They ate in Hussein’s. Over coffee Lana brooded. “I guess
the big shots’ll ride out to Morristown in armored cars. Too bad we ain’t rich. Well, let’s get to the jumping-off place.”
A taxi took them through the Bay tunnel to the Long Island Railroad terminus in Old Brooklyn. Just for the record, they tried the ticket window.
“Nossir,” the man said positively. “One train a day, armored. For officials only. What the hell do you want in Morristown, anyway?”
They canvassed the bus companies by phone, without luck. Outside the railroad station, at the head of the cab rank, Lana began to cry.
“There, little girl,” one of the hackies soothed glaring at Mundin and Bligh. A fatherly type. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s my daddy,” Lana bawled heartrendingly. “He’s hi that terrible place an’ he’s lost an’ my mommy said we should go help him. Honest, mister, just take us to the edge, please? Please? An’ Uncle Norvie and Uncle Charlie won’t let anything bad happen if those has—if those bad men in Morris-town try anything. Honest!”
He broke down and agreed to take them to the edge. It was a two-hour drive over bad roads.
The hackie let Lana ride next to him in the front. Swinging her little handbag gaily, with the volatility of a child, she chattered, all smiles, all the way. Uncle Norvie and Uncle Charlie exchanged looks. They knew what was in the little handbag.
Morristown, being older, was better organized than Belly Rave. The driver stopped a couple of weed-grown blocks from the customs barrier.
“Here we are, little girl,” he said tenderly.
The little girl reached into her handbag. She took out her busted bottle and conversed earnestly with the driver. He cursed, whined, and then drove on.
At the gate, a couple of men looked genially in. Lana whispered something—Mundin caught the words “Wabbits” and “Itty-Bitties”—and the men waved them on. A block past the gate, on Lana’s orders, the driver stopped at another checkpoint, manned by a pair of dirty-faced nine-year-olds with carbines.
They got a guide; an Itty-Bitty with a carbine. On their way through the busy, brawling streets to the Administration Build-
ing, not a few grown-ups turned white and got out of sight
when they saw him clinging to the cab.
At the Ad Building Lana said curtly to me driver, “Wait.” Mundin shook his head. “No,” he told her, pointing to the
rank of steel-plated wheeled and tracked vehicles drawn up in
the building’s parking lot. “We get out of here in one of those
or not at all.” Lana shrugged. “I don’t get it, but all right.” She told the
Itty-Bitty, “Pass the cab out, will you? And whenever you guys
need something in Belly Rave, you know who to come to.”
It was one o’clock; the meeting was scheduled for one-thirty.
The check-point in the lobby passed Mundin and Bligh on the strength of Mundin’s stock certificate. Lana was to wait hi the visitors’ room.
Room 2003 was a suite—perhaps the whole floor, Mundin suspected. He told the receptionist, “Stockholders’ meeting. G.M.L. Homes.” The receptionist passed them on, with a thoughtful stare.
Some twenty men filled the meeting room. Quite obviously, they were Titans. Beside these richly, quietly dressed folk, Mundin and Bligh were shabby interlopers. They were also ridiculously young and awkward.
From here on it gets hard, Mundin told himself. Corporate law!
The vision blinded him with its brightness.
Another new arrival was greeted cheerfully by the Titans. “Bliss, old man! Never thought you’d turn up for this nonsense. Old Arnold’s just going to tramp all over you again, as usual.”
Bliss was thin and younger man most of them. “If a couple of you gutless wonders would back me up we’d stop him,” he said cheerfully. “Anyway, what else have I got to do with my time?”
Archly: “I did hear something or other about a Miss Laverne——” It broke up in laughter.
Mundin dove into the breach. “How do you do, Mr. Bliss,” he said breathlessly, taking the man’s hand. “I’m Charles Mundin, former Regular Republican candidate in the 27th District—’and a small stockholder here.”
The thuvman gently disengaged his hand. “It’s Bubble, Mr.