“It’s useless to say anything,” he cut in, in the cold voice he normally used to bring her to heel. “I shall be at the Club. Good-bye!”
“That’s just what I was going to suggest.”
“What?”
“I’ll have your clothes sent over. Do you have anything else in this house?”
He stared at her, “Don’t talk like a fool, Martha.”
“I’m not talking like a fool.” She looked him up and down. “My, but you are handsome. Brownie. I guess I was a fool to think I could buy a big hunk of man with a checkbook. I guess a girl gets them free, or she doesn’t get them at all.
Thanks for the lesson.” She turned and slammed out of the room and into her own suite.
Five minutes later, makeup repaired and nerves steadied by a few whiff’s of Fly-Right, she called the pool room of the Three Planets Club. McCoy came to the screen carrying a cue. “Oh, it’s you, sugar puss. Well, snap it up-I’ve got four bits on this game.”
“This is business.”
“Okay, okay-spill it.”
She told him the essentials. “I’m sorry about cancelling the flying horse contract, Mr. McCoy. I hope it won’t make your job any harder. I’m afraid I lost my temper,”
“Fine. Go lose it again.”
“Huh!”
“You’re barrelling down the groove, kid. Call Blakesly up again. Bawl him out.
Tell him to keep his bailiffs away from you, or you’ll stuff ’em and use them for hat racks. Dare him to take Jerry away from you.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“You don’t have to, girlie. Remember this; You can’t have a bull fight until you get the bull mad enough to fight. Have Weinberg get a temporary injunction restraining Workers, Incorporated, from reclaiming Jerry. Have your boss press agent give me a buzz. Then you call in the newsboys and tell them what you think of Blakesly. Make it nasty. Tell them you intend to put a stop to this wholesale murder if it takes every cent you’ve got.”
“Well…all right. Will you come to see me before I talk to them?”
“Nope-gotta get back to my game. Tomorrow, maybe. Don’t fret about having cancelled that silly winged-horse deal. I always did think your old man was weak in the head, and it’s saved you a nice piece of change. You’ll need it when I send in my bill. Boy, am I going to clip you! Bye now.”
The bright letters trailed around the sides of the Times Building: “WORLD’S RICHEST WOMAN PUTS UP FIGHT FOR APE MAN.” On the giant video screen above showed a transcribe of Jerry, in his ridiculous Highland chief outfit. A small army of police surrounded the Briggs town house, while Mrs. van Vogel informed anyone who would listen, including several news services, that she would defend Jerry personally and to the death.
The public relations office of Workers, Incorporated, denied any intention of seizing Jerry; the denial got nowhere.
In the meantime technicians installed extra audio and video circuits in the largest courtroom in town, for one Jerry (no surname), described as a legal, permanent resident of these United States, had asked for a permanent injunction against the corporate person “Workers,” its officers, employees, successors, or assignees, forbidding it to do him any physical harm and in particular forbidding it to kill him.
Through his attorney, the honorable and distinguished and stuffily respectable Augustus Pomfrey, Jerry brought the action in his own name.
Martha van Vogel sat in the court room as a spectator only, but she was surrounded by secretaries, guards, maid, publicity men, and yes men, and had one television camera trained on her alone. She was nervous. McCoy had insisted on briefing Pomfrey through Weinberg, to keep Pomfrey from knowing that he was being helped by a shyster. She had her own opinion of Pomfrey —
The McCoy had insisted that Jerry not wear his beautiful new kilt but had dressed him in faded dungaree trousers and jacket. It seemed poor theater to her.
Jerry himself worried her. He seemed confused by the lights and the noise and the crowd, about to go to pieces.
And McCoy had refused to go to the trial with her. He had told her that it was quite impossible, that his mere presence would alienate the court, and Weinberg had backed him up. MenI Their minds were devious-they seemed to like twisted ways of doing things. It confirmed her opinion that men should not be allowed to vote.