papers canceling your contract with him. Naturally, we’re prepared to pay any indemnity, or service fee, that may be called for.” He lowered his voice. “In small bills. Plenty of them.”
“Come in,” said Candella blandly.
The door opened. As they entered he muttered, “My God, an army!”
The house intercom said in a female voice, “What is it,
Poopsie?”
Candella flushed and said, “Business. Switch off, please, Panther-Girl. I mean Prudence.” There was a giggle and a click. “Now, gentlemen and miss—no, I don’t care what your names are—let me show you one of our release forms. You, you said you were a lawyer, have a look.”
Mundin studied it (or ten minutes. Iron-clad? Water-tight? No. Call it tungsten-carbide-coated. Braced, buttressed, riveted, welded, and fire-polished. Airtight, hard-vacuum-proof, guaranteed not to wilt, shrink, sag, wrinkle, tear, or bag at the clauses under any conceivable legal assault.
Candella was enjoying his face as he read.
“Think you’re the first?” He snickered. “If there’s been one, there’s been ten thousand. And each one that got away with it at first caused an overhaul job on this release. But there hasn’t been a successful suit for thirty years, Mr. Attorney-at-
Law.”
Mundin pleaded, “The hell with the law, Mr. Candella. The hell with the bribe too, if you don’t want it. Think of the kid. It’s a humanitarian matter. The kid’s got no business in there.”
Candella was being righteous. “I’m protecting my company and its stockholders, Mr. Whoever-you-are. As a policy matter we can allow no exceptions. Our Field Days would be a chaos if every drunken bum——”
Mundin was about to clobber him when Norvell unexpectedly caught his arm. “No use,” the little man said. “I never saw it before, Charles. He’s a sadist. Of course. Who else would hold his job and enjoy it? You’re interfering with his love life when you try to take one of his victims away. We’ll have to go higher.”
Candella snorted and showed them pointedly to the door.
In the taxi again, Mundin said meditatively, “We could
hook them for damages, of course. But they don’t care about that. Bliss, I guess this is where you take over.”
The financier flipped through a notecase and reached for the phone as they rolled back toward the Stadium. He snapped, “Sam? Mr. Hubble here. Good morning to you. Sam, who’s in charge of General Recreations—the outfit that puts on the Monmouth Field Days? I’ll wait.” He waited, and then said, “Oh. Thanks, Sam.” He hung up the phone and told them, looking out the window, “Trustee stock. Held by the .Choate firm. And we know who they run errands for, don’t we?”
He drummed his fingers and snapped, “Bligh, you must know some way for us to get in. You worked there, after all.”
Norvell said, “The only way in is with a release.”
Norma Lavin said with dry hysteria, “Then let’s sign releases.” They started. “No, I’m not crazy. We want to find Don, don’t we? And when we find him we restrain him—with a club if we have to. We can sign for crowd extras or something like that—can’t we, Norvie? Something not too dangerous. It’s all volunteer, isn’t it?”
Norvell swallowed and said, “Remember, I wasn’t a pit boss. I was on the planning end. From the planning end it was all supposed to be volunteer all right.” He looked sick; but he said brightly, “Maybe it’s not such a bad idea. I’ll tell you what, I’ll go in alone. I know the ropes, and——”
“Like hell,” said Mundin shortly. “He won’t want to be found, is my guess. He’ll fight. I’ll go.”
They would all go, even Hubble and old Ryan. And then Norvell had a bright idea and it took a lot more small bills to get the hackie to take them to Belly Rave and an hour to find Lana of the Wabbits.
“We’ll be there,” she said grimly.
The briefing room beneath the stands was huge and it was crowded. About a quarter of the occupants were obvious rum-dumbs, another quarter were professionals, another quarter swashbuckling youngsters in for a one-shot that they could brag about for the remainder of their lives. The rest seemed to be—just people. It was twelve-thirty and everybody had been given an excellent hot lunch in the Stadium cafeteria. One professional noticed Mundin greedily wolfing down his meal and