Dubois snorted. “How much money?”
Broadbent frowned at him. “I think I understand your objection.”
“To the artist, sir, kudos comes first. Money is merely the mundane means whereby he is enabled to create his art.”
“Hmm. . . All right, so you won’t do it just for money. Would you do it for other reasons? If you felt that it had to be done and you were the only one who could do it successfully?”
“I concede the possibility; I cannot imagine the circumstances.”
“You won’t have to imagine them; we’ll explain them to you.”
Dubois jumped up off the couch. “Now see here, Dak, you can’t–”
“Cut it, Jock! He has to know.”
“He doesn’t have to know now-and here. And you haven’t any right to jeopardize everybody else by telling him. You don’t know a thing about him.”
“It’s a calculated risk.” Broadbent turned back to me.
Dubois grabbed his arm, swung him around. “Calculated risk be damned! Dak, I’ve strung along with you in the past~-but this time before I’ll let you shoot off your face, well, one or the other of us isn’t going to be in any shape to talk.”
Broadbent looked startled, then grinned coldly down at Dubois. “Think you’re up to it, Jock old son?”
Dubois glared up at him, did not flinch. Broadbent was a head taller and outweighed him by twenty kilos. I found myself for the first time liking Dubois; I am always touched by the gallant audacity of a kitten, the fighting heart of a bantam cock, or the willingness of a little mart to die in his tracks rather than knuckle under…And, while I did not expect Broadbent to kill him, I did think that I was about to see Dubois used as a dust rag.
I had no thought of interfering. Every man is entitled to elect the time and manner of his own destruction.
I could see tension grow. Then suddenly l3roadbent laughed and clapped Dubois on the shoulder. “Good for you, Jock!” He turned to me and said quietly, “Will you excuse us a few moments? My friend and I must make heap big smoke.”
The suite was equipped with a hush corner, enclosing the autograph and the phone. Broadbent took Dubois by the arm and led him over there; they stood and talked urgently.
Sometimes such facilities in public places like hotels are not all that they might be; the sound waves fail to cancel out completely. But the Eisenhower is a luxury house and in this case, at least, the equipment worked perfectly; I could see their lips move but I could hear no sound.
But I could indeed see their lips move. Broadbent’s face was toward me and Dubois I could glimpse in a wall mirror. When I was performing in my famous mentalist act, I found out why my father had beaten my tail until I learned the silent language of lips-in my mentalist act I always performed in a brightly lighted hail and made use of spectacles which-but never mind; I could read lips.
Dubois was saying: “Dak, you bloody, stupid, unprintable, illegal and highly improbable obscenity, do you want us both to wind up counting rocks on Titan? This conceited pipsqueak will spill his guts.”
I almost missed Broadbent’s answer. Conceited indeed! Aside from a cold appreciation of my own genius I felt that I was a modest man.
Broadbent: “. . . doesn’t matter if the game is crooked when it’s the only game in town. Jock, there is nobody else we can use.”
Dubois: “All right, then get Doc Scortia over here, hypnotize him, and shoot him the happy juice. But don’t tell him the score- not until he’s conditioned, not while we are still on dirt.”
Broadbent: “Uh, Scortia himself told me that we could not depend on hypno and drugs, not for the performance we need.
We’ve got to have his co-operation, his intelligent co-operation.”
Dubois snorted. “What intelligence? Look at him. Ever see a rooster strutting through a barnyard? Sure, he’s the right size and shape and his skull looks a good bit like the Chief-but there is nothing behind it. He’ll lose his nerve, blow his top, and give the whole thing away. He can’t play the part-he’s just a ham actor!”