Nootbaar looked at Lacey. “We hadn’t figured a counter-attack, you see. Everybody we could trust with a gun had been sent Underground. So they recalled us without waiting for a demonstration; and that was the end of the only chance this city was going to have of getting shut of Underground.”
Lacey drummed his left middle and index fingers. “You know pretty much what goes on down there?”
Nootbaar shrugged. “Sure, Intelligence Section runs people in all the time. For that matter, cops get laid and get drunk and buy hot goods too. But any time we’ve really tried to assassinate the leaders down there—Bill Allen, Butcher Bob Poole, Black May . . . especially Black May—the people we send don’t come back. There’s lines from here to Underground, and they go a ways up. They’ve got access to the scanners for sure.”
Lacey massaged his short hair with both hands. “What’s the drill, then? What am I supposed to do?”
“I’m to send you over to the Fernando Wood Building and the Commissioners’ll tell you themselves,” Nootbaar said, rising. He grinned, a transfiguring flash. “Wouldn’t be real surprised if there was a patrol headed that way about now. After all, it’s only a hundred meters—unless you have to go down and up twenty flights of stairs in the meantime.”
Lacey laughed and shook the heavy captain’s hand. Nootbaar sobered and added, “Look, if there’s anything I can do for you. . . .”
“You gave me some good advice at the start of this,” the Southerner assured him. “I’ll go listen to what your Commissioners have to say, but I’ll bet I’m going to do just like you said. I’ll get my ass back South where it belongs.”
Nootbaar frowned. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t know,” he said, “but remember: all you need to get elected Commissioner is a constituency. You don’t need brains or ability, and you sure as death don’t need ethics. Don’t give them anything they haven’t paid you cash for.”
* * *
Save for a narrow anteroom, the City Commissioners’ offices filled the whole top level of the Wood Building. The anteroom had its own trio of scanning cameras, along with four clerks and a dozen uniformed guards who checked all would-be visitors before they were allowed into the Commissioners’ sanctum.
Lacey bore the questioning with equanimity and even some interest. He had never met the elected powers of his own subregion. The whole business amused him.
When Lacey passed through the inner doorway, an alarm bell rang. Scores of people, both petitioners and functionaries, were already within the larger room. They got up at once and began to stream outside. Many stared at Lacey as they passed.
Puzzled, the Southerner turned to follow the crowd. From the center of the room, a fat, black man in a pneumochair with synchronized desk called, “No, not you, Citizen Lacey. Come over here.”
The door closed. Lacey was in a huge chamber, alone except for the scanners and the three seated persons: the City Commissioners. Off-hand, Lacey did not believe he had ever before shared so large an enclosed space with so few people. Carefully, fighting an impulse to look over his shoulder, he walked into the semicircle of desks.
“I’ve placed an Interdict on this discussion, Citizen Lacey,” the fat man said. The woman to his right glared from under a mass of green hair that matched her dress. The black grinned and corrected himself, saying, “Pardon, I should have explained that we placed the Interdict. Commissioner Kuhn—” he nodded right; the woman’s glare transferred itself to Lacey—”Commissioner Arcadio—” he nodded left at the man with long, nervous fingers and a nose like an owl’s beak—”and I myself am Chief Commissioner Lemba. I mention the Interdict only so you realize how important the matter you are about to learn is considered by ourselves . . . and by the State.”
“All right,” Lacey said quietly. There was a small secretary’s console nearby. He slid it over to him, sitting on the desk rather than the low-slung seat.
Lemba continued, “you’ve been given the background on Underground. It’s an unfortunate situation, especially since there appears to be a misguided minority which thinks it better to live in squalor and anarchy—” his voice swelled—”than as a part of the greatest city this world has ever known!”