore area. A fellow named Ernest Gutenberg.”

Sid flicked a switch. “What did you say the number was?”

“78Y-7634-L991 and, of course, Division GW.”

“How do you know it was Antrim?”

“Who else? We were minutes behind him. Somehow he managed to get into Gutenberg’s floater. The man’s wife says that he was heading for his office, near the Capitol Building Museum. When he was found, on the floor of the back seat, his credit card was gone and the floater had come to a halt in the center of the Richmond area. By the way, Billy’s score, here on Earth, has gone up to seven. Gutenberg died from concussion. Seven dead, half a dozen wounded in varying degree.”